Minister's Door Closed on Waste-to-Energy Plants
18 Nov 2018
Chris Leitch
Despite attempts for months by experts in waste-to-energy plants to get an appointment to see her, Green’s Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage has refused all approaches, claiming WtE plants “don’t fit with the government’s waste reduction plans”.
But the German Federal Environment Agency says that “there are several reasons that the claim that waste incineration is thwarting waste prevention efforts is unsustainable’.
They also say “waste incineration is making a contribution to climate protection and helps save natural resources” in Germany.
Emissions from the new generation plants are negligible, while rubbish dumps generated methane, said to be the worst of greenhouse gases, and CO2.
Ms Sage appears to have a luddite view of new technology in the waste disposal field preferring to see waste buried in the ground leaving the after effects, like the possibility of toxins leaching into waterways, for future generations to deal with.
She is out of step with the Green Party in Germany who are promoting a complete ban on land-filling by 2020.
They maintain that landfill sites are “black boxes with uncontrolled biological and chemical processes that need intensive care for generations, with a permanent danger of leaks and tears”, likely to “cause major impacts on groundwater and soil”.
Over 2000 pyrolytic plants operate across the world in countries like Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Belgium and other European countries and recover a substantial value of material from the waste stream before turning the remainder into electricity, slag for use in road building, and ash.
Social Credit would fund the building of a WtE plant south of Auckland where demand for rubbish disposal and electricity are both fastest growing, and ensure ownership remained in New Zealand hands.
We want the government to pass legislation requiring at least 60% of waste to be re-processed by 2025 rather than being dumped into landfills.
Those countries with waste to energy plants are taking responsibility for their own rubbish disposal where-as Ms Sage appears happy for New Zealand to send much of ours off-shore for someone else to deal with and simply bury the rest in the ground and hope it goes away.