Forum topic: On the eve of Edmonton decision, MPs call for immediate moratorium on new incinerator capacity

• Against the background of growing opposition to the Edmonton Incinerator project, MPs call for a halt to incinerator construction and single out major issues with the Edmonton proposals
• A rally will be held outside the North London Waste Authority's meeting on Thursday near Mornington Crescent station
• Deputations at the meeting will present important environmental, health and financial reasons why the waste authority should pause and review the project.

As reported in the Guardian on Tuesday, MPs have issued a report calling for an immediate moratorium on further construction of waste incinerators in the UK. The report was issued in the same week as the North London Waste Authority will be meeting and are expected to give the go-ahead to a contract with a Spanish firm to build a larger replacement for the Edmonton Incinerator. However, the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution singles out several issues with the project for a new Edmonton plant, in particular suggesting that considerably more could be done to separate out recyclable materials and highlighting the lack of any current technology to prevent large-scale emission of greenhous gases:

At the time of these presentations, interest was growing in the proposed new waste incinerator at Edmonton in north London, which is planned to burn 700,000 tonnes of waste a year. I am very grateful to the North London Waste Authority for presenting their plans, which make every effort on the basis of known technology to minimize health and climate impacts from burning waste, for example through selective catalytic reduction to reduce NOx emissions.

If waste must be burnt, then it should be done in a way that minimizes harmful impacts, following mixed-waste sorting up front to ensure only truly non-recyclable waste is incinerated. However, north London’s recycling rate is just 30 per cent5 with a target of 50 per cent. Also effective technologies for carbon capture and storage are yet to materialize and the full picture regarding health harm from ultrafine particulates is still emerging.

In the round, it is clear from these presentations that the UK Government’s strategy needs fundamental change to decrease not increase overall waste incineration, in line with efforts to drive down the production of waste and increase reuse and recycling, towards a sustainable future that fully respects human health and climate change.

In particular, the emerging evidence does not support increases in incineration in London, but rather a need for the Government and investors to pause and reflect and not to allow excess capacity to drive the burning of recyclable waste.

Source: Intoduction to Pollution from Waste Incineration, A Synopsis of Expert Presentations on Health and Air Quality Impacts

The parliamentarians' suggestion for government and investors to "pause and reflect" is close in phraseology to the call to "pause and review" made repeatedly by north London environmentalists but in every case rejected by the waste authority and the seven north London councils that are represented on its board.