March 1999 ..... Registered membership to date: 215

SPECIAL REPORT ON INCINERATOR FLUE GASSES - [ CLICK HERE ]

ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE ESSEX WASTE PLAN
BUT WERE HOPING NOBODY WOULD TELL YOU ..

THE BITS THAT AFFECT GREAT TEY:

  • 1. A NEW RUBBISH TIP WILL BE SITED AT CHURCH LANE, MARKS TEY
    It could result in round-the-clock lorryloads of domestic waste coming through Great Tey. The way to stop them would be to have a complete ban on HGVs between the A120 and Chappel - which would mean local farms and companies would not be able to carry on their businesses.

  • 2. AN INCINERATOR MAY BE BUILT AT STANWAY - ON BELL HOUSE PIT
    Its chimney, up to 300 feet tall, would then be clearly visible from Tey. It would need to be run almost non-stop, with rubbish coming in all day and all night and Great Tey would be directly under the fall-out area from an incinerator on this site.
    • MEMBERS' MEETING

    7.30pm - Village Hall
    31st MARCH 1999

    ARE THE INCINERATOR RUMOURS TRUE?

    THIS IS YOUR CHANCE
    to ask your County Councillor
    about the Essex Waste Plan.

    Mr. Tony Clover, County Councillor for Constable Division, will be waiting to answer your questions. Mr Clover is a member of the County Committee overseeing the Essex Waste Plan.

    NOTE: Most of the meeting will be taken up by this topic - but the full size plans and proposals for Warren Farm will also be on display

    IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE, COME TO THE MEETING


    WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

    That's easy to answer - we are running out of holes in the ground to bury all our own waste, let alone what the London Boroughs send us.
    A solution IS needed - and quickly

    A. The Essex Waste Plan includes incinerators
    There will be at least four of them and the costs will be in £billions. Once built, they are claimed to be a cheap, effective way to dispose of waste.

    B. To be an economic proposition, incinerators need to be run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    		 C. Latest incinerators designs (not yet in commercial operation) have high-temperature "plasma" furnaces which, with thorough "scrubbing" of exhaust gasses, can be run free of toxins - but they would still produce large volumes of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas).

    In the short term, incineration might be a good deal for Essex Council Tax payers .. and solve London's waste problems.


    The Downside (or what they are arguing about)

    Our last newsletter explained that many of the incinerators in current use produce poisonous chemicals, dust, smoke, greenhouse gases and smells.

  • But they'll save us money - won't they?
    Experiences with these older designs in France, Germany and the USA point towards future costs far outweighing the short-term advantages. Health problems, damage to local and global environments, extra traffic, damage to our infrastructure, lowering our quality of life - even final disposal of their ash are costs not taken into account.
  • Accidents do happen - like the one in France last year which was witnessed by Colchester's representative: a "showpiece" incinerator covered hundreds of square miles with grey, noxious, clinging dust and left unburned, rotting garbage piled for months in the fields around the incinerator site.

    Is there an alternative? (That's also being argued over.)

    NONE of the local Borough or District authorities favour these incinerators. All political groups on Colchester Borough Council are opposed to them.

  • An alternative "plan" is being drawn up by a consortium of these councils. It is not yet ready for publication - but will propose more recycling, push for legislation (as in Germany) against excessive packaging, suggest "biomass" treatment (making domestic wastes rot quickly and in controlled conditions, so that it can be recycled as soil additives, fertilisers and plant foods).

  • A six-month stay of execution will give time for this alternative plan to be completed and published. Meanwhile none of these district councils has met its target for recycling domestic wastes - not even Colchester, the best and most successful!

  • (Note: 60% of domestic waste is recyclable. The district and borough councils' targets are for 40%).

  • We are still having to find somewhere to bury half the waste we should be recycling ... and we are taking 700,000 tonnes a year of domestic waste from London, an amount the Government, responding to pressure from London Boroughs, wants to increase! Meanwhile, Essex County Council have to plan to accommodate this increase. BUT they would prefer NOT to take London's waste at all.


    • Newsletter sponsored by Tey Tours, Great Tey


    SO - YOU THINK INCINERATORS WON'T HAPPEN?

    You've read in the papers that there has been so much protest, the plan has been put on hold for six months. - That is exactly what has happened. It has been put on hold for six months. It has not been abandoned. It will not just "go away".

    Just a minute - this sounds like a major case of NIMBY syndrome again!
    Well, district and borough councils are opposed to building these incinerators.

    It isn't that they don't want them built "in their backyards". They don't want them built at all.!


    WORRIED?

    Then come to the next meeting

    March 31st
    7.30pm Village Hall

    Where you will be able to question your
    County Councillor,
    Tony Clover,
     about The Essex Waste Plan.

    .. and the Plans for Warren Farm
    will be on display too ...

    		THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT ..."

    Hey! It might not be only an incinerator at Stanway that'll drop its nasties on us: we could be getting the fallout from Silver End & possibly Braintree too.

    What to do if Stanway is used:

  • It will be far too late to complain.

  • Pray - that they are the new, high temperature, plasma type, and pray that they do work.

  • Sell up, if you can find someone who wants a house near an incinerator ....

  • Essex County Council began work on this waste plan more than two years ago, under the previous administration. It has been carried through by the present one.

    All political parties on Essex County Council have been stunned by the backlash against its plan. They are beginning to listen. But if YOU don't like the ideas in this Waste Plan, they'll only take notice if YOU stand up and say so!


    • NOTE: Copies of plans and proposals for building on new land at Warren Farm were included in the newsletter delivered to Great Tey residents. The full sized, coloured plans for the proposed housing developments will be on view at the Members' Meeting, at 7.30pm, 31st March in the Village Hall.


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    Copyright Great Tey Residents' Association 1999