Public swung by alternative waste disposal proposition
Friday 18th September 2009, 1:00PM BST.
Inside the nuclear reprocessing plant at La Hague, where additional radioactive material is to be stored following the decommissioning of a power station in southern France. (Picture by John O’Neill, 0843303)
NOT one hand was raised in favour of an incinerator at last night’s public discussion of an alternative to mass burn.
The meeting, chaired by Rodney Brouard, saw about 200 people attend to hear what Baltic Development Group had to offer.
The company put forward its method of using steam to treat waste, which separates recyclables and turns the rest into a product that can be used as an alternative to plastic.
It would cost £20m., which would be funded by the group, with it making a profit from products made from the waste. It had previously been stated that a loan would be required from the States.
‘We are here tonight to try to sell an alternative solution,’ said Baltic sales and marketing director Peter Jenkins.
‘We think this would be very good for Guernsey. It would create a lot of interest with Guernsey being one of the leaders.’
When a plant was originally put out to tender, the group could not put forward its product because the method is new technology.
If Guernsey were to give it the go-ahead, it would be the first place in the UK to have a fully-operating waste treatment plant such as this. There is a demonstration facility in Bournemouth.
At the end of the meeting, Mr Brouard asked for a show of hands of those who wanted an incinerator. No one did and a majority was in favour of the alternative.
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It’s hardly surprising that “not one hand” was reised in favour of an incinerator. In a crowd of 200 at a meeting run by a group strongly opposed to it, you would have to be pretty brave to put your hand up even if you did support an incinerator. The other way of looking at it is that 50,000+ others chose not to turn up as they either favoured the existing plans or held no strong views.
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Public swung by alternative waste disposal proposition?
Less than 200 people, not voting for a Waste to energy incinerator, is hardly a resounding seal of approval for the Steam driven version from Baltic. I think the headline writer needs to switch to de-caf and calm down a little bit!
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Interesting but as yet unproven technology,
Please view EHS Global Solutions and view their website.One can see theirs is a similar but already existing technology continously in use around the globe.The company is based in Jersey.
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Presumedly Jon and carts you support this absurd waste of money that the States have voted for. You also sound like apologists for PSD suggesting that those who didn’t turn up support the PSD proposals or don’t care. I have never seen such anger from the population than at the States voting through PSD proposals despite huge opposition. Even now I do not know a single person who supports the PSD proposals and I believe the vast majority of people would like to see the decision overturned and a sensible, affordable solution found. Don’t give up Rodney.
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I admire Mr Brouard as rather than simply saying the incinerator is a bad idea he has tried to provide an alternative. Whether this alternative is viable or not is a different matter – I don’t know enough about waste management to make an informed decision, neither do the majority of our Deputies and therein lies the problem.
For those opposed to the Suez project, the issue isn’t that 200 people in a meeting don’t support the incinerator, it’s that the majority of States Deputies do – and they’re the ones making the decision. Finding a way to change their minds is the priority and I don’t think a show of hands in a meeting is enough to do this – in fact I suspect nothing short of a coup d’etat will achieve this aim!
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Well we could argue argue about this and go round and round in circles. I simply believe that our representives are not representing the vast concensus of opinion which is, that the vast majority of people in Guernsey do not want this incinerator. For goodness sake we are paying for this,and it is one of the most expensive capital projects ever undertaken here. Lets have a REFERENDUM, and let the people of Guernsey speak. Or are the pro incinerator lobbyists within the states afraid of democracy?
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Given the fact that this group are going to pay for this solution, I would personally ignore what the states are trying to do and build this system. Given that before long we will be paying to have our dustbins collected, the huge costs that commercial companies pay to dump their rubbish this project would simply be successful because it will be a cheaper alternative.
Since the incinerator is a buy and rent system, Sues will simply not be interested in any competition and will pull out, costing the states nothing in this “will sue” rubbish.
The states will not change their minds because, as with most sheep, they are too scared to be individuals, most have little or no grasp of what the public wanted, which this whole project has displayed. The general public can make as good as decision over this project as any Politian, so I would personally open the both solutions to an island vote, then there can be no complaint to the outcome, which would probably 65,000 for Rodney, 42 against.
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Referendum? Perhaps some of our learned friends on here could advise if this is constitutionally possible?
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Jon
If you are suggesting 50,000 plus are in favour of this then your post is as deluded as our poloticians.
I agree with russm as i to have spoken to very few that support this. By my calculations from the peope i have spoken to i think it would be about 8 out of 10 against.
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So we have a referendum and the Brouard steam machine is voted for by 50,000 people who vote with their wallets…what happens if it doesn’t work?
Imagine – No more landfill capacity in 2 years time, international law forbids shipping it off island and recycling has (hopefully) increased to 40% of all refuse…what would the 50,000 waste experts suggest we do with the 60% of stuff that we can’t recycle…throw it in the sea like we do with our sewage?
Expensive waste management is a natural consequence of the combined forces of rampant consumerism and a moral responsibility for our environment.
Whatever choice we make it won’t be free, it won’t be cheap and it won’t be “fix once and forget about it”…it’s an ongoing and integral part of our modern daily life just like we pay for water and power. Using price as the only lever for change is misguided, we don’t want a cheap soloution, we want the best possible, most efficient soloution that manages our waste and protects our environment and quality of life…change the argument from “money” to “values” and you might get a few more supporters. Lets face it there are many other less important projects hanging around with multi million pound price tags, maybe we should veto them before we challenge a 20 year old problem that stubbornly refuses to go away?
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Carts & Jon, it doesn’t matter that only 200 attended, nor does the title.
In Guernsey it’s kind of expected not many will voice their opinion, always has been, infact this is similar in the UK too.
I think most people will be in favour of this proposition, it’s cheaper, environmentally friendly and seems to be a much better option, as it will involve local businesses.
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Carts
Lets take your worst case scenario and the Vantage processor doesnt work (which is extremely unlikely)
Then we just ship the waste to Jersey’s incinerator until we get it working.
Given that Jersey will probably need the extra waste and have already offered us this route once before it should be a simple short term solution.
There is a working demonstration model of Vantage in Bournemouth, and Guernsey wont be the first to have a working processor either, that honour will go to the Phillipines who are already signed up.
Simples
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OK,so we have a referendum, the people vote,THAT IS DEMOCRACY Again it is not just about money, it is also about VALUE FOR MONEY. Maybe from some viewpoints it is fine to spend 90 million plus of the People of Guernseys money.when there may be a better and more cost effective alternative? However that viewpoint is not shared by me. and what happens if Rodney Brouards SYSTEM DOES WORK? at least the guy is prepared to put his money where his mouth is. Our current Government is prepared to PUT OUR MONEY WHERE THIER MOUTHS ARE The States of Guernsey Government have in the past made Monumental and costly mistakes Which have cost the People of GUERNSEY dearly . If this incinerator goes ahead I consider this decision will to to the top of the heap of costly malignant recklessness with the peoples money. LET THE PEOPLE VOTE.
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As A footnote to my previous post…….. The most expensive solution to a problem is not nessaceraley the best…….
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bcb,
If you read my post it doesn’t say that 50,000 people are in favour of an incinerator.
russm,
I’m actually not a huge fan of an incinerator; nor am I suitably qualified/competent to determine which solution is the better. The problem is, if we don’t do something quickly we’ll run out of space – as we may also do if we find we don’t have a suitable market for the by-product of this new proposal!
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What I find amazing is that a major argument from Deputies for not signing the agreement with Suez is the damage to our global reputation.
Well I would say to our Deputies the population of Guernsey will have far more respect for them if they change their mind and positively consider a solution that is far more environmental friendly and does saddle us with debt for years to come as well as giving us an extortinate gate charge.
The other alternative is the Deputies just go ahead, ignore us, ignore the latest evidences and commit us to over £200million just because they are too embarrassed about global opinion to be seen to change their mind. I suggest that the damage to Deputies reputations will be worse. If they ignore us we the voting population should never forgive or forget those Deputies who took us down this path and make sure they never have the chance to ‘represent’ us again.
Remember their is no deal with Suez until we sign the agreement. Stop being frightened by scaremongers with dubious interests.
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A superb post from Phil.
It does seem that the pro Suez squad are trying all the old tricks to get their ow way.
It seems the “Guernsey reputation will suffer” argument is that latest PR stance.
Even if that scaremongering approach was correct the saving of the best part of a quarter of a billion pounds is preferable to the saving of political ego’s.
However, the scary stories lack realism and credibility. In the WAO review of the Clinical Block debacle, the WAO stressed much the same point (also echoed by the Editor of the Press and various politicians)
Reality was the the hurt party wrote to the appropriate States department after suffering so much hurt at the hands of the Policy Council begin that their withdrawal from the contract would not be held against them.
Conclusion scaremongering and waste of taxpayers money.
in the UK £250 million would get 250 schools. Just shows how much Guernsey has been a cash cow for various businesses.
At least businesses won’t let principles get in the way of profit.
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Clearly Suez would need to be compensated for the costs of their involvement in good faith.
Can we afford to compensate them? Well, there would be £250 million available, wouldn’t there be?
I despair of the States’ apparent inability to indulge in pioneering. We need Baltic and Rodney Brouard’s cost effective solution and we need to make it work.
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David C
Companies tender at their own risk.
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Apparently It takes almost 1000 times more energy to turn water to steam than it does to raise the temperature 1 degree so how does this figure in the long run and who will pay?
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Only the older readers will remember when the waste disposal debate started.
Only the younger readers will see it concluded.
We do not have a States that has the capacity to decide.
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Stephen
yes but (i) I believe Suez are currently engaged in work (ii) going for Baltic would breach the tender process.
At the presentation I did not have the wit to ask how it was that Baltic did not tender. I am aware that marrying supplier and customer is fraught with difficulties in general. It is really incumbent on the customer (i.e. the States in this instance) to be proactive in finding suppliers. My impression is that that they did nothing more than advertise in trade journals.
Firestorm
you are not far wrong:
the specific heat of water is 1 cal/gK, while
the latent heat of water is 540 cal/g.
eric
decision making is easy, both the States and business men do it all the time.
Somewhat harder is making the best decision. In my experience it is hard to get it right first time. Anyone who thinks they have found the secret of being right first time should publish that very useful information for the common good.
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David C
Interesting points.
All the more reason for Public Works to be totally honest about the state of affairs.
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