PSD reveals waste strategy options
Friday 24th June 2011, 2:29PM BST.
A scale model of the previously proposed incinerator at Longue Hougue.
INCINERATION is still among the options being considered as a way to manage the island’s waste.
After a series of public consultations and work behind the scenes, the Public Services Department has come up with four scenarios.
These all include high levels of recycling of up to 70%, but each has different options for final treatment.
Three of the scenarios could include some form of incineration or heat treatment, on or off island, but PSD says it is unlikely that it will consider a waste plant similar to the one thrown out by the States.
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If this is what they have been working on for such a long time, what the hell have they been doing? What a waste of time and money – it amounts to nothing!
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I would like to think this was in at least one of the options. It is the way forward and the technology is being installed around the UK and has been proven elsewhere.
http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2011/06/22/experts-outline-food-waste-treatment-plan/
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DON’T THEY BLOODY LEARN!
This is ridiculous, the public do not want an incinerator! The idea of one has been thrown out twice now! Don’t waste any more of out tax payer’s money deciding on using a company and then withdrawing, as you always seem to include in the contracts that you’ll pay them a few million.
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PLAN A MASS BURN
PLAN B MASS BURN
PLAN C MASS BURN
I COULD LAY BETS ON THE OUTCOME
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What on earth are we paying our deputies for? I’ll tell you. To sit around debating and stretching it all out to keep themselves in allowances and a fat pension. How hard is it to come up with a waste strategy. Start with kerbside recycling. I know people who won’t recycle because they have nothing to store it all in and don’t want it lying around. 3
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Although it was like getting blood out of a stone, PSD admitted under questioning at the last workshop that their ‘micro’ incinerator would be 25,000 tonnes. Suez was 37,000 tonnes and Scott Ogier described it as ‘half the size’ on the radio so somebody’s maths needs checking.
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An incinerator was essential, it is only the brainless eco-fascists who stopped it [and they are uneducated as well]. Ignorance beats common sense.
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Guernsey had its own incinerator for many years until someone came up with the idea of filling in the, now filled, stone quarries with rubbish. You are now at the end of the line and the only sensible answer is to get another incinerator. The waste can be used to reclaim land as has, and is, being done elsewhere. Stop listening to the numb nuts and get on with it – it won’t get any cheaper in the future!
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Mr G
Actually, we do not know whether the public want an incinerator or not. We do know that a sizeable proportion of the public did not want the type (or size) or incinerator that was previously proposed.
A smaller, more suitable incinerator would probably have significant public backing (in my view) as a viable way to deal with our waste problem.
Either way, it is hardly surprising that incineration is one of the options still being considered as it would be stupid to ignore it. If nothing else, it allows other options to be compared against it.
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If it has to be burnt then common sense says fill the Jersey one.
These things create more toxins if they are not running at full pelt and heat in the chimney.
Jersey is not running at enough capacity. It should therefore be fed with Guernsey rubbish to help it run better and let out less poisinous toxins.
Seems daft to keep pushing a third one through when there is one only a few miles away hungry for rubbish.
Burning is not the future so we should not be building a new one but use the one that has spare capacity whilst we are still looking to burn our waste problems away.
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If incineration, which for all its ills is at least a reasonably sustainable option, had been left out one could accuse PSD not carefully looking at all options. God knows they’ve probably done that anyway ….
Nearly all the arguments against incineration apply just as much to the one in Jersey as to any propsed here, so that really is a non option if you are a die hard anti-incinerationista …..
In an ideal world there shouldn’t and wouldn’t be enough waste generated on this island to need a large inceinerator anyway – but as I am sure most of you are aware Guernsey can barely be said to be in the real world at the best of times, let alone an ideal one.
Build an incinerator if we have to, but make it far far too small to cope with current demand – that way PSD can’t sit on their arses thinking the problem is solved, but will still have to work hard on waste minimisation. IF, or dare I be optomistic enough to say WHEN we produce too little rubbish to make it worthwhile I will happily join in with the rest of you at the decomissioning party !!
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Toby: “Build an incinerator if we have to, but make it far far too small to cope with current demand – that way PSD can’t sit on their arses thinking the problem is solved, but will still have to work hard on waste minimisation.”
I think that you have it absolutely there. The main trouble with incineration is that they need to be fed, preferably with the amount that keeps them at there optimum operation. They therefore provide no incentives to drive waste tonnages below that figure. If you have to have incineration, it needs to be of a size that requires continued focus at the front of the waste stream to reduce the amount of residual waste. 25,000 tonnes won’t do that.
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Feed the Jersey incinerator with a well negotiated deal so they operate at maximum capacity. The PSD figures for shipping to Jersey are way out of whack and need to be explained in detail. God knows what gate fee figures they are working on. Any ideas?
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Milton,
On another release by the press I offered a bet that an incinerator had already been decided on months ago by deputy Flouquet and his minions and it looks like I am right.
All this Bull**** about consultation with the public and more knowledgeable people is just that, Bull****. Just think of the extra hours they can claim expenses for over the last months.
Be prepared for the inevitable press release that one of the choices has been chosen and it WILL include an incinerator and will cost over £60,000,000, or even more, due to the delays in making the right decision.
Oh, and would anyone like to bet that the scheme chosen doesn`t include sewage treatment which is going to have to have more consultation meetings probably over the next two years?
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I feel that Jersey’s gate fees will be getting cheaoper by the week, if the continue to not be able to feed it, which would be exactkly the same position we would be in had we built one.
2 islands a few miles apart both with vast incinerators! Madness.
Either we do as Toby says and build a smaller one, or we take a punt on the Rodney Brouard “autoclave” or the food waste one mentioned above by Guerney abroad, as I understand it, both of those proposals are i beleive backed financially already so no public outlay.
If they dont tick boxes which as we all know is all that PSD are capable of doing, then at some point somebody has to step outside the box. I was hoping SO would be that man, but I’m getting Flouquet flashbacks atm.
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I’m no expert on Jersey’s political and economic situation or their projections for their incinerator’s spare capacity, but two things make me think that the cost PSD has quoted us (£10m-£12m a year) is inaccurate.
The first point is that they’ve costed this before in 2009, when PSD’s financial director came to the conclusion that it would cost £4.5m (including gate fee, baling and transport to Jersey) to send 30,000 tonnes there a year. 30,000t is quite a lot more than what we’d actually send there under the new plans, so even if the gate fee and baling/transport costs were more than the 2009 projections you’d still expect the total cost to be in the same ballpark. We can’t fairly compare this option to the others until we know the baseline costs (applicable to all options) involved – and for some inexplicable reason PSD aren’t saying what these are – but given what we do know it’s difficult to see how building and running a 25,000t incinerator on-island would be several million pounds a year cheaper than baling our minimised residual waste and shipping it to Jersey.
The second point that makes me doubt PSD’s current cost projection for the Jersey option is that I was under the impression that Alderney is seriously considering sending its waste there. If that’s the case (and I’m not certain on this point – can anyone clarify?) then clearly the baling, transport and gate fee costs can’t be that prohibitive.
Like everyone else I’ve got no idea what negotiations have already taken place between our politicians and Jersey’s, but I’m pretty confident that Jersey has a) an oversized incinerator that does not currently run at optimal efficiency, and b) a budget deficit that is crying out for any extra income with which to pad island’s coffers. I would have thought, therefore, that between them they would be able to thrash out a deal that would be mutually beneficial.
PSD have made a big song and dance about the “transparency” of this consultation process, and yet the figures we’re being spoon-fed are entirely opaque. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt but there’s just too much room for doubt, and I can’t help feeling there are certain things that they’d rather we didn’t know.
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I dont think anyone has raised objections to having one painted Green with Date Palms planted in front.
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Helen, you are generously letting PSD off the hook by saying there is an inexplicable reason why they are not answering some extremely straightforward questions. In this age of supposed dumbing-down, maybe they might find a multi-option question a little easier?
Q. Why will you not tell us the breakdown of your assumed costs for shipping to Jersey?
(a) We did not actually do any calculations.
(b) We did calculations but they are so fanciful that we’d rather not share them
(c) We actually don’t want to send waste to Jersey because it would mean that we could not buy an incinerator from those nice French people.
Answers on a blog post, please.
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I spent Friday night in Jersey as guests of people I had not met before…. (a former member of Jersey States). I tentatively asked them what their opinion of their incinerator was to which their answer was “Well now the things built, (indicating that they would rather it hadn’t been built in the first place) it might as well be a revenue earner. There is spare capacity so we are hoping that Guernsey will be sending us some of their waste.”
It is hard to believe that while Jersey has a financial deficit and an under-utelised plant, and Guernsey needs a home for its residual waste, our politicians are still unable to come up with an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial for both islands.
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