Incinerator or Money Machine?
Here's the math:
The council will have to PAY Roltone Kilbride £50 a tonne to incinerate their waste.
The proposed gasification plant has a 200,000 tonne capacity (5 times larger than any existing plant of its kind in the UK)
200,000 tonnes at £50 a tonne = £ 10 Million a year that the council will pay Rolton Kilbride, a private company, to take the waste
The council will have to sign a contract locking them in to a 40 year obligation to provide waste for the incinerator.
£ 10 Million a year over 40 years = £ 400 Million that the council will pay over the contract period.
The proposed gasification plant has a 200,000 tonne capacity (5 times larger than any existing plant of its kind in the UK)
200,000 tonnes at £50 a tonne = £ 10 Million a year that the council will pay Rolton Kilbride, a private company, to take the waste
The council will have to sign a contract locking them in to a 40 year obligation to provide waste for the incinerator.
£ 10 Million a year over 40 years = £ 400 Million that the council will pay over the contract period.
It must also be taken into account that Northampton's council will be obligated to provide Rolton Kilbride with a certain amount of waste every year to feed the incinerator and if the council doesn't meet the quotas for the amount of waste to be incinerated the council will have to pay very steep fines.
Environmentally this is a DISASTROUS solution, as it would lock Northampton into a "quick fix" scheme of incinerating our rubbish rather than setting up an effective recycling and composting scheme and improving Northampton's low rates of recycling (around 40 percent) to match those of many other cities world wide (which recycle 70 or 80 percent of their waste). It would effectively put a stranglehold on the council so that no matter how well recycling and packaging technology will improve in the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, they will be required to provide huge amounts of rubbish or be fined severely for it.
With this so called "waste-to-energy" plant, Rolton Kilbride, a private company, will be making money from waste, and obstructing any present and future efforts to improve recycling.(1)
Environmentally this is a DISASTROUS solution, as it would lock Northampton into a "quick fix" scheme of incinerating our rubbish rather than setting up an effective recycling and composting scheme and improving Northampton's low rates of recycling (around 40 percent) to match those of many other cities world wide (which recycle 70 or 80 percent of their waste). It would effectively put a stranglehold on the council so that no matter how well recycling and packaging technology will improve in the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, they will be required to provide huge amounts of rubbish or be fined severely for it.
With this so called "waste-to-energy" plant, Rolton Kilbride, a private company, will be making money from waste, and obstructing any present and future efforts to improve recycling.(1)