2005 press releases

Lib Dems Set Out Alternative To Incineration

The Liberal Democrats today publish a document setting out their detailed plans on how they would handle the waste stream without recourse to incineration. Last week, the party made a firm pledge that they would cancel the incinerator if the Lib Dems take control of East Sussex County Council on May 5th.

The document, entitled "The Real Alternative - The Sustainable Way", has been produced by Seaford Lib Dem councillors Eddie Collict and Jon Freeman, and is endorsed by Norman Baker, Lib Dem Shadow Environment Secretary, and David Rogers, Leader of the County Council Lib Dem Group. It shows how it would be possible to move quickly and cheaply to a sustainable method of dealing with waste without having recourse to incineration.

First the new Lib Dem administration would undertake an effective waste reduction programme by encouraging people to stop the steady increase in the amount of waste being put in the bin. Then, of what remains in the bin, there would be:

• 25% Composting
• 40% Recycling: plastics, cans, glass, metal, paper
• 35% Initially landfill of the remainder but early plans to treat it by a Mechanical Biological Treatment taking out more recyclable and compostable materials and isolating and stabilising, toxic substances

Composting and recycling facilities can be expanded more quickly than an incinerator can be built, so such a policy would extricate East Sussex County Council from the hole it has dug for itself in relying on an incinerator to meet Government targets and avoid fines (£150 per tonne) for not reducing the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill.

Cllr Jon Freeman (Lib Dem, Seaford Blatchington) said: "The County Council is playing a high risk strategy with residents' health and money. The electorate told the Tories about its concerns at the time of the Public Inquiry and in the recent public consultation on the proposed modifications, but they appear still determined to push ahead with the incinerator scheme, assuming they retain control of the County Council on 6th May. Now it is up to the electorate to show the Tories on 5th May what they think of incineration".

Cllr David Rogers, Lib Dem leader of the County Council group, said: "The present leaders of the County Council must be aware that the current success rate for a planning application involving an incinerator is around 43%. If the application, expected shortly after the election, gets called in by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and subsequently refused, they will have no back-up position."

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