Recycling everything – including the kitchen sink – will require community, business and industry involvement, says deputy Public Services minister Scott Ogier. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0710847)
GUERNSEY’S new waste strategy will work, deputy Public Services minister Scott Ogier said.
Calls to increase recycling were made after the States rejected the Lurgi incinerator in 2004, but it later went on to adopt another energy-from-waste plant proposal.
Deputy Ogier was instrumental in getting the first one thrown out.
‘I believe it will work differently this time as we are committed to minimising our waste and maximising recycling, diversion and segregation,’ said Deputy Ogier.
The States decided on Friday to throw out the £93.5m. Suez incinerator in favour of waste minimisation.
‘Not only was one strategy stopped last week but the direction was set for the new approach,’ he said. ‘That was very different than after Lurgi.’
Deputy Ogier said the department now needed to work quickly to involve the community, business and industry in solutions.
‘And we will be drawing up plans to do that.’
He said since the decision last Friday, Public Services had had little time to formulate a strategy or options for a green paper.
‘But we will be in a better position to outline our future direction and process by the end of this month.’
Tensions within the board have come to a head since the debate.
On Monday, Deputy Tony Spruce said the island’s reputation had suffered and that the decision marked a watershed for him personally.
He said deputies Ogier and Tom Le Pelley had allowed their idealistic view of the world to overrule their head and the realities of life – both voted for Deputy Mary Lowe’s amendment to throw out their department’s £93.5m. Suez incinerator proposal.
Deputy Ogier has since taken over the reins of the project from Public Services minister Bernard Flouquet.
Deputy Le Pelley was yesterday confident the board could resolve its differences.
‘It’s been quite a staggering turnaround. There are bound to be some personal repercussions. Hopefully it will settle down to getting on with the job,’ he said. He would happily work with anyone heading in the right direction and had already spoken to Deputy Spruce.
Of Deputy Flouquet’s role in the decision-making process, he said he would take part as he always had.
‘But Scott will lead it as it’s his speciality subject and we will go along with that.’
Article posted on 3rd March, 2010 - 11.30am
33 Article Comments
Go Scot Go! All power to your elbow. A true Guern now has the bull by the horns and hopefully you will find enough of your fellow Islanders in the States to back you all the way.
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Scott and his team will get my full backing and we will show the detractors what is possible with a little political will. This deal was never right for Guernsey and in my view pulling back from the brink will prove to be the best decision the States could have made. Nobody said it would be cheap or easy but not having to deal with tons of toxic ash is a real bonus and we should be thankful that there are many local business people who are willing to step up to the plate and offer their services. Not all of those offers will be taken up but we are small enough to pull together and find a solution that will benefit all at a reasonable cost. Of course its scary when there doesn’t appear to be a plan B on the table but I believe that will help concentrate the minds of those responsible for finding the answer. We only have to look at the way other communities across the globe reduce and recycle their rubbish stream, there is a wealth of information out there. Lets be positive about this and leave the negativity to those who wish to bore us rigid writing column inches about how they know best in the Press.
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Fine words Deputy Jones but to give this every chance of success Deputy Flouquet has to resign from PSD. The minister is the figurehead of the dept, even if Deputy Ogier is doing the work the Minister will always be responsible. Your fine words will fall on deaf ears if Deputy Flouquet trys to duck the bullet once again and puts self interests before the good of Guernsey.
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Might I suggest, that, it is going to take a dam sight more than “a little political will” to dispose of 60000 tonnes of MSW a year BUT, if that were all that was required, what evidence is there to demonstrate that the States possess any political will?
Kerbside re-cycling rejected, paid parking rejected but they have agreed to spend the savings, they haven’t yet made.
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Paul
I have said this on other threads but I will repeat it Dep Flouquet presented to the States the proposals the States wanted, He offered as head of PSD the option to talk to Jersey about export our waste two years ago, He also put before the States the option of removing incineration from the procurement process altogether and only going out for expressions of interest to companies with other technologies the States threw both of these options out. So Bernard continued with the other option which was incineration. Paul I know as head of Housing you have to do as the States wishes it is not for individual Ministers to decide what a departments policy will be after all we don’t have cabinet government. At the end of the debate on Friday a significant number of States members recognised that Dep Flouquet had no option other than to follow the States direction in numerous debates on waste and they expressed that view in the House starting with Dep Fallaize there were a number of people like me who never wanted or voted for incineration but we were always in the minority so the majority of the States voted consistently for the route PSD put before the States which was the Suez proposals last July I lost an attempt at a rethink with my Sursis by 32 votes to 12 so it was still a massive majority in favour of incineration right up until Friday last week. He has consistently done as the States have asked and now because of that people want his head on a plate no wonder we cant find people who are enthusiastic about becoming a States Member. I don’t remember people saying that Roger Berry should have gone when the Lurgi proposals were scrapped. PSD is a department that deals with a lot more than just waste and Deputy Flouquet is deeply involved with all the other projects and many of us wish him to continue in that role. He is one of the hardest working states members I know and I truly believe he will support Scott in his efforts to find an alternative solution to our waste problem and people should cut him a little slack after months of personal abuse and States members who changed their mind at the eleventh hour.
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Sorry Dave, to many of us this smacks of do as I say again. No matter how many times we ask for accountability the States goes into self preservation mode. Deputy Flouquet has proven time and time again that he is blinkered and out of touch and even when he says he will do the right thing he puts himself first. It really is sad that given a new opportunity to drive forward with a newly motivated electorate you all dive back into the bunker and close the blinds. Sadly the new waste strategy is already going to be driving in glue because the states refuses to be accountable.
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Ok 93m was the price for which you could buy a small country ,but whats worrying, now that the lettuce recyclers have had their way, is that sentences like “we will have to move fast to implement this” and “looking at the way other communities across the globe etc” where pictures of Mumbai (arguably the best recyclers anywhere), spring to mind, i think that only first that guernsey will achieve, is the reintroduction of cholera and typhoid into europe.
we have had over 40 years (since bordeaux quarry was opened for the disposal of rubbish) to sort an alternative to waste disposal, and are now months away from stuffing our rubbish down rabbit holes, or carrying it to jersey in carrier bags (WHAT!! no carrier bags!! ) alright then in our suitcases,this is a pathetic situation where the ruling body makes up its mind on several occaisions ,makes the wrong and very expensive descision and is turned around by some woolly headed activists with no practical plan(be it A OR B)other than paddling round in stinking rubbish looking for some plastic bottles, but there we are ,good luck ,as the man said “you wanted the job just dont ***k it up.
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Paul
Deputy Flouquet is accountable to the States in the first instance and to the people every four years, just as we all are. It is difficult to see how the States could now sack him when he has done everything they asked him to do, Paul they threw out all the life lines brought by Bernard on behalf of PSD and left him with the one option of incineration, the only thing left to debate after that was what size plant it would be and who would run it.
He does speak passionately on the subjects he has responsibility for and it should be of no surprise to anyone that as Minister of PSD he puts forward what the States have decided in several debates what it is they want. What else would you expect? He has not been blinkered, he has done what he is duty bound to do and what his elected board has backed him to do. As for being out of touch, I would argue it was the majority of States members who kept forcing PSD down this incineration ally who were out of touch, certainly with the people of Guernsey they were. I don’t agree with you that this new strategy will be like driving through glue I have spoken to several deputies since the weekend with long conversations yesterday with Deputy Ogier and Bernard and I think you will be surprised just how focused all of them are on delivering this new waste minimisation strategy, that is now the States has finally made its mind up. I have worked with Bernard for ten years and he is a man who gives 100% to everything he takes on, he like all of us has his faults, we all come from the human race and none of us are perfect but he is a Deputy that has never shirked his responsibility or shied away from a difficult task, not like some I could name when things get difficult, leaving the mess they have created for someone else to clear up. It is very easy to snipe from the sidelines I used to do it myself when I wrote for GAP but when you have no real responsibility like the press or some of its columnists you have the luxury of posturing. If you want my opinion on Deputy Hadley’s view on a vote of NO confidence I think it will loose spectacularly.
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Dave,
“Deputy Flouquet is accountable to the States in the first instance and to the people every four years, just as we all are.”
I hope that is a mistype and you mean “held” accountable every four years rather than insinuate that it is only once every four years that he (or any other deputy) needs to worry about the public.
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I think that it is crucial that Deputy Ogier is given a team of civil servants to work with him that are excited and motivated by the ideas of a waste minimisation strategy. I think it would be bad news if he has to work with the same crew who have been working on the last strategy. He needs a team of people who, having identified the problems are determined to find the solutions to make the strategy work.
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Dave Jones
Sorry but I think you are wrong. Deputies are accountable to the people of Guernsey throughout their 4-year term and are JUDGED every 4 years.
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Deputy Jones…. you are at least consistent. There are numerous examples of Deputy Flouquet’s faux pas over the years and the simple fact is he is unable to take the Guernsey people with him as they have an immediate distrust, take his recent insistence that teh road to Les Cotils HAD to be widened, the work has been completed, little disruption and money saved, I could go on. My driving through glue comment was regarding the missed opportunity to engage with the public not the shoulder patting backstage in the states. Lastly as stated above States Members are accountable to the people of Guernsey at all times, sadly we can only have a meaningful say every 4 years as then we would see who would fail spectactularly.
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Jamie ,David & Paul I stand corrected of course we are accountable to the people for the entire 4 years we serve in office.
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Still think Guernsey should only have Guernsey men to rule our Island.
Others have allegiance elsewhere, but to be on the Island they say one thing, but in their mind is something entirely different.
Next voting day Guernsey people only.
‘It isn’t racist either, it’s common sense-
before any say otherwise follow the absolute nonsensical attitude of the PM in his way of answering questions, he should be forced to answer Yes Or no where required, what a farce …
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“I think it would be bad news if he has to work with the same crew who have been working on the last strategy. He needs a team of people who, having identified the problems are determined to find the solutions to make the strategy work. ”
Rosie, politicians set policy and civil servants implement it. The PSD team will, I am sure, play as hard for Everton as they did for Liverpool.
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Exactly Neil!
Only they don’t play for the main body, the peoples team, Sarnia.
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I wish Scot Ogier every sucess in this role and all the energy and drive he needs to lead this through.
There will be the odd sticky situation and the none believers, such as[quote]Guernsey Recycling chairman Alan Crowe said deputies had made a rash move without having an alternative plan in place.
‘I was a supporter of Suez because it was well costed and a legitimate way of resolving the island’s waste problem.[/quote]
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Eric
Sarnia is the Roman name for Guernsey or is it of Celtic origin?
Whatever – you want it to be run by the Italains or the Irish?
I say fair play to your apparent rush in to inclusion and diversity.
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Rosie, Neil – New crew? How many States employed people do you think are working on this project? My understanding is 2. I doubt that there is a roomful hanging about waiting for a project to embark upon.
What PSD and Scott Ogier will require is a decent budget. I agree that some new ideas are urgently needed, but a few extra hands might also be useful!
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Gilthead:
You know exactly what I meant, naturally you wish to be smart.
However I stand by what I wrote.
Guernesey pour Les (Donkeys)
Obviously like your breed you wish to argue about almost anything, a nasty trait, which already has begun to eat away faith in your likes.
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Neil – nice idea……
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Eric
” no taxation without representation ”
if us foreigners aren’t good enough to have a say in government then our money isn’t good enough for you either …… Can I have 22 years, my entire working life worth, of taxes back …. Along with every other foreigner …… Then you and the rest of the true Sarnians can get on with running the island with whatever ( if any ) money is left free from our terrible influence ….
And what makes you a true islander ? Being born here ? A parent who was ? Do you need both parents born here? All your grandparents as well ? We all need to know where we stand when your glorious revolution starts ….
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for once, I agree with Dave Jones (somewhat)…
It isn’t just Bernie ‘burn it all’ Flouquet who’s accountable for this ridiculous situation we’ve been put in (and many others), it’s the whole of the States…I’d love to say ’sack the lot of them’, but as it is, we’ll just have to keep this in mind till the next elections.
Also, with regards to Mr Ogier’s stance, can someone please just put me straight on something? (Genuine question, not just a comment in disguise!)…
wasn’t Scott firstly anti-Lurgi, then pro-Suez, then is now anti-Suez?
His sentiments quoted here are very p.c., which is great…maybe I’m just a tad cynical because I’m not used to our local politicians representing our views for a change!
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Has anyone considered that actually taking the waste by ship to the UK for recycling or to Jersey for burning is likely to have a higher Carbon footprint and embodied energy than simply burning it on the island and producing energy for ourselves as opposed to buying it from France or having to burn fuel oil? (Which itself is a very dirty fuel – although we I accept that we don’t have many other options.) I would hope that some of the politicians would be able to present some figures to show that this has been properly considered before simply just saying that the incinerator option is unenvironmentally-friendly. I suspect that if this was carried out then the “Greens” may appear to come unstuck.
We need to separate people who simply say that they are green and are superficial in their approach and actions claiming that they are concerned for the environment with people who actually consider all the options without prejustice!
Don’t get me wrong: if the incinerator had higher “whole-life-carbon” than the new “minimise” solution, then I would be all for the new minimise, but lets not look at this like ignorant teenagers.
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This debate has not finished yet. Deputy Tony Spruce is trying to bring a requete in to have another vote. Is he upset that citizens of Guernsey dare question his authority? He knows best so we should all accede to his authority.
If anyone was worried about the reputation of government in Guernsey, this will seal it.
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In his letter to the Press bemoaning the fact that Suez had been jilted Deputy Spruce said “ The legacy of this week is that due to a procedural mess, our island has suffered huge reputational damage as a place to do business”.
Or might Spruce have been made aware that the jilted suitor accepts that reputational damage evaporates when they see the easy cash flow might be turned back on once more.
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Chris…..
Of course that has been considered……The incinerator will have a much greater carbon footprint than if we recycled everything possible. On average, the energy required to remake goods from scratch is 4 x that required to recycle it. Don’t forget that the boats that arrive here laden with goods, return to England largely empty….. they are going anyway so the carbon footprint of them carrying recyclates is pretty minimal.
The emissions from the incinerator is about twice that of burning oil to make energy if you take into account the biogenic feedstock.
In G-CAN’s submission to the planning enquiry for Longue Hougues we made the point that any decision for a waste disposal plant should take into account the Greenhouse gas emissions it would emit. We were told that such considerations would not form part of the decision making process.
Making energy from burning MSW is a very inefficient way of making energy….. you only achieve about a 20% efficiciency…. if we were burning for heat, we would be getting about 3 times that.
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Chris,
Shipping energy costs are in the region of 0.2MJ per tonne per kilometre.
To ship a tonne of paper to the UK would use approx 9kWh of energy. Recycling one tonne of paper saves 4000kWh when compaed with producing it from virgin materials. It is a no brainer.
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Rosie
My other half actually works in the CS (not PSD), and she often has to work on/get behind things that she doesn’t always agree with – that’s the way of things – like Neil said, the pollies set policy.
I’m sure PSD staff are the same. And like Dave Jones said, Bernie and therefore PSD (and surely the staff then) had brought various options including Jersey to the States which were chucked out, so how can you suggest the team Scott works with MUST change? MAYBE they do, but what do you know that proves they MUST?
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If it has been considered, and I assume by considered you mean quantitatively and not qualitatively, then it would be great to see a few numbers.
I am concerned because even when you put a few simple numbers to it, it does not seem such a bad idea. I am concerned, that Guernsey, as with many other companies and government do not look at the whole picture and only do what looks good, rather than what is the best solution.
I admit, this is a quick attempt at putting a few numbers to this, but you have to see the fine balance….Oil-fired power stations are only about 33% efficient, and I suspect that ours is going to be less than that due to the small scale of our operation and the way in which we swap on and off between the EU link, as this greatly affects a boiler’s efficiency. Taking your figure of 20% and the worst case of 33% that leaves only 13% difference. (Incidentally combined heat and power is the way forward and with this I wholly agree…its a shame we didn’t plug it into the new Sir John Leale avenue housing development, or even the Leale’s yard…although I don’t want to open that can of worms). I have just taken a few figures from the Inventory of Embodied Energy and Carbon (Hammond & Jones, 2008) and for example recycled paper as only 27% less embodied energy, whilst incidentally aluminium and plastics are very good for recycling: their embodied energy after recycling is very low (nearer your 4x figure, but this is, it seems, not as common as you give credit for in the real world). Interestingly though steel, which is one of the most heavily recycled materials in the UK typically results in the new processed materials having only about 30% less embodied energy. My point is that these figures are far from staggering: the materials which we recycle most of do not recycle easily. With these 30% savings in energy / carbon (for they are intimately related) you can see that, with the addition of the extra fuel required to transport the materials to the UK, that the 13% could very quickly be eaten up. I suspect the balance would be much closer than a group such as G-CAN would ever like to own up to.
I know I seem very sceptical, I am, however I would like to make it clear that I think that we are in desperate need to reduce global carbon emissions / energy usage, but we need to do it in an intelligent way and not approach this like Greenpeace hippies. [An interesting fact which came up in my dissertation research last week...the world GDP = $17bn (1997 figures), yet the rate at which we use the earth's resources is, on average $33bn (Costanza, 1997)....if that doesn't show that we need to change and change drastically, then I don't know what will!]
I am sorry to here though that our planners and politicians do not consider the environmental impact and emissions of such a project. To be honest, I am horrified. (I think that this shows the lack of understanding of our planners. It is such a shame the following an MSc in Planning they feel equipped to fully comment on architectural and engineering / environmental aspects that the professionals take a minimum of 7 years to train in…but alas that is another discussion.)
[If anyone would like full references for the above papers, then please let me know. They are both very interesting and enlightening documents.]
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Hi Chris,
I think Rosie’s average comes from a range of materials including plastic which is the one that saves the most energy by recycling.
If one accepts peak oil then we should not be burning plastics.
If one wishes to cut CO2 then we should not be incinerating our waste. PSD/Suez figures for the incinerator-produced electricity are 664g CO2/kWh. I dispute this for reasons I will come to but let’s go with it for a minute.
The Guernsey oil-fired power station figure is virtually identical at 667g CO2/kWh. (Source GE)
So even accepting these figures at face value, the electricity from the ‘waste to energy’ plant is as polluting in CO2 terms as a rather inefficient power station. However, not taken into account in the Suez figures are biogenic carbon or the parasitic load of the plant. Unfortunately the real environment has no such handy accounting measure. The true figure for the plant is closer to 1300g CO2/kWh depending on feedstock and throughput rate.
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I would not be able to disagree with an increased figure for the EFW plant and it should definitely be considered, although a figure of double seems a little overzealous at first glance.
My concern is that we will simply be pushing the waste to Jersey and still be creating the emissions, although indirectly. We are an island with finite land, we cannot simply ship everything to the UK, as they are not bound to accept our waste.
Again I certainly couldn’t decide on any of the data provided which is the best option. Possibly a LCC including equivalent costs for carbon and energy should be carried out on the two favoured options.
Having said all that in the next few years when tidal power become commercial and when/if Guernsey starts generating (obviously planners approving…god help us all) then the EFW would certainly not be the correct option. I think I may be talking myself out of the EFW in the short term to see what else happens with other energy producing alternatives (just as long as its not wind turbines).
However the question still remains Guernsey produces ALOT of waste and/or recycling and it needs to go somewhere / having something done to it, irrespective of energy production.
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Oh lets just dig a new hole in the golf coarse and bury the waste..
Now I’ll duck..
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