One of the Greatest Successes of Devolution

Carywn Does the Right Thing with the Dail Mail

Today, the Welsh Government published the latest recycling figures for Wales, showing that half of all our rubbish is now recycled. This is a remarkable turnaround from prior to devolution, when we were rightly labelled as one of the most wasteful nations in Europe-recycling just a few % of our waste. We are now ahead of England and have a very ambitious target to recycle 70%. These figures would not have been achieved without 'carrot and stick' funded targets from the Welsh Government and much credit should go to Jane Davidson; the former Minister responsible for this. In fairness to local Government, they have also played their part in reaching these recycling levels and it has been hugely encouraging how our communities have taken to heart, recycling.

However, the next stage to get from 50% to 70% is a challenging one and one that carries a lot of controversy. An example of this is Project Gwrydd in the South East, where several Councils have got together in order to try to deal with the residual waste that cannot be either recycled or composted. The process of dealing with the waste went out to tender without any technical preference, but all returned tenders involved forms of incineration. This has not gone down at all well with the green lobby, or several communities where the potential incinerator maybe sited.

I had experience of being lied to about incinerators, when involved several years ago campaigning against the one sited near Swansea. It was not hi-tech, breached EA pollution levels and eventually ended up as a white elephant, but not all options of waste disposal are the same. The Welsh solution is different to what is generally found in England, because the waste is different. Certain 'greener' solutions involve making use of organic waste in the process yet in Wales, organic waste is composted and so this would not be part of the mix. On other words, the process chosen by Project Gwrydd has to suit the waste mix that is produced by the constituent Councils, or it will simply not work. With this in mind, the Councils cannot commit to a technology that has not been shown to work with this mix of waste, as they would then be taking the risk of spending hundreds of millions on a contract that cannot deliver.

I sincerely hope that one of the few technologies that falls outside the label of 'incineration' does indeed meet all the criteria but if it does not, then some modern form of incineration is with respect, a better option than landfill; particularly if the ash can be converted to a relatively inert base construction material. This is not the perfect solution, but we cannot keep filling our landfill sites in the hope of a Utopian solution that does not exist. As an engineer who has worked for many years on a very well managed landfill site, believe me when I tell you that it is a form of disposal that is well past its sell-by date.