[SnailTrain]

Should Belfast build a £300 million waste burning factory? There is a live proposal to build this incinerator on the foreshore of Belfast Lough. It was recently voted down by a narrow margin (1 vote) of Belfast City council, but the new minister for the environment (flat earther) Edwin Poots, has signalled that he is minded to overturn this decision and go ahead with the build.

Friends of the Earth along with Greenpeace and many other environmental groups are opposed to the plan. I am too, believing that it is a disincentive to recycling and re-use, apart from other reasons to do with toxicity, legacy and safety.

My main thought is this: Would this large amount of money not be better deployed building a decent light rail system?

We have been told that we cannot have a tram system, because there is not the money, yet I see 300 million here. Add that to the 250 million (?) allocated for the crap, unwanted bendy buses and you have the makings of the tram solution.

Get the French, Germans, Spanish or Dutch to build it, to ensure that it works properly, and leave Belfast with a positive investment for the future, instead of a toxic factory of death.

 

[beddiebyes]

Its a simple fact of the matter that a waste incinerator needs to be built, somewhere in Northern Ireland. If it is not and we continue to shove it all in a big hole in the ground we would be facing hefty fines from Europe, money which we cant afford at this moment in time. You could argue about the location, but i think it is a good a place as any.

Your hyperbolic statements of a toxic factory of death are slightly wide of the mark. The emissions are not that bad and it will be a source of renewable energy as well as a means of disposing our mountain of waste. I for one would like to see the waste being used to produce electricity for the City as opposed to festering in the ground for hundreds of years poisoning the land

 

[SnailTrain]

1 What happened to re-use and recycle?

2 Who are you going to trust - Friends of the Earth, or Belfast City Council?
That one is a no-brainer for me.

This FOE's take on the incinerator.
"The proposed incinerator on Belfast Lough's North Foreshore[1] will be an expensive source of pollution, posing long-term health risks, and will lock Northern Ireland into a waste maximisation policy, Friends of the Earth said today (9 March 2009).

In a new briefing, the organisation sets out its opposition to incineration, as well as its support for a more concerted effort to reduce waste and improve recycling. It also suggests alternative methods of extracting energy from waste.

Niall Bakewell, Northern Ireland Activism Co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth said:

"Burning waste produces myriad toxins, including dioxins, heavy metals and furans. The various methods that the Council proposes for mitigating the harmful effects of incineration are highly questionable[2].

"The location of the plant will mean that the potential energy benefits are wasted. The surrounding area is sparsely populated, meaning that few will avail of the heat produced by the plant. Anaerobic digestion, resulting in methane that could be used for combined heat and power, would be a much more efficient process. It would also produce compost."

Niall continued:

"Better doorstep separation and collection could result in fewer recyclable items (such as yoghurt pots) ending up in landfill, or worse, an incinerator.

"The Council should also join other local authorities in the UK in putting pressure on the Westminster Government to reduce the amount of unnecessary packaging being produced in the first place."

 

[belfastuniguy]

Snailtrain no offence but you are appearing as delusional.

NO nation on this planet recycles ALL of its waste. Indeed some of the most environmentally concious use waste to energy plants and they have been instrumental in combating the horrendous crime of dumping in landfill. Examples include Germany, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Norway.

They also have the additional benefit of generating electricity for local homes and businesses. Indeed the plant could be used to power a redeveloped foreshore. Modern incinerator technology captures harmful emissions and statements pertaining to toxic fumes is utterly preposterous.


If Belfast council don't want to built it then built it beside Kilroot. I'm sure the new larger Newtownabbey council will be happy to have the additional revenue

 

[Ulster]

Its a simple fact of the matter that a waste incinerator needs to be built, somewhere in Northern Ireland. If it is not and we continue to shove it all in a big hole in the ground we would be facing hefty fines from Europe, money which we cant afford at this moment in time. You could argue about the location, but i think it is a good a place as any.

Your hyperbolic statements of a toxic factory of death are slightly wide of the mark. The emissions are not that bad and it will be a source of renewable energy as well as a means of disposing our mountain of waste. I for one would like to see the waste being used to produce electricity for the City as opposed to festering in the ground for hundreds of years poisoning the land

Thanks for the realist view....

Snail we have 2 problems here that a waste incinerator will help to solve. One being waste disposal the second being meeting C02 targets set by europe.

The greater belfast area is severely limited in terms of potential land fill sites. Land fill sites are also very expensive, and there is no sign of people reducing the amount of waste that they produce in northern ireland.

We have Co2 targets to meet, failure to do so will result big fines. Incinerators and other waste-to-energy plants generate at least partially biomass-based renewable energy that offsets greenhouse gas pollution from coal-, oil- and gas-fired power plants The E.U. considers energy generated from biogenic waste (waste with biological origin) by incinerators as non-fossil renewable energy under its emissions caps. These greenhouse gas reductions are in addition to those generated by the avoidance of landfill methane.

What about these for potential designs...

Isle of man incinerator

Vienna

 

[citybus]

1. Who are you going to trust - Friends of the Earth, or Belfast City Council?
That one is a no-brainer for me.

2. The surrounding area is sparsely populated, meaning that few will avail of the heat produced by the plant.

1. Good point, Northern Irish politicians arent noted for their environmentally friendliness. Or friendliness in general? :lol:

2. The nearby Shore Crescent estate has no fireplaces, their heating bills must have been very high back before oil fired central heating came to town. So the incinerator could have been very useful... 30 years ago. Perhaps not today. Nevertheless I wonder if they could use the heat generated in Kilroot & Ballylumford to heat houses & industry. District heating is common in Europe.

 

[thevanishin]

There are plenty of ways to heat homes without burning waste in a massive incinerator. For whatever reason, Belfast City council seems hellbent on building this thing. Despite two democratic votes that vetoed the incinerator plan, Poots (like plenty of his DUP partners in crime) seems to have no respect for the democratic process and wants to overturn these two motions.

The argument that an incinerator would save us from EU fines is nonsense. By the time any such large-scale waste-management facility would be built (incinerator or otherwise) we would almost certainly be paying fines for several years before such a facility could begin to reduce the amount being sent to landfill. There are plenty of other measures that could dramatically reduce the amount of rubbish being produced in Northern Ireland. If junk isn't being produced, there is less being sent to landfill, but it seems that the powers that be would prefer to keep producing junk and burn it (the most retarded thing to do).

Sure, burning it will create energy, but creating unnecessary items that will inevitably make their way to landfill/incinerator requires far more energy than can be created by burning it. Real forward planning from the Executive or the City Council would go a long way to reducing waste sent to landfill, for a fraction the cost of a £300 million incinerator. There is a much bigger picture to consider here rather than just the Arc 21 group of NI councils and their trash.

According to the Belfast Telegraph a few days ago, Belfast's recycling rates are barely above 20%. That is abysmal, considering some councils in NI have reached over 60% recycling. Would improving Belfast city recycling to reach 60% not massively reduce the amount sent to land fill, while NOT costing £0.3 billion!!??? The choice seems like a no-brainer to me.

If anything large scale needs to be built there, the choice should be an MBT/anaerobic digestion plant that the council have already voted for! A quick google search and a bit of research shows that MBT/digestion is a much better option than an incinerator.

I say we should reduce and recycle waste rather than burn it. Some of the more forward-thinking parts of the world have woken up to zero-waste, such as New Zealand and Oakland, California, and plenty of other places also. Bear in mind that Oakland's population is about the same size as the NI population, is it beyond NI to be progressive and really reduce waste?

 

[SnailTrain]

I agree [thevansihin] with all of your comments.

As a simple question: What other facility here has ever been built costing such a huge amount of money, and almost no effective debate? It's got nothing to do with what it looks like, by the way, so the images are irrelevant.

This should be one of the single biggest issues here, yet a flat earther like Edwin Poots is just going to make the final decision? It beggars belief. This is a man with the intellectual capacity of a house fly, who actually believes that the earth is less than 6,000 years old! It hardly inspires much confidence.

I believe that with sufficient lobbying, the prospective land-fill fines can be avoided. There is enough evidence of Belfast City Council's years of total incompetence with regard to waste management to present to Europe by way of obtaining a dispensation.

I used to live in the Holyland area of Belfast, and we all called them "The Lazy Bastard Bin-men". Every Saturday, they used to park a bin lorry behind the Launderette at Harrow Street and sleep in it all day Saturday, with the engine running. Meanwhile the rubbish was piled high around them, and there was zero re-cycling. Not much has changed since then. I have numerous pics of this.

Why should we pay a penalty for this type of stupidity?

This toxic factory is NOT the answer. It will encourage waste. It will be the opposite of conservation and re-use. There are better solutions to waste management and we should demand them, and not end up paying 300 million for this vile proposal.

 

[PB-1888]

Friends of the Earth along with Greenpeace and many other environmental groups are opposed to the plan. I am too, believing that it is a disincentive to recycling and re-use...

I think NI could do with more of a 'stick' approach to forcing people to recycle. How about reducing black bin collections to 1/month or immediate doubling of rates until 60+% recycling is met?

The only reason why so much plastic, tins and other eminently recycable waste goes to landfill is laziness.

 

[citybus]

The only reason why so much plastic, tins and other eminently recycable waste goes to landfill is laziness.

And not just laziness on the part of the public, in the case of plastic recycling it would increase ten times if the council accepted it, expecially if you could put it in the blue bin. Ditto tetra pak, it says it's recycleable on the box but the council don't want it. Probably because they'd have to employ someone to cut off the plastic lid.

Some forms of laziness are understandable though. If you dont have a car are you really going to bother getting down to a bottle bank a mile away. If they were serious about this kind of thing they would stick a big bin beside every postbox

 

[belfastuniguy]

I think NI could do with more of a 'stick' approach to forcing people to recycle. How about reducing black bin collections to 1/month or immediate doubling of rates until 60+% recycling is met?

The only reason why so much plastic, tins and other eminently recycable waste goes to landfill is laziness.

Once a month is ridiculous, the effects would be rotting food matter sitting in bins for one month without collection. The smell would be disgusting, rats would be attracted to areas they aren't currently a problem and it would be a health risk.

Newtownabbey have once a fortnight and that seems to be a nice compromise if not at times a touch annoying. But it works, we also have better recycling opportunities than people in Belfast.

We have the blue bin for paper, red krebsides, brown for garden waste and soon all of us will have kitchen food waste bins and liners that we place into the brown bin, it will then be sent for composting.

 

[PB-1888]

Well if you have kitchen food waste bins, that surely would address your concern about "rotting food matter sitting in bins".

I also don't buy the smell, rats etc argument. I've forgotten to leave out my black bin on loads of occasions, thus being emptied once during the month, and have yet to be infested with rats. If the lid closes over OK its all closed in, keeping in the smell, and as rats have yet to evolve opposable thumbs they aren't getting in any time soon.

 

[belfastuniguy]

Well if you have kitchen food waste bins, that surely would address your concern about "rotting food matter sitting in bins".

I also don't buy the smell, rats etc argument. I've forgotten to leave out my black bin on loads of occasions, thus being emptied once during the month, and have yet to be infested with rats. If the lid closes over OK its all closed in, keeping in the smell, and as rats have yet to evolve opposable thumbs they aren't getting in any time soon.

Belfast aren't introducing them....Belfast also has higher population density with greater levels of shared access. Rats are always more of an issue in city urban areas, less so in suburban areas like most of Newtownabbey and areas outside Belfast.

Seriously doubt you wouldn't have an issue living in a densely packed residential street in Belfast full of bins that haven't been emptied for a month. Belfast City Council also continues to collect side waste....so rats have no need for thumbs. Simply cut through the thin plastic and enjoy 4 week old rotting food. Also add to the equation shared waste facilities and apartments which utilise rubbish chutes, then your idea is utterly ridiculous.

 

[PB-1888]

Belfast aren't introducing them....Belfast also has higher population density with greater levels of shared access. Rats are always more of an issue in city urban areas, less so in suburban areas like most of Newtownabbey and areas outside Belfast.

Seriously doubt you wouldn't have an issue living in a densely packed residential street in Belfast full of bins that haven't been emptied for a month. Belfast City Council also continues to collect side waste....so rats have no need for thumbs. Simply cut through the thin plastic and enjoy 4 week old rotting food. Also add to the equation shared waste facilities and apartments which utilise rubbish chutes, then your idea is utterly ridiculous.

Litter on the streets causes problems with rats, rubbish contained in a black wheelie bin with the lid closed dosen't. I've never seen anyone leave out waste in a plastic bag in addition to their bin outside their house, such behaviour should incur a hefty fine and certainly not be facilitated by the council.

And maybe being overrun with vermin is what this town needs for people to get off their backsides and recycle more.

Its just too easy for us to collectively chuck it all out and make it someone else's problem.

 

[belfastuniguy]

Litter on the streets causes problems with rats, rubbish contained in a black wheelie bin with the lid closed dosen't. I've never seen anyone leave out waste in a plastic bag in addition to their bin outside their house, such behaviour should incur a hefty fine and certainly not be facilitated by the council.

And maybe being overrun with vermin is what this town needs for people to get off their backsides and recycle more.

Its just too easy for us to collectively chuck it all out and make it someone else's problem.

Do you live in a cave?

Either that or you have walked round Belfast with your eyes closed. It's especially prevalent in the poorer areas of Belfast and those area with large numbers of terraced alley accessed housing.

Some councils have instituted a closed lid and no-side waste policy, Newtownabbey is one of them. Belfast is mishmash of waste management with some areas with recycling bins and others with one black bin only.

If you're unaware of the reality of wider waste management in Belfast then refrain from posting unfounded comments.

 

[PB-1888]

Yes, I live in a cave.

I'm discussing how Belfast could increase its recycling rate. I still maintain that in most residential areas of Belfast people just leave out their bin and don't have rubbish in plastic bags by the side. If you've seen that happen, then it should be discouraged, through non-collection at least, fines at most.

As Newtownabbey seems to have such as enlightened waste policy, I'm sure you could get by with a black bin collection of 1/month.

 

[SnailTrain]

Guys... you're missing the main point... there is £300 million available for this toxic beast. (Greenpeace describe these waste burners as Cancer Factories.)

What I'm saying (again) is; if that type of money is available, which clearly it is, let's see it spent on a better scheme. My pet one is a tram system. ie something that is a positive investment in an optimistic future, and not a negative investment like a waste burner, that only becomes viable and economic if it burns more and more waste.

Do you not see the logic in how this makes it a very sad, depressing, and uninventive way to deal with this problem?

 

[citybus]

A few months ago Belfast Council said they would be accepting food waste in the brown bins, haven't heard anymore on this maybe its been abandoned. Really though there is **** all that can't be recycled/ reused should the council be bothered to sort through it all.

 

[PB-1888]

SnailTrain - Is it actually the case that City Council have £300 million lying in a current account waiting to be spent? I'd be surprised (and shocked) if it was.

 

[belfastuniguy]

SnailTrain - Is it actually the case that City Council have £300 million lying in a current account waiting to be spent? I'd be surprised (and shocked) if it was.

No that's not the case.

Belfast City Council is part of Arc 21, a group that comprises the 11 councils in Eastern Northern Ireland. The funds are coming direct from government and will allow for a Waste to Energy planet and two biological treatment plants.

The WTE will be built, Belfast has just missed the opportunity to build it.