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Bin the Burners

Revealed: Unreported harmful emissions from English incinerators

New UKWIN report launched 17th July 2018 at the House of Lords. The Report, ‘Waste Incineration and Particulate Pollution: A Failure of Governance’ launched in the House of Lords with cross-party support from John Grogan MP (Labour), Philip Davies MP (Conservative), and Lord Tyler (Liberal Democrat Peer).

The report reveals:

• Incinerators exceed pollution reporting thresholds for particulates, but do due to a loophole the public is not informed of particulate emissions;
• Levels of emissions of harmful particulate matter and NOx and associated costs to society; and
• A lack of regulation, with official guidance ignored.

The report shows that particulate matter released by English incinerators in 2017 is equivalent to particulate matter emitted by more than a quarter of a million 40-tonne lorries travelling 75,000 miles a year, and the NOx emissions released by English incinerators in 2017 equate to around 80,000 lorries travelling 75,000 miles a year.

The report calls for:

• The development and implementation of accurate systems to measure particulate matter released by incinerators, accompanied by proper enforcement;
• Stricter control of PM1 emissions;
• The introduction of an incineration tax; and
• A moratorium on new waste incineration capacity.

What has been said about the report:

Shlomo Dowen, National Coordinator of the UK Without Incineration Network, said: “For decades incinerators in England have been emitting significant quantities of pollution and greenhouse gasses. There is a substantial cost to society associated with these harmful emissions. This cost should be met by incinerator operators in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Operators should also be required to be more transparent about their emissions and to do more to monitor and control the pollution they cause.”

John Grogan MP said: “The case for a tax on waste Incineration to mirror the Landfill Tax and for a moratorium on new incinerators is now very strong.”

Philip Davies MP said: “Incinerators are being foisted on local communities right across the country and yet the damage that they cause to the local environment is not fully known. There really needs to be a suspension on new incinerators until there is better information available.”

Lord Tyler said: “Clean air is vital to health but the Government seems unconcerned about adequately monitoring the emissions from incinerators and has allowed this monitoring loop hole to go unchecked. We must tighten up monitoring procedures and fully investigate the impact before allowing any further incinerators to be built.

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Detroit Incinerator Is Hotspot for Health Problems, Environmentalists Claim

The country’s biggest trash-burning facility has been issued with a notice to sue, with local residents complaining of the bad smell and pollution it produces

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/39851-detroit-incinerator-is-hotspot-for-health-problems-environmentalists-claim

At the intersection of two highways just outside downtown Detroit, a hulking relic of the city’s past looms over the skyline: the largest municipal trash incinerator in the US. It’s a facility that has raised concerns of nearby residents since its construction in the 1980s.

And some days, it stinks.

“The odors, if you ride I-94, you get this foul, rotten egg smell,” said Sandra Turner-Handy, who lives about three miles from the facility.

The 59-year-old said her son used to work a block away from the incinerator and said the smell was “constant”. Her granddaughter developed asthma while attending a school near the incinerator, but hasn’t used an inhaler since she graduated and moved away.

The persistent odor and emission of other polluting substances are among 40 alleged Clean Air Act and state violations that have been logged against the company that owns the facility, Detroit Renewable Energy, since March 2015, according to a notice to sue by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.

“It’s the things that you can’t smell that are the most harmful,” said Turner-Handy. “And how do residents report something that they can’t smell?”

In 2015, the incinerator burned more than 650,000 tons of garbage, according to the notice. And since the beginning of that year, the incinerator has been fined for persistently violating an earlier agreement with the state for alleged state violations.

The law center also said in the filing that the incinerator presents a clear example of an environmental justice problem, as a majority of the trash burnt at the facility is imported from outlying communities, which pay $10 a ton less than Detroit to dispose of garbage.

“In short, Detroit is subsidizing other communities throughout the State of Michigan, the Midwest, and Canada to dispose of its garbage at the Incinerator,” the filing said, with the incinerator “located in a neighborhood that is composed mostly of low-income people of color and is heavily overburdened by air pollution”.

There’s a long-running debate over whether incineration is better for the environment than landfills. But communities located near incinerators have long lamented that they bear the brunt of its adverse impacts on air quality.

Citing statistics from the EPA, the center said 7,280 residents live within one mile of the incinerator, of whom 60% live below the federal poverty line and 87% are people of color. An EPA report also found that the area is a “hotspot for respiratory related health impacts when compared to other Michigan communities”, according to the law center.

The notice to sue also names Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder, along with the state and federal environment agencies. The agencies have 60 days to commence an enforcement action, the law center said, and if neither pursues any, a lawsuit may be filed on behalf of residents to enforce the Clean Air Act.

Detroit Renewable Energy, which says the facility provides energy to more than 140 buildings in the downtown and midtown neighborhoods, downplayed the litany of claims in the notice of intent.

In a statement, the company said that it has invested approximately $6m over the last few years to “improve odor management” at the facility. The company said it employs nearly 300 residents, operates a “sophisticated” waste-to-energy facility, and “places the highest priority on complying with the strict and complex requirements established by the EPA and the state environmental department.

“In short, we have done our part,” the company said. “Any claim to the contrary would simply be false.”

The law center says otherwise.

Beyond odor, the notice of intent to sue also highlights an additional 19 violations for emitting carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter above legal thresholds. The incinerator creates a “significant amount” of particulate matter, said Nick Schroeck, executive director of the center, which “can get lodged in people’s lungs”.

The incinerator can’t be directly linked to cases of asthma, but the filing said “particulate matter emissions have been shown to trigger asthma incidents, particularly amongst children”.

Activists are pushing for a ballot initiative for November 2017 to close down the facility in favor of cleaner-energy-producing methods.

“We initially approached this topic sort of by looking at what it was we could do that would be effective within the confines of city law, of state law, and how a ballot initiative could actually rectify a problem in the city,” said Mac Farr, treasurer and spokesman for Sustainable Detroit. “And we could take a policy change and use it to both unify the city and also make the lives of Detroiters better. This was the topic that we settled on.”

Farr said the group’s motivations for the ballot initiative stem from the “public health ramifications” of the incinerator.

“We have some of the highest rates of asthma [in Detroit], the highest that are clustered directly downwind of this incinerator,” he said. “It’s four to five times the statewide average, and there’s a public health dimension to this that needs to be addressed.”

Farr said the group hopes the ballot petition will force city officials to examine the issue, but it has no clear solution for how Detroit should dispose of waste without an incinerator. He suggested a more “robust, citywide recycling program” could “divert a lot of material out of the waste stream if we were to shut off incineration as a method of disposal”.

Officials estimated earlier this year that only 11% of households in the city are recycling.

Dr Abdul El-Sayed, executive director and health officer at the Detroit health department, said issues surrounding the incinerator hadn’t been on his department’s radar until recently, but it’s now “very squarely on my plate”.

“I think it’s obvious that when you burn anything, it’s going to produce material that goes up into the air. That material can do a number of hazardous things,” El-Sayed said. “I think it’s clear that those things are not good for the lungs, and the eyes and some of the other organs … the heart. It’s, generally, not the cleanest, most efficient way of addressing the problem with garbage.”

Nanjing ends waste incineration project

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-08/05/content_39028110.htm

The eastern city of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, has put an end to a controversial waste incineration project following public uproar.

The government of Nanjing’s Liuhe District announced on Thursday that it will stop the incineration project after widespread public disapproval. A scheduled public consultation on Thursday was subsequently canceled.

The announcement received a lukewarm, or even hostile, reception online with many netizens saying that they are not against the incineration plant, but rather where it is built, and whether it will operate in accordance with rules to avoid pollution.

Zhang Guoru, deputy head of the district’s urban management bureau, said that there is currently only one incinerator in the district, which can dispose of about 150 tonnes of household garbage each day.

“As the district is developing fast, the amount of garbage has exceeded 380 tonnes every day, and is predicted to reach 500 tonnes per day in three years,” he said.

Incinerators are considered the most feasible and effective means of disposing of garbage, but pollution concerns have led to public protests.

In 2014, a planned waste incinerator in east China’s Zhejiang Province led to clashes with police.

On World Environment Day, Majorca presents its plans to start moving away from incineration

https://www.zerowasteeurope.eu/2016/06/on-world-environment-day-majorca-presents-its-plans-to-start-moving-away-from-incineration/

Waste management in Majorca has been for long associated with the incineration of waste. With the biggest waste-to-energy incineration plant in Southern Europe, the system has been shaped and impacted by this mega-infrastructure: with average separate collection at 15% and having reached the point of importing waste from Ireland and Italy to feed the facility.

However, after a change of government on the island, the region and most of the cities, a new and more environmentally friendly model of waste management is starting to take shape. Fortunately waste is no longer imported to be burned and cities, towns and villages of the island are starting to wake up and transition towards a new model.

Among the discussions for this new model, the city of Palma (the capital of the island with 400,000 inhabitants) chose the World Environment Day to organise a conference on waste management to learn about good practices that will help them designing a new model for the city. The conference presented good examples of waste management on the island, with the prominent cases of Porreres or Artà, that have recently joined the limited but growing group of towns above 70% separate collection on the island and are introducing an ambitious pay-as-you-throw scheme.

In addition to this, the conference focused on the role of economic incentives to help improve waste management, with examples like the bonus/malus tax on waste disposal existing in Catalonia, or the inclusion of pay-as-you-throw schemes in the tourist sector.

The conference was closed by Zero Waste Europe who presented their holistic vision of waste management and to provide good examples from the Network of Zero Waste Cities and from zero waste entrepreneurs. These examples were complemented with specific advice on how to bring Palma closer to Zero Waste.

The city representatives took note of these proposals, and advanced the introduction of compulsory bio-waste collection and door-to-door collection for some neighbourhoods, along with work on waste prevention.

All in all, the conference showed that there are alternatives to traditional waste management and that even for an island with the largest incineration plant, it is possible to start shifting.

China trash incinerator project called off after protest

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3553251/China-trash-incinerator-project-called-protest.html#ixzz46Y06bV00

Authorities in eastern China with more sense than Hong Kong’s lying ‘landfills are full’ ENB fools have halted plans to build a trash incinerator after rowdy street protests by residents and the arrests of two women.

The Haiyan county government in Zhejiang province said in a statement Friday that hundreds of residents began to gather illegally Wednesday and blocked roads. The demonstration escalated on Thursday evening when the mob attacked a local government building, smashing objects and causing injuries to police officer and bystanders, it said.

A 19-year-old woman was detained on charges of spreading unverified gory pictures and videos on the Internet, which were viewed more than 5,000 times. Another woman was charged with spreading insults against local officials, the government said.

The Haiyan government first revealed plans for the project on April 12, saying it was needed to help dispose of the 450 tons of solid waste that residents are generating every day.

No reason was given for the cancellation.

Recent years have seen a growing number of protests against incinerators, chemical plants and other projects believed to threaten the environment and living conditions.

Those have generally been permitted despite the ruling Communist Party’s pervasive crackdown on independent organizers and political critics, although arrests often follow once demonstrations die down.

Environmental safety concerns have been further fueled by a string of serious accidents involving deadly chemicals in China.

In August, 173 people, many of them firefighters, were killed in a chemical explosion in the port of Tianjin involving 700 tons of highly toxic sodium cyanide. Investigators said the warehouses storing the chemicals had been built too close to residential units and numerous people were arrested for violating regulations on safe distances.

This Baltimore 20-year-old just won a huge international award for taking out a giant trash incinerator

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/18/this-baltimore-20-year-old-just-won-a-huge-international-award-for-taking-out-a-giant-trash-incinerator/

Baltimore stands apart as the American big city with the most deaths caused by air pollution, and Curtis Bay is its dirtiest community. Several years ago, the air there stood to get even worse when the state approved a permit for a giant incinerator that would burn 4,000 tons of trash every day and emit up to 1,240 pounds of lead and mercury every year.

But destiny intervened. More specifically, a 17-year-old high school senior named Destiny Watford.

Outraged that her community was once again “being dumped on” and that the health of her family and neighbors was being “sacrificed for a profit,” the self-described shy girl led fellow students at Benjamin Franklin High School in a four-year campaign that mobilized Curtis Bay and halted the incinerator’s construction indefinitely.

As state environmental officials seek to revoke the permit for good, Watford is being honored with one of the world’s most prestigious environmental awards. On Monday, she was announced as a 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for her community leadership.

Not only is Watford, at 20, the youngest of this year’s six recipients — who hail from Slovakia, Cambodia, Tanzania, Puerto Rico and Peru — she’s the third-youngest honoree in the history of the prize. She says she never imagined becoming an activist, let alone that her efforts would allow her to stand shoulder to shoulder with internationally recognized advocates of environmental justice. But her mother, Kimberly Kelly, isn’t surprised.

“I have five kids,” Kelly said, “and I just knew she was going to be different. She’s a debater. She wants to get her point across.”

Growing up in Curtis Bay, a community of rowhouses near Baltimore’s industrial southern tip, Watford watched her mother struggle with asthma. She knew neighbors afflicted with respiratory disease. During the campaign, when she and other students asked members of an art class at Franklin High if any of them had asthma, “almost every hand shot up,” Watford recalled last week.

A 2013 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 113 people per 100,000 Maryland residents — higher than in any other state — die as a result of emissions from car and truck traffic, trains and ships, commercial heating systems and industrial smokestacks. Baltimore’s rate was far higher, exceeding that of New York City and smoggy Los Angeles.

Curtis Bay is Baltimore’s epicenter of pollution and bad health. Jutting into the bay where it meets the Patapsco River, it started out as a focal point for World War II-era shipping. It later gained a coal-burning power plant, a chemical-processing plant, a medical-waste incinerator and other industry.

And the air kept getting dirtier. In 2007 and 2008, Curtis Bay ranked worst in the nation for the release of toxic air pollutants, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project using emissions data from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The following year, it ranked second.

Like many residents there, Watford had no idea the incinerator had been approved for her community until she saw a story about it on the Internet in 2012.

Energy Answers International was promoting the project — set to be the biggest of its kind in the nation — as an energy-producing power plant that would serve schools and other facilities. It would be located less than a mile from Franklin High and Curtis Bay Elementary, which state environmental regulations wouldn’t typically allow. But the rule became irrelevant when the Public Service Commission approved the incinerator as an energy plant.

The company said by email last week that the PSC granted the exemption because the tire rubber, vinyl, plastic, metals and other municipal waste burned at the site would be processed into a fuel elsewhere. About 1.5 million tons of landfill waste annually would be diverted, converted and marketed as renewable energy, making the facility, “by all definitions, an energy plant,” according to a company statement.

The statement noted the upper limits of lead and mercury emissions under the permit and said the company never expected the incinerator to approach those. The project would require 1,300 temporary construction workers and create 200 permanent jobs, the statement said.

Watford and her classmates were concerned more about the air. They formed an advocacy group called Free Your Voice and studied the history of industry and pollution in Curtis Bay, as well as in the nearby Brooklyn and Hawkins Point neighborhoods. They began knocking on doors, expanding their network to hundreds of residents who circulated petitions that resulted in thousands of signatures. Their rallying cry: “Clear air is a human right.”

About 100 Franklin High School students, community activists and union members march in late 2013 to the site of the highly contested incinerator as part of a campaign to stop its construction in Curtis Bay. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)

Ten students were the core of Free Your Voice, but the Goldman Prize will be given to Watford, because “she’s kind of been the glue, the person who not just stuck around but deepened her involvement,” said Greg Sawtell, an organizer for the nonprofit activist group United Workers who acted as a mentor and helped nominate her for the award.

“She distinguished herself beyond the organizing with her ability to use writing and creative expression through video,” Sawtell said. “Older people said they got involved from their doors being knocked on by Destiny. She inspired a multigenerational struggle. She showed a lot of wisdom and patience.”

Watford, whose soft Afro frames a baby face, had never heard of the prize. When the Goldman Prize director called to congratulate her, she almost didn’t answer because the number showing on her cellphone was unfamiliar. Then she didn’t know what to say: “I was really confused. I didn’t know who he was or what he was talking about.”

He was talking about her work. Early on, the students thought they would win because of the incinerator’s proximity to the two schools. They persevered after that setback and discovered that the school district and city government agencies had signed an agreement to purchase energy from the incinerator, according to the Goldman Prize. Watford led students to a school board meeting at which they used artwork and video to convince members to reconsider. The board eventually took a student-organized tour of the proposed site and divested from the project.

In the end, the plant was derailed last fall on a different issue identified by Free Your Voice. According to state law, construction on an industrial project must begin during the 18 months before a permit’s air-quality provision expires. That never happened. In December, the 90-acre construction site was still only gravel and patches of grass.

The students pressed the point during a showdown at the Maryland Department of the Environment’s headquarters. With the help of United Workers, Free Your Voice brought 200 protesters to confront Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles. Only a few were allowed in for a discussion.

“We told them, ‘You guys have to take action. If not, there’s going to be a consequence,’ ” Watford recounted. The group would not accept the secretary’s explanation that his hands were tied by legal red tape, she said, and the protesters refused to leave until Grumbles declared that Energy Answers no longer met the air-quality provision. The agency officially notified the company last month of its decision.

“The permit had expired due to a lack of ‘continuous construction,’ ” Grumbles said in a statement last week. The statement acknowledged the students’ frustration over the months-long wait for his department’s final decision. It also singled out their leader.

“Destiny is a talented, resourceful and passionate young advocate,” Grumbles said, “with great potential to make a difference in the lives of those around her.”

The Goldman prize described her in similar terms, noting her “unwavering dedication and wisdom beyond her years.”

Energy Answers still holds a lease on the property and is fighting to build its plant, but at this stage of the process the company would have to get the community’s approval, which is unlikely. When Energy Answers President Patrick F. Mahoney attended a Curtis Bay meeting in March to talk about the jobs and revenue the plant would bring, he was shouted down by angry residents.

Watford, who is a junior at Towson University north of Baltimore, is now leading an effort to turn half of the proposed construction site into a community-owned solar panel farm. The project would provide energy to schools and businesses just as the incinerator would have — but without the same health risks.

Incinerator will ease pressure on landfills

Given the problem that we face of Hong Kong’s landfills nearing capacity, I agree with the government’s decision to build an incinerator to burn the large volumes of waste generated by citizens.

More than 13,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste ends up in our landfills every day.

It does not help that this is a densely populated city and many people are wasteful and lazy about disposing of waste.

They fail to recognise the importance of the Three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle. Many residents are still unwilling to separate waste and take recyclable material to recycling bins.

We may want to see a reduction in the volumes of waste produced, but are reluctant to take the necessary steps as individuals to help make this happen.

One of the aims of the Environment Bureau’s Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources was to get people to generate less waste at source, as one way of solving the city’s waste-management problem.

The incinerator the government will build will use what is known as “3T” technology to control emissions – temperature, turbulence and time.

Using high temperatures (over 850 degrees Celsius) and high turbulence to mix waste with oxygen thoroughly ensures complete combustion.

Waste and flue gases will be superheated to reduce air pollutants. This means that we may not have to worry about possible air pollution.

The government is doing its part by building the incinerator. Citizens can play their part by embracing the Three Rs principle so that less household waste ends up in our landfills.

We should all try harder to be more environmentally friendly.

Sze Ching-yiu, Kowloon Tong
________________________________________
Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1931778/letters-editor-march-30-2016

Metro Vancouver`s Decision to Cancel Incinerator Procurement Gives True Zero Waste a Chance!

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Beijing company set to take over German incinerator group

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-02/05/content_23401814.htm

EEW Energy from Waste is reportedly worth $2 billion

Beijing Enterprises Group Co, the State-owned investment firm, suspended trade in its stocks on Thursday in Hong Kong after reports it had won a bid to buy EEW Energy from Waste, a major German garbage-incineration power plant operator.

The Wall Street Journal said Beijing Enterprises had outbid several others to acquire EEW from private-equity firm EQT Partners for 1.8 billion euros ($2 billion).

The companies could not be reached for comment.

EQT put EEW up for sale last summer. The German company runs 19 plants supplying electricity, regional heat and industrial steam.

EEW’s latest figures showed it turned 4.9 million metric tons of garbage into 1,900 gigawatt hours of electricity and 3,000 gW hours of heat in 2014, which generated revenue of 539 million euros.

Its statistics for last year are yet to be released.

If successful, it will be the biggest takeover of a German company by a Chinese company, and follows the $1 billion deal by China National Chemical Corp with German plastic equipment manufacturer KraussMaffei in January.

Beijing Enterprises shares closed at HK$38.05 ($4.89) on Wednesday, down 19 percent from the beginning of January. The Beijing company has an investment portfolio spanning gas supplies, beer and waste water treatment.

According to Reuters, the group of bidders in the final round included waste-to-energy operator China Tianying Inc, a consortium including the Chinese financial investor Beijing Capital Group Co, a group made up of German utility Steag Energy Services GmbH and the Australian financial investor Macquarie Group Ltd, and Fortum Oyj, the Finnish energy company.

Guo Yungao, director of the power generation department at the China Association of Circular Economy, told a recent conference on waste-to-energy that most Chinese garbage is buried.

“But burying garbage results in pollution of underground water. If it could be used for power generation, it could save up to 50 to 60 million tons of coal every year,” Guo said.

Dealing with the growing amount of garbage has become big business in China.

In April 2014, there were 178 waste-to-energy operators with a capacity of 166,000 tons of garbage, but that number had jumped to 300 by the end of last year, with a 300,000-ton capacity.

“Overseas M&A is a good way to learn from developed countries which have sophisticated waste-to-energy technologies,” said Lin Boqiang, director of the research center of China energy economics at Xiamen University.

“Taking over brand names and the management expertise of overseas environmental management companies is also going to strengthen the image of Chinese buyers.”

Lack of accountability stinks

Letters to the editor, January 11, 2016

As if the report by the [1] Audit Commission [2] on the Environmental Protection Department is not embarrassing enough (“Hong Kong’s waste problem: a stinking trail of missed targets, data errors and misdirected efforts [3]”, December 1), the Legislative Council’s Public Accounts Committee’s two hearings last month on food waste reduction and recycling will enshrine the department in perpetuity in the Hall of Shame in Mismanagement.

We learned that the department handled the growing problem of food waste, which accounts for 38 per cent of municipal solid waste in Hong Kong, in a piecemeal, disjointed manner. We learned that the department has no idea on how each programme quantitatively contributes to the reduction of food waste, which has increased by 13 per cent from 3,227 tonnes per day in 2004 to 3,648 tonnes in 2013. We learned that targets are either non-existent or not met if they’d been posted. We learned that officials are not accountable for their mistake, and the same consultant who partnered with the department in the mistake continues to advise the department on a bigger project.

After spending HK$150 million and HK$50 million to reduce food waste in schools and private housing estates respectively, the department cannot explain how much food waste was reduced as a result of those programmes. The same goes for the HK$18.7 million spent during 2013 and 2015 in advertising, marketing, and education programmes to promote the department’s signature Food Wise campaign.

Only 26 out of 1,027 business entities provided data on their efforts to reduce food waste on a voluntary basis. No data was provided by the 294 schools who signed onto the Green Lunch Charter on the result of their effort.

Phase one of the Organic Waste Treatment Facilities that was priced at HK$489 million in 2010, with the help of a consultant company which earned HK$8.8 million for its advice, turned out to cost HK$1.53 billion. The Audit Commission pointed out that essential components were underestimated in the initial estimate.

Despite clear evidence in the commission’s report showing mistake in professional judgment, Mr Elvis Au, assistant director of the department, insisted that rising cost and lack of reference price of the facilities were the causes of the cost overrun. Mr Au and the same consulting company have since moved on to manage one of the most expensive project in the department’s history – building an incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau.

Is there accountability in Hong Kong?

Tom Yam, Lantau

Source URL: http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1899934/letters-editor-january-11-2016