Indymedia York

NEWS FLASH: Nottingham Wins Case Against Incinerator

YRAIN (York Residents Against INcineration) today challenged the leaders of the City of York Council to justify spending £1.3 billion on its waste project, asking, how can this expense compare to an alternative strategy working towards ‘Zero Waste’.

Dave Taylor, campaigner for YRAIN, and a former worker in the waste industry, told York council's Executive, “York and North Yorkshire Councils’ strategy is fundamentally flawed because it does not compare the cost of its incinerator proposal with a Zero Waste option. They are running scared of a Zero Waste comparison and lose credibility for that.”

The Councils’ own Waste Disposal Company, Yorwaste, would be prevented from bidding to undertake the project on the grounds that it might scare off the competition. Could this really be because Yorwaste has indicated that the Councils could achieve their waste-to-landfill reduction goals without relying on incineration?

The Councils' report clumsily manoeuvres us into a position that there is only one main option for dealing with the residual waste, and that is incineration. This is deeply worrying, particularly when the report suggests that the toxic incinerator ash containing dioxins, furans and heavy metals might also be “recycled”. This would be a public health disaster as it was in Newcastle.

YRAIN’s objections to waste incineration include health issues and the impact it would have on recycling targets. We can’t recycle rubbish if it has been burned! However, new objections arise as the cost of incineration is found to be astronomical.

Dave Taylor says, “The total cost of the Councils’ “reference project” would be £1.5 billion. Setting landfill taxes and allowances aside it is reduced to a mere £1.4 billion. The Government’s £65 million in PFI credits might reduce that to, well, over £1.3 billion. Massaging the figures to remove existing costs still leaves an affordability gap of £845 million. Ouch! The Council is seriously considering entering into a project for which it is £845 million short?! And this from the Council which couldn’t find £4M to fix the Barbican swimming pool?”

“It amounts to an increase in Council Tax of 4.6% purely for Waste Management, which is just not tenable. The Councils’ project must be compared in cost against implementing a Zero Waste Strategy and I urge York to back away from this insane incineration proposal.”