Incineration is a burning issue!

Just when we are all doing our best to cut green house gases and air pollution, our Councils are planning to truck hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste from all over the North East and burn it in a new monster incinerator.

We call on the Council Leaders from these authorities to cancel the planned build of the Tees Valley, Durham County and Newcastle incinerator at Redcar. We call on the Council Leaders to put our health and planet first and produce a Regional Waste Strategy designed around the need to transition to a circular economy.

What is being proposed?

Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough Councils are working together to build an incinerator to burn 450,000 tonnes of their waste each year. The incinerator is planned to be constructed in Wilton, Redcar at a cost of around £2.1 Billion (and rising) – there is a funding gap for all councils.

Your council will try to rebrand it as an “Energy Recovery Facility”. This is done to hide the fact that it is less efficient than, and as carbon-intensive as, a coal-fired powered station, and we’re rightly closing these down! Thousands of tonnes of recyclable resources, even food waste, would be burned.

What are the Impacts?

Stop Incineration in the North East (SINE) is shocked that such an old fashioned way of dealing with waste is even being considered. At a time of unprecedented threat to local air quality and the global climate, our Councils are pushing a scheme that will:

• Pollute the local area, releasing deadly dioxins into the air, water and soil, plus furans, cadmium, and other particulates.
• Concentrate all waste management vehicles in the region into one location creating traffic chaos and increasing air pollution
• Emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that will contribute to climate breakdown. We don't yet have the technology to capture this carbon dioxide. Waste incineration in 2019 “gave rise to 13% of greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation, even though it produced only 2.4% of the UK’s electricity”. (Koppelaar, Guardian, 16.11.20)
• Emit tiny particles of carbon into the atmosphere that lodge deep in lung tissue
• Emit NOx and SOx into the atmosphere that also cause lung damage and asthma
• Create a market for waste, incentivising waste production. This will drive down the value of recycled materials and act to reduce overall levels of recycling (as resources in waste can be burned instead)
• Cost councils £millions more than they currently spend on waste management. The money will have to be found from somewhere.
• Incineration Tax may be applied by the government, and is likely in such a long contract, but isn’t taken into account.

The local health impacts created by incinerators are much worse for people on lower incomes as the facilities are normally sited in areas with high levels of deprivation - as is the case with the Redcar facility.

Though modern incinerators are equipped with technology that reduces dioxin levels, they are not completely removed. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer.

What stage are the plans at?

This climate-killing project quietly slipped through the early stages of planning unnoticed. It was granted Outline Planning Approval in 2010 through a delegated decision made by officers without public consultation and little scrutiny of any kind.

Right now, three contractors are bidding to win a Council Contract to build and operate the facility for a period of 45 years, and the winner will be announced in November 2021. Construction is timed to start in December 2021.

What should be done instead?

Once the incinerator is built your council will be locked into a 45 year contract, forcing us to keep paying, year after year, for the incinerator to pollute. In the future, any council that does the right thing and helps people and businesses cut their waste will face financial penalties. That’s just plain wrong!

Stop Incineration North East supports positive ways forward to manage our waste in a safe and sustainable way.

Food waste - There is a government requirement that food waste be collected separately from 2023/4, and anaerobic digestors with methane harnessed for energy already exist within the region; more can be built on a local, modular basis. A fraction of the cost could set up repair and re-use arcades in central locations. Recycling is going down in the NE, partly driven by the market for waste created by incinerators, but we can instead improve household recycling.

Reduce packaging - Everyone has a job to do in cutting out unnecessary packaging, manufacturers, retailers and us, the consumers. The problem is that burning waste lets manufacturers and retailers off the hook, leaving us to pick up the bill.

Repair and reuse - Products are often too hard to reuse or repair. We need products that are designed to be opened and fixed. What’s more, repair shops and spare parts should be zero VAT rated.

Recycle - Only when something can’t be reused or repurposed should waste then move on to be recycled. This monster incinerator will burn through our plans for a more sustainable and safe future for the North East.

We call on the Council Leaders from these authorities to cancel the planned build of the Tees Valley, Durham County and Newcastle incinerator at Redcar. We call on the Council Leaders to put our health and planet first and produce a Regional Waste Strategy designed around the need to transition to a circular economy.

SINE is a group of organisations working together to stop the incinerator.  This petition has been launched by the North East Green Party on behalf of SINE, and is in no way controlled by the Green Party.