Waste strategy update is welcomed but the douzaines want details
Monday 18th March 2013, 4:00PM GMT.
DOUZAINES appreciated a government update on the waste strategy but will wait anxiously for more detail about its costs, officials have said.
Public Services warned that a kerbside recycling scheme, scheduled to be rolled out island-wide by 2015, could see the average household waste collection bill nearly double from £100 to £190 at its presentation to parishes this week.
St Martin’s junior constable Gerry Tattersall, pictured, whose parish will join St Peter Port and St Sampson’s in seeing an initial trial of the scheme next year, said his douzaine was split on kerbside recycling.
St Peter Port constable Dennis Le Moignan said the meeting had been positive.
Torteval vice-dean Andrew Sauvarin said it was difficult to have a view on kerbside recycling without knowing the detail.
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I simply cannot understand why kerbside recycling is even being discussed. Far too expensive, a perfect opportunity for more litter in our streets and with all the currently available recycling sites Island wide totally un-nessessary
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phht! Judith
We assume that you are able to drive your tin box to do it
Unlike many
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If the Deputies in the last States would have had a back bone, we would have been building the incinerator by now and could have looked forward to generating some electricity from our waste. Would that not have been recycling? Instead we have the nonsense of kerbside recycling being planned. Like everything eco its much more expensive and will add even more to our stretched house hold bills. Get a grip and build the Incinerator.
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Yep. Makes sense to have two oversized incinerators within 25 miles of each other scrambling around for stuff to keep them going
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But why does it have to be oversized Ray?…why not build to our needs?
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markB
Because the most expensive part of the plant are the scrubbers in the flue that remove as much of the pollution that is possible to remove. The cost of them make it only viable on plants over a certain size and that size is bigger than we need.
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Waste management begins in the home by choices individuals make on what they buy.
Burning it is an approach to take when not taking responsibility for the waste generated.
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Exactly.
We produce just one black bag of rubbish a week in our house, and even that isn’t full most of the time. Vegetable waste gets composted and most packaging recycled. The only thing that makes it into the bin is food waste (generally minimal if you plan what to do with leftovers!) and the odd bit of non-recycleable packaging.
Burning rubbish is definitely not the answer to our waste management problems.
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They did show they have back bone by throwing it out. Opinions differ it seems
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…your comment,totaly spot on!!!! not only
no back bone,but all talk ,and no courage of their convictions,as per usual.For heavens sake,if a tiny place like Gibraltar can get an incinerator up and running,then so should this island….shamefull.And to send,or not to send,waste to Jersey??? it’s still being talked about,and will be, until the cows come home!.And because no one in Government ,has the back bone to make decisions, for the well being of our island,we allways end up with a “mish mash”of amateure planning,and money down the drain.
Cast your minds,back,when the “suez” waste idea finaly collapsed,costing this island an obscene amount of wasted money..Now i reveal what happened back in 2010.Returning from St Malo,as an excersise,i visited a huge waste plant in the industrial zone of the harbour to chat with the boss (I speak French).I explained to him that our island still couldn’t get it’s act together over waste disposal,and the the days were numbered for land disposal.What he said next,took me by surprise.He told me, infront of a witness,that he and his collegues would,at their expense be prepared to visit Guernsey,and meet “Les Chef du Governement” to discuss the possibilities of shiping all of the Islands waste(including vehicles) out of the Island to France.Once in St Malo,the
waste would be broken down and sent to diferent places,including Spain.
They asked me,on my return to Guernsey if I could organise a Hotel for their visit,”Biensur” i said.They wanted to “recky” the island to see the best way to organise the waste collection,for regular shipments,and talk with island authorities.
I told them that i was no “waste” expert,but would talk to someone,in the relevant office who was supposed to be,and try to set up the first meeting.
In short?… i called back the St Malo company,to regretfully inform them,that the Island was not interested to be involved with such a proposal,their surprise was evident.
Where are we now? still in a “mish mash”!
Scandinavia and Germany etc, have been producing energy from waste for years, and in Norway all waste wood is incinerated,to produce heat and hot water ,for such places as Hospitals and Government buildings.
It says it all doesn’t it, about our island’s “back bone”,when one of the major concerns is ? about the glass collection making a noise !! Mon Dieu,en va pas avancer comme ca…
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Good Post Charlie G
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Apparently there is absolutely nothing requiring debate on the April Assembly agenda .. just half a dozen or so more pieces of legislation to be rubber stamped
Since they’re all there suited and booted with nothing to do they could use the time to discuss
Incineration..AGAIN
Paid parking..AGAIN
Banning the term ‘confidential agreement’ from all future States business
Reducing the use of outside consultants
Island wide voting .. (Turkeys / Christmas)
A reduction in Deputy numbers ..(Turkeys / Christmas)
A reduction in over manned civil service posts (allegedly).. (Turkeys / Christmas)
Reducing all departments budgets by enough to fill the black hole ..(Turkeys / Christmas)
A collection for the retiring Press Editor
and who knows what else after lunch?
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Charlie G.
Scandinavia is having to import waste from other countries to feed their hungry incinerators (800,000 tonnes last year). Jersey is also in need of additional waste for theirs so they will either have to import or increase the amount of waste they generate….. Are those scenarios what you would have liked for Guernsey?
The amount of energy we would have made with Suez would have only been about 4% of what we need. Not even enough to keep pace with our rising energy demands.
Burning waste wood to generate heat, hot water and energy, I think is much more efficient but that was never part of the plan for Guernsey.
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Thanks for comment,Rosie…due to my work,and family connections there ,I can safely say that Norway has no need of other countries waste to keep up with energy demands from it’s Hospitals etc.As you may know,the electricity in Norway is produced by turbines,turned by all year round melting snow,care of the mountains.They export Electricity to,Sweden (peak demands),and also to Danmark,via undersea cable (peak demands),and plans are now on the table to export electricity(Undersea cable) to the UK.Norway’s total population is only five million.
The protest against the proposed island incinerator,was all very fine,but how many of those “protestors” have since come up with a positive solution, to deal with things?(even protestors produce waste). You have read in my “posting”,of my efforts,(at no massive cost to me),and approached a St Malo waste company with an idea,and the opportunity for Guernsey to enter into discussions,with possibilities of exporting waste to France. In usual island fashion,the idea was snubbed.I agree,not all scenarios are good for Guernsey.Sooner or later, the “talk talk talk” will have to stop, someone,somewhere,somehow, with strong enough “back bone” will have to grab the “BULL” by the horns, put up with the protests, and make a decision,for a professional method of disposal,of Guernsey’s waste(in all it’s forms).
Mish Mash,amateure approaches to problems,cost time,and obscene quantities of wasted tax payers finances,and a lot of running about in circles.Time is running out Guernsey,stop worrying about the “sound of glass”,and listen to the “sound of music”,from islanders singing out, for positive solutions!
CHANT plus fort!
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Charlie G.
It is not just energy that Norway is exporting to Sweden. They are the country that last year exported 800,000 tonnes of waste there to feed Sweden’s incinerators.
I was one of the protestors that campaigned against the incinerator and we most definitely did come up with alternative solutions all based on the idea of ensuring declining residual waste tonnages. The change in attitude that needs to happen is that we have to stop thinking of ever more ingenious ways to destroy, or get rid of materials as a way of dealing with waste. Waste is just exactly that…. a ‘waste’ and the world cannot afford to continue to squander resources while there is a growing world population all aspiring to the consumer lifestyles that we enjoy. Consequently,there is a market for recovered materials and that is what we need to tap into to get rid of materials we no longer need rather than destroying them. And since dealing with the ‘residual’ part of waste (the bit left over after recycling) is the most expensive part, it stands to reason that we should do everything we can to reduce that part of it.
If your approach to the french waste disposal company happened after Suez was thrown out (sorry… I have forgotten the exact timeline of events!) I suspect that they didn’t look at it because they were determined to go down the ‘consultation’ route. Having got it wrong 3 times, they wanted to make sure that the next plan had buy in from the community. They also had other businesses offering ‘magical’ waste disposal methods so it would have been wrong for them to choose one over the other without first deciding what it was the community wanted.
I am as frustrated as anyone with the glacial pace of getting the strategy up and running. Because it is such a big change in the way we are going to deal with and think about waste, the department ( I think) is being incredibly cautious about how to go about various aspect of it. Also, I gather there are legislation changes needed which apparently take at least 2 years tho’ why those haven’t been put into action by now, I haven’t a clue!
Plus ca change…….
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Rosie, you say “since dealing with the ‘residual’ part of waste (the bit left over after recycling) is the most expensive part, it stands to reason that we should do everything we can to reduce that part of it” but a waste strategy has two components not one, collection and treatment. It may be cheaper to recycle some (but not all) waste categories than to incinerate them but that financial gain is nullified if the additional cost of collection exceeds any savings made by recycling.
The PSD’s current estimate is that a kerbside collection of recyclables will cost £1.8 million pa. Even taking into account savings made on reduced bring-bank provision there is no way that £1.8 million could be offset by any savings made recycling an additional 5,300 tonnes pa of domestic waste, once the 70% recycling rate target has been met. It may be because the figures do not add up that the PSD is now proposing to include small businesses on the collection round.
Some are now saying there is an over capacity in the European incineration market. In that case prices will be driven down, the savings from recycling reduced further and it will be harder to make the business case for kerbside collections.
If islanders favour increasing the recycling rate from 50% to 70% for reasons other than financial ones that is fine even laudable and that stance can become part of the equation. However there has simply not been enough clarity regarding costs. The parishes are not pre-judging the outcome but I am sure they will continue to press for the full business case to be made public.
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Hi Shane,
The £1.8m is for an island wide interim scheme and includes collection and treatment. It also does not allow for the significant saving that would be made from integrating it with a residual collection.
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Yvonne
That hardly tallies with the PSD presentation slide ‘Kerbside – Funding from 2016’ which said; Collection cost estimate – £2.1m to £2.4m or your consultants estimate, twelve months ago, of £1.685m pa for a weekly kerbside collection. However until the full business case is published, as surely it must be, the figures the PSD puts out will always be ambiguous.
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IWV
With a short April states meeting maybe our deputies could visit businesses to encourage taking on more local labour with insentives of getting people back into employment.
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Went to the green tip this morning.Someone at Environment had better change the batteries in their calculators if they think the rubbish tip will last more than two or three more years
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IWV
I believe the tip level is going to a height of 25m above road level and landscaped to blend in with the surrounding quarry.
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“Waste Srategy” Tell me how long have they been talking about this? it must be circa 16-18 years now!
For crying out loud, just get on and do SOMETHING.
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