Incineration will never compete with the outstanding results from serious recycling

From Chris Whitworth

IN answer to the recent letter from Matt McNulty (JEP, 2 February), the emissions from the new plant will be totally safe for both the environment and public health.

At least this was the message constantly repeated by our civil servants, along with former Transport Minister Guy de Faye, at the many public meetings I attended at the Ommaroo Hotel.

We were frequently informed that should even the tiniest particle of pollution escape from the shared JEC chimney, the surrounding multi-million-pound state-of-the-art monitoring devices would instantly shut down the incinerator plant.

Unfortunately, it now appears that due to the massive and unaccountable overspend on this construction, the safety monitoring equipment may have to be drastically scaled down.

However, as it is in everybody’s interests, including the innocent inhabitants of the neighbouring Ramsar site, for at least some type of monitoring sensors to be installed, I expect that these devices will shut down the Incinerator each and every time the JEC starts a local generator.

As the emissions from the JEC equipment has on occasion caused damage to nearby boats and parked cars, I assume that the frequent discharges, regularly seen against the evening sky, are not conducive to our well-being.

It is now blatantly obvious that Jersey was hoodwinked into buying an incinerator far too big for our needs and that this plant will need to burn vast quantities of oil just to keep the temperatures high enough to work efficiently, and even more importantly to prevent the release of harmful dioxins into the atmosphere.

Intriguingly, Andy Hall, the chief executive of the Garenne Group, whose firm Cameron’s are building it, is urging Guernsey States to consider shipping their waste to Jersey. He was recently reported as declaring how he favoured this option rather than building the Suez plant which he says is environmentally unfriendly as a process, far too expensive and will be a huge, ugly building partly destroying the north-eastern coastline.

Coincidentally, when I suggested that Jersey adopts the much cheaper option of shipping waste to France or the UK at one of these public meetings, I was abruptly told that it breaks all sorts of European conventions to just ship waste around, and that even if a way could be found to comply with these regulations, it would involve removing all toxic / banned substances from the shipment.

Thankfully, the thought of accepting Guernsey rubbish looks like a non-starter, so it would seem sensible to suggest that rather than looking to burn even more waste than we produce ourselves, we should be looking to limit the use of this plant, firing it up only when the ample storage pits are full enough for it to be viable to operate.

This would also allow for increased recycling of the profitable materials which this type of plant needs to burn if it is to operate efficiently over long periods.

Unfortunately, the huge eyesore growing on the edge of Jersey’s most environmentally sensitive and internationally recognised wetland area is here to stay. It is therefore crucial that this plant must never pollute the area, and monitoring the environment must be a priority.

In fact, it’s not too late for some good to come out of this. The removal of the La Collette chimney, with the JEC then sharing a more modern incinerator chimney to filter out any harmful emissions, would be an agreeable swap for most Islanders, I believe.

Finally, the burning of rubbish will always release carbon into the atmosphere, and for this very reason incineration will never compete with the outstanding results achieved from serious recycling.