• It will cost £220 million, whereas other methods are much less expensive

 

• Herts CC will have to pay for a 25-year contract, which will prevent high recycling and composting as the incinerator needs plastics, paper, and organic matter to burn.

 

• Emissions from incinerators are harmful to health

 

• Incinerators create CO2, contributing to global warming, whereas recycling and composting reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 

• Resources are wasted if materials such as plastics are burned instead of being recycled

 

• Centralising waste-treatment on one large site causes a huge impact on one area, especially through traffic pollution

 

• There are good alternatives to incineration, which concentrate on reducing waste at source, increasing re-use/recycle/composting, with modern methods being used to deal with any remaining waste; the aim is for eventual zero waste.  There are now over 130 towns and regions around the world working towards zero waste including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Canberra.

Where are we now? Last April, Herts County Council decided to appoint Veolia as their preferred supplier to build a large waste incinerator on the New Barnfield site in South Hatfield, to process domestic and commercial waste from across the county (and probably further afield).