Local trial lined up for Brouard waste plant
Tuesday 19th January 2010, 1:00PM GMT.
MORE than 9,500 islanders have signed businessman Rodney Brouard’s ‘Sort our Waste’ petition.
The Stan Brouard Ltd managing director (pictured) is again urging people opposed to the official £93.5m. incinerator to back his alternative.
He has set up a joint venture with Baltic Developments and offered to install a Vantage waste processing system at no cost to the island – if the States overturns its decision to build an incinerator at Longue Hougue.
Mr Brouard is now making the necessary preparations to demonstrate a Vantage waste processor in the island.
‘We will be requesting to bring in the Vantage waste processing system to Guernsey as soon as possible to prove it will do the job,’ he said.
‘It will operate for a minimum of three months. All deputies and the general public will be invited to see the system operating.’
Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher is taking a requete to the Assembly in an attempt to delay signing off the Suez incinerator contract and Mr Brouard was confident this would succeed.
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I have been listening to both sides of the argument to try and fathom out the issue. I was a little concerned to see something highlighted by the Press’ Editor. Mr Brouard keeps telling the public how many signatures he has on his petition and that States Members should take note of it. Yet at the same time he is asking people to sign it on behalf of their children. It was lesser things that made the BA strike vote illegal.
I want to weigh up what is the way forward but how can the ordinary man and the States be expected to take this petition as a serious measure of public opinion when people are just signing away on behalf of others. Has someone signed on my behalf? I was also disappointed to see many silly names on these petitions. Perhaps a sign of apathy?
It was discussed at a dinner party this week and a couple of friends told me they had signed it. So out of interest I asked why and they explained that somebody had shoved it under their nose and they had signed under slight duress. They said they had no idea what it was all about but just wanted rid of the person pressuring them.
I am really starting to feel that the petition is worthless and I will have to restrict myself to listening to strength of arguments. However, I am feeling that I find it hard to take Mr Brouard totally seriously when he advocated signing petitions on behalf of children. Surely he could see the argument weakening result of this suggestion, or his he just a naive man?
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Let’s hope the requete works! Good luck to Stan Brouard!
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I have signed the petition. Perhaps the methods used are a bit rough at the edges but then Mr. Brouard doesn’t have the PR resources available to the States of Guernsey. Even if 9500 signatures are a bit optimistic, it doesn’t take much of an ear to the ground to gauge public feeling on this one.
Jersey can easily take our waste in the interim whilst we fully evaluate alternatives. To go back to the beginning of the debate, I find it incredible that the States were only given one option to ‘vote’ on. Surely this is indicative of a tender designed to steer us towards incineration at all costs.
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How can Rod Brouard’s option be an valid alternative when it needs to burn an alleged MILLION LITRES OF DIESEL a year to keep it working? Can anyone verify this claim that was reliably whispered in my ear at a recent social event?
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Bridge
I suggest you do some of your own research and not listen to hearsay at social events.
A simple google search will tell you all you need to know. That your reliable informant is about as reliable as Flybe.
Or were you just desperate to get some scaremongering in??
Heres a little fact for you, by the year 2020, ONE BILLION PEOPLE PER DAY, will be deceived by unsubstantiated comments on internet forums.
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Do a search on “Baltic Developments Vantage”. Apart from the petition site and this forum there is no information on the the company nor the plant.
After that, conduct a search on “suez environment incinerator”
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Neil
Your point??
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Neil,
If you do a search for Baltic Developments, you will discover that it is a cosmetics wholesaler, who’s MD decided to move into the waste sector.
Whilst the comment of the system requiring a million litres of diesel per year maybe a little on the high side, ther is no doubt that a considerable amount of energy will be required to raise the nessasary steam.
Arangements will also have to be made for materials not suitable for treatment by the system. This could be achieved by the burning of recyclable materials or by the addition of a bio gas plant.
Neither point has been addressed by RB.
Having said that, whatever sulotion is chosen for those aspects, it will still be tens of millions of pounds cheaper than Suez.
Still not the best system in my humble opinion.
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Phil, Children are the voices of the future, their points should be taken very seriously.
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Re Rodney Brouard’s petition and petitions generally in Guernsey. I’ve petitioned for various things in the past – including the one in the run up to the States debate on Suez last July.
I’ve now come to the conclusion that people sign petitions without so much as a passing thought; that petitions gathered in Guernsey RIGHTLY lack credibility among States members; and, at the end of the day, that they are a total waste of time and effort.
Rodney’s petition is even more deeply flawed than the average one. As Phil says, the organiser is on record as asking parents to sign on behalf of their children for goodness sake!
I would love to sign up to a viable last minute alternative to Suez but there is no way on Earth that I am going to add my name to a list of names and numbers that is not even worth the paper it is written on.
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I`d suggest anyone should read this.
http://www.sortourwaste.co.uk
I think it explains Mr Brouard`s case well.
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Its a pity he didn’t do all this a year ago and then we might not be in the “mess” we now are …
Petitions never really tell you anything other than the number of people who have signed them.
Yes 10,000 may have signed, but 50,000 haven’t and we have no idea what they think.
If the petition had two columns ( I agree or I don’t agree ) then at least we would have a relative measure of public opinion, which would show something …. although it would still be statistically worthless and meaningless due to the entirely random and unverifiable sample group ….
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