Forum topic: HM Government legally challenged on incineration

[Original article]

Environmental campaigner and Enfield resident Georgia Elliot-Smith scored a significant victory in her legal case against HMG in the High Court earlier this week. Victory in the Preliminary Hearing, with the judge concluding her case has merit and is substantial, means a full hearing will be held. This could be as early as March 2021.
Technically it’s about CO2 emissions from incineration and the UK government’s position in their post Brexit Emission Trading Scheme. Ultimate success, consistent with the principle of polluter pays, would mean, I assume, costlier waste disposal for us all and equally financial viability issues over all UK incinerators, not simply Edmonton.
But then what?
Edmonton (or more correctly the North London Heat and Power Project) was approved by the Secretary of State in early 2017 after various consultation rounds. I now hear much noise concerning it but recall only silence and sparsity - at best - of interest in 2015-2016 from councillors and residents alike. So a lesson to contribute at the optimal time might be worth registering in all our minds.
Looking ahead 50, 20, even 5 years it’s hard to imagine the consensus will be backing a plant (indeed any incinerator) capable of pumping two London’s worth of CO2 into the atmosphere as well as other toxins as we stare at a climate crisis.
For me, it’s too large for North London’s defined needs and in the wrong place, being located in a major city close to residencies.
So then what?
We produce colossal amounts of waste, both directly as residents and also indirectly through numerous commercial sectors. It’s not all recyclable. Shire counties no longer want the remains sent to be put into holes in their ground while rising Landfill Tax has been making that economically very costly – think of the huge rise in the cost of eg a skip or a council waste collection. That’s why.
About twenty years ago I went to listen to Michael Braungart speak on what has become more widely known as the Circular Economy. That theme is now being driven hard by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and was the subject of an informing report by ARUP for the latest London Plan. It concluded something like 30% of London’s residential waste could be taken out by effective circular working. But even that still leaves an awful lot to be disposed of.
So?
Carina of the Stop the Edmonton Incinerator campaign very broadly focuses on landfilling into effectively storage banks pending technology arriving to deal with everything, combined with more and better day to day recycling. Maybe, but the colossal infrastructure to recycle more, including fundamental product design changes, isn’t going to happen in 2021, nor I suspect given the investment and changes required, anywhere close.
The NLWA, a body separate to the seven councils who provide its board members and accountable to Parliament alone, has to dispose of our stuff under its statute.
Their previous idea, make it into solid recoverable fuel and sell on to an energy intensive plant outside of London was hyper polluting and expensive and a case was made against it, finally succeeding at the 11th hour. Incineration then followed.
But as I’ve already said, it’s desperately hard to see incineration having any future at all. So what does the NLWA do?
On our current trajectory and behaviour I see no answer. I can see a route where we do “play for time” and crash into a completely reformed recyclable (repair, reuse, remake, recycle) economy but most of all reduce. Anything then residual is taxed to the hilt to deter production and / or use. But when we have a society when making a 5 minute car journey that bit tougher results in end-of-the-world scenarios being played out, are we really ready for that?
Putting Ian Barnes before the court of public opinion on this really doesn’t cut it and should stop. It’s an easy cop out, not his bag, and a decision taken before he was even a councillor. So instead let’s all play at being the Chair of the NLWA. Where do we go?

I think Karl Brown's article is very interesting as he makes some clear and lucid points. Where I disagree with him i sin his saying that the Deputy Leader of the Council should not have to explain his position in front of the local public square.

I think there are several reasons why he should and first amongs these is that we do need to know what the Council's position on the Incinerator is. It is true it was agreed by a previous regime a decade ago but this is ten years on and there is much more information about its negative effects so does the Council still needs to explain why in the light of that information it holds the position it does.

Secondly Enfield has two representative on the North London Waste Authority and as Enfield's representatives they could have asked the NWLA for a pause in taklng this forward as many did recently in their deputations to the NWLA. These incuded Kate Osamor MP, Vicki Pite and Ian Duncan Smith MP. Why did our representatives remain silent.

And thirdly some national research from some Univerities has said that Boris Johnson will not be able to reach his climate change goal because of its incineration programme. What we need to know from Ian Barnes as he heads the Climate Action Task Force is does the Edmonton incinerator create to same problems for Enfield's climate goals. There is certainly no mention of it in Enfield's Climate Action Plan.

So yes Ian Barnes should be accountable to these questions and concerns. In a recent interview on the Incinerator Feryal Clark MP said she was glad to do the interview as elected figures should make themselves available. That is good advice and Enfield Councillors should listen

To pick up Francis’ thread and look through a lens of higher politics: The incinerator was consulted on agreed by the Secretary of State in 2017. A subsequent legal challenge failed. It’s pretty copper bottomed. (And BTW the Enfield agreement was much more recent than 10 years ago; there wasn’t even incinerator intent at that time.)
It was driven by a public authority separate to the seven council authorities; one on which Enfield Council holds two, but only two of fourteen board posts. That’s far from a majority position, so moan as much as you want and you’re still capable of being heavily outvoted.
Of the circa 60 (protected) waste sites in North London, few if any other than Edmonton are suitable for incineration. More particularly, the chances of any one of the other six boroughs accepting such a plant are realistically nil. (Enfield had one already, on waste protected land; the equation was thus heavily skewed.) Note here that London must now deal with its own waste; that’s not just holes in shire counties’ ground closing up; this is an actual requirement on London.
Ian Barnes, and Enfield leadership, can doubtless speak for themselves but let me try and put myself into their shoes.
It’s a done deal. Having pride in Enfield, not least its health, knowledge of impact of air pollution, increased traffic and so forth, plus awareness of climate change, it’s a disaster. I know that. I’ll do what I can to protect Enfield via the still live NLWP process (and there has indeed been a radical step taken should anyone have partaken in the consultation due to end later today – more of that in a different post) but on the incineration my hands really are tied, however much I may kick and scream, and my colleagues alongside me.
The current plant has already had its life extended beyond what was first though possible and volumes of residual waste are not going away. The NLWA is statutory bound to deal with them. I’m not aware of any alternate bright ideas coming forward.
So I can stand up and have stones thrown at me for something that was not my decision, not in my gift, not in Enfield’s gift, which went through all the correct channels, has been legally challenged and which I am powerless to stop – on currently available items. But there’s no point in me simply burning political capital or being needlessly bruised for the sake of it and neither am I going to publically oppose past colleagues, nor indeed present ones, for no purpose given that the deal is done.
Yet maybe something will come along out of the blue and, if viable, I might well be very happy to work with friendly faces on that. Until then, I’ll simply hang onto political capital so it can be used if, and hopefully when, that something from left field occurs.
Now, back to the original post – you’re the leader of the NLWA, North London’s waste disposal authority (WDA), where responsibility and accountability lie. You must dispose of very broad ballpark one million tons of residual waste annually, now and also for a long time ahead. What do you do? Tipping it on onto Ian Barnes is not a solution.

But what about recycling in Enfield?