Is £93.5m waste plant too small?
Wednesday 27th January 2010, 2:30PM GMT.
Scale model of the proposed incinerator at Longue Hougue.
PUBLIC SERVICES is today under pressure to explain how it will meet a crucial 50% recycling target.
It refused yesterday to take Guernsey Press questions about how it would meet the objective although only this week its deputy chief officer, Colette Brown, warned that the planned waste plant would be too small if the target was missed.
The department’s minister, Bernard Flouquet, will however today face questions in the States from former Environment minister David De Lisle.
He was behind setting the 50% target that is meant to be reached by the end of this year.
It is unclear at this stage how Public Services intends to boost recycling from its current published rate of 33.8%, excluding green waste, or whether it will delay the date by which the target needs to be hit.
Deputy De Lisle fears that the goal has been missed.
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Hmmm let me think – how could you boost recycling to 50% or more. How about an islandwide kerbside recycling scheme to make it easier for all islanders to recycle rather than load it all in their cars (or on the bus)to take it to their nearest recycling point…
Come on States – you either want us to recycle or you dont. The current scheme is rubbish (excuse the pun) and desperately needs an overhaul..
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I may have missed something but exactly how are the recycling figures measured?
They have come up with a current figure of 33.8%. Is that merely the amount that tipping at Mont Cuet has reduced from this time last year or some other fixed date? Will the burning ban at St Andrews affect this figure?
Do these calculations take into account the rather long winded Police investigation into alleged fraud at the tip? Could there not be a multitude of reasons why a family or a shop or even a building firm may have less rubbish to dump at present?
It all seems a bit airy fairy to me
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Call me cynical but it strikes me as rather odd that this information should come out a few days after the news of the trail scheme being championed by Rodney Brouard and his supporters.
Surely the large sums of public money spent on the planning and indeed the requirement for this waste option can not have been this wrong, can it ?
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Let’s not hope to stop this monster, we all have to throw away all our recyclable materials.
Be much easier to say to Suez we don’t want it, but states members will never admit defeat.
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Business Bloke.
Think abou it, Jersey had the same advice.
Turns out their plant can burn all the CIs waste with room to spare. If you shop around for consultants to say whatever you want to hear, eventually it will come back to bite you.
Rubbish in, rubbish out. excuse the pun.
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Metro Vancouver and leading organisations where we live here in Canada have a recycling target of 70% by 2015, ok the figures are calculated a litte different, but it shows the difference in attitude. Oh well another yawn……………..
The lifestyle on the island is anything but sustainable,
Waste has always been identified as a technical issue, jurisdications that are making progress (some of them now for well over 10 years) realise that the technical component of wastes management is fairly small (although vitally important of course), but all and more than the following items also need to be considered
Policy development
University Fiscal/finanacial and
Procurement Policy
Data Management
Technology
Research and Development
Access to recyclable markets
Stakeholder engagement and ownership
Communications and Marketing
Education and Awareness Raising
Planning and Operations
Decision support tools
Management and Continual Improvement
and for Guernsey there are so many other issues such as accessibility to markets (mentioned above), transport, legislative difficulties relating to transfer
hazardous and clinical wastes management
etc etc etc
Anyway I have had my say for now……
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Why oh why can we not adopt MANDATORY RECYCLING. This together with improved recycling facilities would easily achieve our 50%. Kerbside is an attractive idea but wake up – we can’t afford it and unless some people are forced to recycle, they will never do it.
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Andre,
I think Parkinson already tried suggesting that one ….. abolish / reduce pairish refuse rates but charge per bag…. e.g. you buy a guernsey black sack for £1 everytime you want to dump rubbish.
Big incentive to recycle … nice carrot to those that currently don’t and a reward for those that already do. (Polluter pays policy)
BF on the other hand prefers the ‘stick’ approach …. If you dont recycle its going to cost you even more because then we’ll need phase 2 !!
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£93 million just for the plant?!!!
So how much does it cost to dig a hole in the ground and fill with refuse?
So how did the States get to £93m as a best cost option?
Your money going to total waste.
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JohnnyB,
Cost was not a factor until the last 3 on the shortlist as I understand – it certainly was not a factor in the tender advert. “What’s the budget?” “Oh there isn’t one – the suckers on the island will pay whatever it costs in their rates”
However you are barking if you really think we can continue to stuff it all into the ground.
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There was an advert in Tuesday’s Press for the Cotils meeting re the second alternative to Suez. It gave a time but no date. I wonder how many people turned up on Tuesday ?
Radio Guernsey said it was happening on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s Press article on the forthcoming meeting again said it was on Tuesday ( i.e. already done and dusted )
Is there some deliberate sabotage going on here?
We all know the Editor supports Suez but a little bit of fairness wouldn’t go amiss
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islander,
You are correct about not being able to continue landfilling. However to burn reusable materials is just as wrong. Just because it is easier to burn than to recycle does not mean its right.
Even it it was the right system, why should we pay twice the going rate for an incinerator of this size?
Something stinks.
Bernie has a lot of answers to give. Trouble is some Deputies are only just starting to ask the questions. It could be to late.
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