What a load of rubbish!

Seriously, the waste strategy that Hertfordshire is preparing to adopt is fundamentally flawed, and this is an issue that affects us all - it’s not just NIMBY objections to waste facilities in electorally inconvenient spots.

What is happening across the country, and indeed across the rest of the world, is that mass burn incineration is on its way out. It is yesterday’s technology, and is a dangerous addiction, relatively easy to take up, but very difficult to get rid of. The world of waste treatment is a rapidly changing one, and there are many new ways being found to reduce our past reliance on landfill. But not, it seems, in Hertfordshire.

It’s maybe not the county council’s fault; it’s maybe down to the government or industry lobbying, or a combination of the two. After all, if I were running a major waste treatment company that had expertise in building and running incinerators, I would want to make sure I got as many built as I could before they became obsolete. So it is no surprise that DEFRA has been deluged with a hard sell of “Energy from Waste” (EfW) which has become new-speak for incineration. And through a combination of poorly researched health advice, incinerator friendly PFI grants, and (deliberately?) over-cautious views on new technology, the whole system has made it very difficult for councils to do other than follow the tide towards 25 year commitments to new incinerator contracts, at massive financial and environmental cost to their residents.

The good news is that some councils are having none of this. In Bristol, the Liberal Democrats took back control of the council on the back of a rejection of Labour’s plans for incineration. Surrey county council has just recently abandoned a strategy very similar to Hertfordshire’s proposals and has adopted a far greener approach - and that is a conservative run council, admittedly one that woke up and smelt the electoral coffee just in time.

Liberal Democrat policy is, I am proud to say, clearly anti-incineration. But even Liberal Democrat  councils and councillors have been known to fall for the conventional wisdom of EfW at times.

So how do we change the mind of our county council, which is running headlong into a £220 million procurement process for an incinerator at the most inappropriate site imaginable, at New Barnfield in Hatfield, close to housing and even closer to a special school for autistic children, which will almost certainly have to be closed/moved if this goes ahead? And it is running down this route despite not having yet decided its waste strategy - which of course means the tail is wagging the dog and the waste strategy, recently out for “consultation”, is of course backing EfW as the main plank for tackling our waste.

Well, a group of us are trying to put together a rational alternative. Herts Without Waste (HertsWOW) might be an ambitious sounding aspiration, and personally I think zero waste is a long way off, but it is definitely the direction we ought to be travelling in. The group is well-informed but under-resourced so if anyone out there wants to help, please get in touch. The aim is to promote a waste strategy that pays more than lip service to the Reduce Reuse Recycle mantra and focuses on using the best methods for treatment of the residual waste that remains. These methods include Anaerobic Digestion (AD), Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT), in vessel composting (IVC) and, for the waste that really cannot be used in any other way than for energy extraction, high temperature gasification, a greener and less dangerous alternative to incineration.

This is more than just pie in the sky wishful thinking. The Mayor of London has recently published London’s new waste plans, and these embrace the concepts we want Hertfordshire to get to grips with. Then there is a private sector proposal for an Energy from Waste plant at Hoddesden which, although possibly not in the best location, embraces AD, MBT and gasification, proving that council blandishments about this technology being unproven are total nonsense.

The problem is, for most people this is a level of detail they cannot get to grips with - so long as their waste is being collected and sent somewhere far away they are happy. For the most part, the only people prepared to campaign vigorously are those who can see their community about to be blighted by an over-sized incinerator on their doorstep, with all that entails in lorry traffic, air quality, and not least, property values.

If you have read this far, please please decide to do something to try to stop the juggernaut and get the council to think again. The consultation closed before Xmas, but it is not too late to write to your county councillor, or your MP, or your district councillor.