Monday, May 07, 2007

WARWICKSHIRE WASTE STRATEGY

..appears contravened by imports of London's waste?WCC and RBC have to:
..consider these things before they can cart London's commercial and household waste up the M1 in masses of extra HGVs, in order to to burn the Refuse Derived Fuel, branded as "CLIMAFUEL", in Rugby's smokeless zone.

This is from the WCC Waste Strategy:
" The principles of proximity and regional self-sufficiency have been important considerations in developing the scenarios described below. The PROXIMITY PRINCIPLE requires that waste be managed as near as possible to its origin. This principle recognises the desire to avoid passing financial and ENVIRONMENTAL costs onto communities not responsible for waste generated, whilst reducing the impact of transportation.

In order to adhere to the principles of self-sufficiency and proximity the scenarios for the BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option) assessment have been developed to consider ONLY the municipal waste arising for which Warwickshire is responsible. Any consideration of synergies with plans policies in NEIGHBOURING authorities may be undertaken ONLY after determining the BPEO for Warwickshire alone."

Assessment Methodology:
"The assessment methodology incorporates environmental, economic and planning criteria and follows the step-wise approach suggested in the UK Waste Strategy 2000 (WS2000) which states: 'Decisions on waste management including decisions on suitable sites and installations for treatment and disposal should be based on a LOCAL assessment of the Best Practicable Environmental Option.'

The BPEO concept was defined in the 12th Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution as: 'the outcome of a systematic and consultative decision making procedure which emphasises the protection and conservation of the environment across land, air and water. The BPEO procedure establishes, for a given set of objectives, the option that provides the most benefits or the least damage to the environment as a whole, at acceptable cost, in the long term and the short term'

The BPEO concept incorporates two further principles that need to be taken into account when making waste management decisions:

# the waste hierarchy.
# the proximity principle.


Other issues:

Traffic flow is an important factor.

Can anyone please explain how the import of London's household and commercial waste fits in with the Warwickshire Waste Strategy?

How does the BPEO apply to it?

How does the Proximity Principle apply?

Not to mention all those extra thousands of lorry miles?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is this what they call "PARTNERSHIP WORKING" - where the County Council sits in the pocket of the cement company, or should that be "helps itself to the pocket" of the cement company?

It seems from what I can gather in recent reports in teh press that WCC and Rugby Cement have been working jointly in order to prevent the Western Relief Road from being built. Now that they have managed to get the cost quadrupled the whole road is "passed its sell-by date" and should be re-planned and re-routed. Clearly it will not solve the serious traffic and air quality problems that WCC has created, (helped by the hapless Rugby Borough Council and Rugby Cement), and now it is over budget and over capacity - and they will merely build one huge polluting trafic jam to rival the M25 - all to the disadvantage Rugby people, their air quality and health.

Do we hear three cheers for WCC; RBC; and Rugby Cemnet - the three stooges?