SAFE WASTE IN SHROPSHIRE
Shropshire Waste Partnership (Shropshire County Councils apart from SABC ) have awarded a 27 year contract for household waste collection and disposal to Veolia. The contract puts great emphasis on recycling and composting, and Shrewsbury FoE have no argument with this. We do believe, however that the targets for recyling could be much higher. They state that they will aim for at least 50%, we think it could easily be more.
In addition, the current climate of opinion is changing, with Tesco promising to reduce their own packaging by 25%, all supermarkets saying they will reduce the distribution of plastic bags (although this does not seem to have got through to the check-out staff), and the packaging industry reporting a 14% reduction this year.
Incineration
(Information
from Friends of the Earth website)
The combustion of waste at high
temperatures:
· Encourages more waste
Incinerators need a minimum of
rubbish to operate. To meet demand, local authorities are abandoning recycling
and waste reduction plans.
·
Generates
energy inefficiently
Incinerators that generate electricity produce more greenhouse gases than gas
fired power stations
·
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. They also contain heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium.
European laws are forcing the Government
to send less waste to landfill and the landfill tax is rising to deter businesses
and local authorities from landfilling waste which could be recycled.
The money raised from landfill tax should
be used to get our recycling and composting rate up as high as other parts of
Europe, such as Flanders in Belgium
which recycles over 70% of household waste.
CONTACT SAFE WASTE IN SHROPSHIRE:
Telephone: Mirian Walton (secretary) on 01743 243167
Write to: 1, Queen Street, Castlefields, SHREWSBURY
SY1 2JP
email: safe_waste_shropshire@yahoo.com
website: www.safewasteshropshire.co.uk
Links for more information:
www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/waste/index.html
www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/incineration
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