Waste and Incineration

We campaign to reduce the environmental damage of our throw-away culture. Recent minor successes include persuading Harrow Council to provide a No Junk Mail sticker for residents, and to improve the recycling information on their website.

We joined a demonstration on 2 March 2007 at the Royal Courts of Justice in support of the Mayor of London's stronger environmental controls on the disposal of waste.

West London Waste Authority were taking Ken Livingstone to court to assert their right to incinerate waste without using state of the art emission limiting equipment, removing recyclables or making use of the waste heat. They argued that these standards would unreasonably restrict their choices for avoiding landfill. But when incinerators operate at low standards, they can be worse than landfill.

Friends of the Earth opposes incineration of waste because it:

• encourages more waste
  Incinerators need a minimum of rubbish to operate. This demand conflicts with councils waste reduction and recycling efforts.

• generates energy inefficiently
  Incinerators that generate electricity produce more greenhouse gases than gas fired power stations - see Dirty Truths for more information.

• wastes energy
  Recycling saves far more energy than is generated by burning waste because it means making less new things from raw materials.

• causes pollution
  Smoke, gases and ash from incinerators can contain harmful dioxins which are a cause of cancer.

We can do more to reduce, re-use or recycle our waste. But what to do with what's left?

Any recyclable waste should be removed. Then we should compost or anaerobically digest the rest, and dispose of the remains via landfill.

Take Action

West London Waste Authority is planning to build new residual waste facilities in West London. Keep track of their meetings and plans on the Meetings Listings provided by Hounslow Council.

Ask Joan Ruddock to toughen up packaging recycling targets.