JERSEY wants to take Guernsey’s waste, a senior politician confirmed last night.
The latest offer has come from Senator Alan Maclean (pictured), minister for Economic Development, and reiterates a letter sent to Public Services in 2009 stating that Jersey could take 30,000 tonnes of Guernsey’s waste for 10 years.
In an email to Suez incinerator objectors, he said there was a clear opportunity for both islands to work together to deliver a mutually beneficial solution.
The Guernsey States was previously told that Jersey had capacity to take our waste for five years, according to a report in 2006.
The letter dated July 2009, addressed to Alan Richards, projects director at Public Services, from John Rogers, the acting chief officer at Jersey’s Transport and Technical Services Department, initially made the suggestion.
In it, Mr Rogers states that although the spare capacity of Jersey’s incinerator would decrease over time, the 10 years might be extended if the islands saw an increase in recycling or growth was less than predicted.
The letter also outlines an indicative cost of £120 per tonne.
This compares to the £175 per tonne that Suez would charge if the States give the go ahead for Public Services’ preferred option.
The States is due to decide today whether it wants to support Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher’s requete and direct the States to seek further approval before finally committing to Suez Environnement.
Deputy Mary Lowe’s amendment is also on the table.
That could see the incinerator thrown out all together.
The letter to Public Services, although confirming Jersey’s position, adds that the suggestion would need environmental approval and that there are several different models that could be followed when considering the commercial aspects of accepting waste from Guernsey.
In the States Pages 30 & 31
Article posted on 26th February, 2010 - 2.30pm
25 Article Comments
Oh goody goody gumdrops, at last they have become our friends and will take a certain deputy away from us.
WE SHAN’T CRY: Thank you Jersey!!!
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Unbelievable.
So a letter was sent by Jersey to Guernsey’s Public Services Department in 2009, making a concrete offer to take our waste. Yet Deputy Flouquet, only last week, was stating that we didn’t even know whether Jersey would be prepared to take our waste ! Why did he not refer to that 2009 letter ?
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Sounds like a good solution to me at this juncture.
Enables us to dump Suez and their two year warranty, giving us ten years to find a decent, cost-effective solution for Guernsey. I’m sure we can manage that!!
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Positive that the islands could potentially work together. However, buring waste is not the solution. We should be looking at how we can become more sustainable through curb side recyling, composting etc. Lets put the island on the map for being environmentally friendly; an island that cares about its beauty, its people and future generations.
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Yes! Incineration is fine, as long as it isn’t next to my house!
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David asks why Bernard Floquet failed to mention the Jersey offer.
Would it be unfair to suggest the reason is because he didn’t think that Deputy Maclean would spill the beans over the July 2009 letter.
Or might it be collective amnesia?
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Ingoring the previous communication oversite by Deputy Flouquet, who was probably all set to milk this as a coup, which thankfully he can’t now.
This is fantastic news.
Whilst it is not the long term solution for either Island it does buy time to approve and develop sustainable approaches to waste. Guernsey will be able to set the way that Jersey can pick up from in the longer distance future.
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21/41 States Members voted against the Suez today, means at least 20 of them are completely useless to our island!
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Brill news!!! A problem shared is a problem halved! The islands need to work between them on this one. The savings for both partys is a must.It also gives time for us to recycle more,and given time hopfully that will be almost everything! Agree?????????
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good news. That gives us more time to hopfully be able to recycle everything.
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From a Jersey resident:
Technology on waste management is moving at great pace all over the world. Jersey is building this waste plant now. It has capacity to handle your waste. In 10 years time new systems will be on line.
This means you can step back, wait and explore everything and maybe develop a much better system of waste management than Jersey (not too difficult).
You have nothing to loose.
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Fantastic news! Thanks goodness common sense has prevailed at last! Suez – Adieu!
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Well, thanks Jersey.
It’s always nice to see positive collaboration between the islands for mutual beneficial gains.
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I applaud the campaign to have stopped the PSD/SUEZ proposal which gives us more time to look at more realistic cost effective and environmentally friendly alternatives. However, there are those who oppose Gsys sending its to Jersey on ethical grounds. There again, I am sure Jersey is very happy to take our waste because it provides free energy for the people of Jersey at the cost to the tax payer of Guernsey. However, we must not just forget that shipping our waste must be a SHORT-TERM option and not turn into a long-term option.
we must ensure that:
1) Any rate is set should be revised on a for a 7 year period and should be inclusive of Harbour Dues.
2) We must ensure the shipper provides all of the kit required for both islands, including the specialist kit for forward transportation & shipment to the plant in Jersey.
3) We must have a PLAN B in place. What happens if Jerseys plant breaks down or they have a change of gov at the next election who opposes the agreement between the islands
4) Any contract we enter into must not have a clause that benefits the contractor financially if for example the worst case scenario is that Gsy spends all of this money setting up this initiative and Europe introduces a ban on the shipping of waste between jurisdictions and bans mass incineration plants.
5) That we use a shipper who is solvent, who can prove that they can handle a contract of this magnitude over a short-term period and that they use local staff wherever possible.
6) Perhaps we can adapt the two oil tankers we have sitting in dry dock to ship our waste inter island……..
Of course there are the positive aspects of this initiative. Perhaps the reintroduction of kerbside recycling, more recycling banks or a recycling unit opened up at LH for separation can be achieved and the revenue stream is channelled into our Treasury.
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I agree Bronwen! At least we have a solution for now and this should enable the Public Services Dept to use their time to focus on recycling etc now. I so hope they sort it out. We don’t need to get left behind as the world comes up with cleaner, greener solutions to waste problems… and don’t get me started on what we do with our sewage. Yuck. Can we work on a solution to that next please Guernsey?!
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Ban the importation of non recyleable plastics… all of them… extreme action which would send a message to the companies trying to ram this useless material down our throats, may be world leaders for once. They have no future in a sustainable world and most other things can be resused in some capacity and are, or ill become valuable export commodoties. We definately need a biogas digester which would deal with our sewage problem too and give us cheap, sustainable and renewable electricity and gas, if the plant was substantial they we may be able to charge Jersey and parts of France to digest some of their waste as a viable states owned business.
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I believe it would be a dreadful mistake to now to jump into bed with Jersey and commit to producing a certain tonnage of waste for their incinerator. We CAN do this on our own. However…… if it would help Jersey to have our waste to enable their incinerator to burn efficiently and therefore create less pollution, then a temporary arrangement with them would buy us some time to get the necessary recycling systems up and running here. It could then be of benefit to both islands.
The important thing is that any arrangement should NOT commit us to producing a certain amount of waste. We should just pay for what we send…… That way the incentive remains for us to continue to reduce the amount of waste we send ( or create).
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Rosie
This is the first time that I’ve disagreed with anything that you’ve said in recent weeks.
I think that we need to strike the right balance between getting Jersey to agree to contract with us (which commercially is bound to need to have some figures on it, and don’t forget that we also need to sort out shipping arrangements, so some degree of commitment is unavoidable), and pursuing a recycling strategy.
I suspect that we will have to commit to a certain volume with Jersey for perhaps 2 or 3 years minimum. In the bigger scheme of things, I don’t think that’s too big a price to pay.
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Whichever way we look at it, it is going to cost us a lot of money over the next 25 years to get rid of our waste – with or without an incinerator.
I agree we should be doing a deal with Jersey to incinerate for the next 10 years, but I would not be surprised if the quote we receive from them has suddenly increased!! I wonder why?
In the end, we will need a small scale incinerator, whatever the extent of recycling we end up achieving. At least we have bought some time, but let’s not waste it.
Why does the States take years to take a decision, when in commercial business we would have it up and running in months.
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David…… I could cope with 2 to 3 years!
I just don’t think that we should sign ourselves up to 10 years of providing 20 – 30,000 tonnes….. that would mean that we would not have to implement the radical waste minimisation strategies that we should be moving straight on with.
Ideally, we would have an arrangement that would allow us to send up to whatever tonnages Jersey needs and we would pay for whatever we sent. That way, the incentive would stay with us to continue to reduce our residual waste pile.
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If it’s true that Mont Cuet still has 8 – 10 years life in it surely we won’t need Jersey at all ?
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Ray,
No…. we don’t need Jersey. However, if sending them some of our waste that at present has no recycling route, would help them out….. then it would buy us more time to set up a zero waste strategy.
Living next to Mont Cuet can’t be much fun though, and the quicker that we can remove the smelly putrescible waste and deal with that with some sort of in vessel composting system to produce harmless compost, the better neighbour Mont Cuet will become. There is no reason why that couldn’t be set up within the year if PSD get their skates on…. but they will need a change of attitude from some of the key PSD members. At present, they risk becoming a roadblock to progress.
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All the best ideas come from those with common sense, but, as my Grandmother used to say, “common sense is n,t all that common you know”.But I think we all recognise it when we see it. At least 20 deputies seem to be lacking in this department !Roll on the next Island wide election !
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The Jersey incinerator option is welcomed as it sounds like a fantastic idea. The islands should work together. Will Jersey send their sewage to us for processing here or is that a s*** idea?
The Jersey incinerator proposal would buy us time for a reasoned solution with the possibility of utilising new technology which may have a track record by the time we need it.
How long will it take for our A team to figure out we can always dump all of our trash in the St Peter Port marina to reclaim it for car parking in town and build a new marina facility in Havlet bay. Simples.
I love it when a plan comes together.
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Richard, I think you’d be the only one wanting to park on rubbish, have you seen how long it’s taken St Germain to be used as a field?
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