News of YRAIN campaign to stop incineration

17th Jan 2008 - Incinerator application at Tockwith
It's starting. Plans for a filthy incinerator have been lodged with North Yorkshire County Council for the village of Tockwith in the Borough of Harrogate. See the excellent website of the Tockwith Residents' Association.
Please send your objections, quoting Planning Application NY/2007/0331/ENV, to:-
    David Johns  (email: david.johns@northyorks.gov.uk )
    North Yorkshire County Council, Northallerton    DL7 8AD

24th Oct 2007 - York's LibDems sign up to £1.4billion contract
Despite protests from environmentalists, York's ruling Lib Dem Council Executive has agreed to sign a contract with North Yorkshire County Council to spend £1.4billion on waste management over the next 25 years.

A PFI "mortgage" will mean up to 3% being added to York's Council Tax bills each year just to pay for the programme. Green Party councillors tried to get other opposition parties to call the decision in for further scrutiny but Labour and Conservatives were not interested.

YRAIN fears that the contract will probably deliver an incineration plant for North Yorkshire as the market will be reluctant to experiment with MBT, Pyrolysis, or Autoclaving. Cheaper and more environmentally friendly options such as mass composting and a Zero Waste policy have never been considered by the two Councils.

17th Oct 2007 - Government too close to incineration companies
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has accused the Government of being too cosy with incinerator operators at the expense of finding the best solutions for treating our waste. If only his Labour colleagues in York would be as stong at condemning incineration and the outrageous cost of PFI deals to pay for it. See full article in Recycling & Waste Management.

28th Jun 2007 - Bradford chooses autoclaving over incineration
Bradford Council has agreed to go ahead with a 5yr contract to process most of its waste using autoclaving technology. Less good was a second contract for 5,000 tonnes pa to be 'processed' by a nearby company operating a 'thermal treatment' plant with some spare capacity - probably the Kirklees incinerator.

12th Apr 2007 - Smoke 'em out
Campaigners erected a seven-foot tall model incinerator outside York's Mansion House to remind Councillors of the noxious effect of waste incineration. They said they planned to "smoke out" which Councillors still believe that burning refuse is an acceptable way to dispose of it. Press Release and photo.

27th Mar 2007 - Green Party tries to undermine PFI deal
York's Green Party called for the city to follow the example of Norwich's Greens who have secured a treatment plan that excludes energy from waste.

21st Sep 2006 - Nottingham rejects incinerator plan
Nottingham Council's Development Control Committee unanimously rejected WRG's application to expand the Eastcroft Incinerator. The push for incineration is coming from a "Labour" Government. Nottingham Council is Labour-controlled. If Nottingham can say "no" then why is Lib-Dem York and Tory-run North Yorkshire so keen to leap on Labour's incineration bandwagon?

12th Sep 2006 - York Council Executive backs incinerator plan
Despite our best efforts the outline business case was agreed by the Lib Dem Executive of the City of York Council. It's time to gear-up our campaign to stop the incinerator. A Council mouthpiece claimed, quite untruthfully, that YRAIN has not suggested any alternatives. Clearly they haven't listened to a single word we've said about Zero Waste or our support for the Yorwaste's composting proposal throughout our contact with them.

12th Sep 2006 - North Yorks' incinerator to cost £1.5bn
YRAIN today challenged the leaders of the City of York Council to justify spending £1.5 billion on its waste project, asking, how can this expense compare to an alternative strategy working towards ‘Zero Waste’.

York and North Yorkshire Councils’ strategy is fundamentally flawed because it does not compare the cost of its incinerator proposal with a Zero Waste option. They are running scared of a Zero Waste comparison and lose credibility for that.

The Councils’ report clumsily manoeuvres us into a position that there is only one main option for dealing with the residual waste, and that is incineration. This is deeply worrying, particularly when the report suggests that the toxic incinerator ash containing dioxins, furans and heavy metals might also be “recycled”. This would be a public health disaster as it was in Newcastle.

YRAIN’s objections to waste incineration include health issues and the impact it would have on recycling targets. We can’t recycle rubbish if it has been burned! However, new objections arise as the cost of incineration is found to be astronomical.

This amounts to an increase in Council Tax of 4.6% purely for Waste Management, which is just not tenable. The Councils’ project must be compared in cost against implementing a Zero Waste Strategy.

31st Aug 2006 - Scarborough joins anti-incinerator debate
Green Party councillor Jonathan Dixon is to seek assurances from the cabinet of Scarborough Borough Council that no rubbish incineration plant will be built in the Borough.

Dixon said, "There is a danger here that we could end up committing Scarborough to a lengthy contract of up to 25 years for the incineration of waste. Any plant built, which could be on our own doorstep, could have an adverse effect on the immediate environment. Once built, incinerators tie councils to supplying them with large amounts of waste that would be better recycled or composted. The monitoring regime for incinerators is inadequate: it's entirely based on self-reporting, and the range of measured pollutants is too narrow."

23rd Aug 2006 - Support for composting trial
YRAIN wrote to North Yorkshire County Council supporting Yorwaste's application to trial composting waste at Gateford Park Farm, Thorpe Willoughby.

The six week trial would compost 60 tonnes of household waste in the old mushroom-growing tunnels, providing total control over the temperature and humidity of the process. The composting occurs within tunnels within buildings. The ambient air from both buildings is extracted and forced through a biofilter. The exhaust air from all the biofilters is then also put through a scrubber before being released to the atmosphere.

YRAIN agrees that this is a trial which must be explored as it presents a hi-tech alternative to incineration or landfill.

See the PDF of Yorwaste's press release.

Sadly, North Yorkshire County Council did not have the vision to try this new opportunity and has stuck its head back in the sand.

3rd Jun 2006 - Free 'Big Recycle Day' and 'Junk Swap'
From 1-5pm at York Environment Centre in St Nicholas Fields.
• Junk Swap: Get rid of things you don’t need and pick up something you do need. Please do not give: electrical items; hazardous or toxic items; foam filled furniture without fire safety labels.
• Recycled art and fun for children: Transforming waste into nice and useful things; Professor Fiddlesticks juggling junk.
• Composting & Recycling Info Stall: About one third of household waste can be composted instead of landfilled. York Rotters can help you start. Composting and recycling equipment on sale, and displays and leaflets.

27th May 2006 - National Anti-Incinerator Conference
Thirty local anti-incinerator campaigns from across England and Wales, including YRAIN attended the conference in London, in a united expression of concerns about the poisonous impact of incinerator emissions on human health and the surrounding environment.

24th May 2006 - Steve Galloway N.I.M.B.Y.
York Council Leader, Steve Galloway, says that he is unable to rule out incineration as part of the waste strategy but he now states that there would be "no incinerator in York". YRAIN is encouraged that Galloway appears to see incineration as detrimental to the people of York, or is it just to his chances of being re-elected? Unlike Mr Galloway, YRAIN is against incineration technology and we don't want to see it foisted on some other part of North Yorkshire either.

23rd May 2006 - 'Talking Rubbish' strategy wasted 4 years
YRAIN condemns the failure of the North Yorkshire Waste Partnership to make a decision on the burning issue of waste disposal, despite four years' assessment which the Councils entitled, 'Talking Rubbish'. Ironic really. The Strategy has now been hurried through in order to avoid new regulations requiring Councils to conduct Environmental Impact Assessments, and without any guidance against incineration. YRAIN sees some improvement in that the Councils now agree to consult again after the botched job they did over Christmas. We say, "Talking 'less rubbish' might be an improvement, but we should aim to be talking no rubbish at all."

15th May 2006 - Yorwaste starts composting trial
Yorwaste which is the Local Authority Waste Disposal Company, owned by North Yorkshire County and City of York Councils, has begun a trial at Gateforth Park, Selby, to compost the organic fraction of household waste using the existing enclosed composting tunnels of the former mushroom farm. Residents of nearby Thorpe Willoughby are undestandably concerned but it will be interesting to see if problems can be overcome and the trial is a success.

3rd May 2006 - 'Green Incineration' claims misleading
Friends of the Earth hit out at major waste companies for claiming that incineration produces "green" and "renewable" energy, after new research shows that a standard British 'Energy from Waste' incinerator produces more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels (such as plastics in rubbish) than a gas-fired power station. See FoE report details.

8th Mar 2006 - Back to the drawing board
DEFRA has changed the rules for funding of waste strategies. The cash available from central government for waste management has been dramatically cut. The decision on the PFI scheme has been delayed now at least until June while the Councils try to work out exactly what they can afford.

8th Mar 2006 - YRAIN to challenge York's Executive
York Residents Against INcineration will speak to City of York Council leaders today to argue against the York & North Yorkshire Waste Strategy which proposes to build an incineration plant.