Britain is one of the few countries contemplating building >incinerators -
personally I think it's all about power and not wanting to devolve it >back to the grassroots
nick scott
I can testify to that, having been involved briefly [I moved house
to Hastings] in the campaign in Maidstone against the Allington incinerator, and agian here as up the coast in Newhaven, and over the scarp in Mountfield, we have two more on the books...
The south east region is not interested in any other methods of
waste management and are fully committed to about six major MW incinerators, in the guise - of course! - of "waste-to-energy"
plants. These will be sufficient ot burn way more than the local
[ie; London and the SE] requirements now or in any projection
I've seen.
The bottom line is that they will import from the continent, where restrictions are currently tighter. This is a PFI / cash
ideal [pfi is the UK's plan to fleece the public purse while creating private ownership - paul], that is in essence a cash-cow.
No critical mass of protest has been identified yet. The few proposals refused are water off a ducks back, as the authorities are trying for many more sites than the "required" five or six.
The Newhaven one is quite likley, given it's access to the Channel Ports, but does have strong opposition. Hastings has less obvious merit, but also has negligable opposition. With a planned upgrade to the rail route to the Europe connection at Ashford International, and a branch line already in place to the proposed site, this is in fact a good bet for a site they REALLY want. [Maidstone, under construction as we speak, is right on the main motorway and rail links to the Channel Tunnel].
The alternatives both increase local peoples say and involvement
in local affairs, as the mail from Nick suggests, and also - and
this is not a minor consideration - makes the local council officials a lot more - and ongoing - work, that they believe
[erroneously, if you take into account Stockholm, etc] will
be out of their hands [but not thier purse] if they go for
incineration.
The point about grassroots involvement [an outcome most of us
welcome in terms not only of local political consciousness, but
also in terms of job creation for local unskilled labour, and the concommitent positive knock-on for the local economy - none of
which is a factor in incinerator technology solutions to the
waste problem], extends - in the UK - right through government
policy [local, national, opposition party...], as is evidenced
by the attitude to wind power and nuclear power as well. The
former is famously promoted by people like EF Schumaker or Leopold Kohr as it can in principle emancipate local communities
from national control, but the development of wind energy in the
UK is - predictably - large-scale / corporate, not to mention,
off-shore...
Later, Tim
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