TUESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2000

MR MALCOLM CHILTON, MR TONY HIRONS AND MR KEITH COLLINS

  100. Are you sure they are complementary? I would have thought if you were getting, as one or two places are getting, up to 66 per cent recycling, does that not have a major impact on calorific value of what is left?
  (Mr Chilton) I do not believe that 66 per cent recycling is in any way possible or feasible on a nationwide basis. In certain distinct, self-contained areas of middle class, well housed populations it may be possible to achieve quite high recycling rates but I think the view is 35 per cent recycling on a nationwide basis in a country like this probably represents a sensible plateau of achievement beyond which we could only proceed at enormous cost.

  101. Mr Collins was screwing up his face, I just wonder whether he wants to put it on the record?
  (Mr Collins) The incinerators only target post-recycled waste was your comment. Kent is building 550,000 tonnes, I am going to assume that is all going to be post-recycled, they are already there. Slough is apparently a scintillating community for recycling because they are putting in 440,000 tonnes' worth of incinerator capacity. I find that a little bit unusual. Teesside just expanded their incinerator, just got permission to expand it by 120,000 tonnes. I believe they are in the very same place from which two years ago were officers having to discuss the fact that there seemed to be a bit of a conflict between recycling and incineration. Number one, they do not take just post-recycled waste and those new ones coming on line will not just be taking that. As for the other nations and the "plateau" claims, the Resource Recovery Forum's document shows Germany going from 10 or 15 per cent to 48 per cent in six years and in that time they happened to incorporate East Germany and there were a few issues associated with that rate of increase. I would suggest that the United Kingdom does not face those kinds of issues but it should be looking at something like that. The Americans quadrupled their rate in one decade and that was with no major national funding, no major national producer responsibility, none of the tools already in place in the United Kingdom. As for the increase in arisings, just quickly on that one. This is a myth. You could bring in 500 economists and ask them what would happen if you bring in a Landfill Tax and they would predict—entirely accurately—that waste will attempt to shunt into low cost avenues. People predicted it before and now we have watched it happen. What you see is when you pull apart the arisings, which we did for every Essex district, the increase in arisings is not in black sacks and wheelie bins coming out of the front of your house, it is CA sites; it is bulky waste from special collections; it is trade waste; it is items like that. We find that again and again and again across the UK. In other words, the waste is not new but has shifted over a definitional classification fence. It is not soaring three per cent year on year. The other way to measure it is to go to the manufacturers and say "is your tonnage going up three per cent year on year? Do you expect this through the next 25 years?" Bring them in and I think you will find they do not expect that and they have not experienced that growth.

  Chairman: I think we need to move on.

  102. Mr Chilton, you said that incineration is applied to what cannot be recycled. Can you just tell us what you think cannot be recycled in terms of waste arisings?
  (Mr Chilton) Waste is a very mixed substance, as we all know. A lot of it gets contaminated by food in the process of being used. So food containers themselves, plastic containers that you buy your meat in or whatever it happens to be, tend to be contaminated and are not really suitable for recycling. A lot of paper waste is used in the house for whatever purpose and end up being contaminated in a way that renders it unsuitable for recycling. Plastic films in particular are almost always contaminated. We also have to look at things like nappies and articles like that which are also not suitable for recycling. There is quite a high proportion of cross-contaminated waste in the normal household bin that does not render itself suitable for recycling.

  103. Can I just ask you what assumption you are making in giving that answer about separated collection? Taking paper as a classic example, it is not very difficult to operate a separated collection scheme which would take it out from the rest.
  (Mr Chilton) We would certainly expect normal newsprint to be recycled and it seems a very appropriate thing that it is. The data we work on to look at the effect this will have on calorific values has been produced by a number of sources but I think most interestingly by Hampshire County Council who have looked at a range of recycling scenarios and the effect that has on ultimate calorific value. Most recycling scenarios, indeed the most intensive ones, tend to increase calorific value if for no other reason than some of the major things that are recycled first are metals, glass and that sort of thing as well as paper. Indeed, it is such a concern to us as an industry to try to predict what that calorific value will be as a result of increased recycling scenarios over the life of a plant that it is now common practice in the industry to design waste from energy plants at the design point that deal with higher calorific waste. Ten years ago we would have designed plants to meet nine mega joules per kilogram of calorific value and today we design them to meet something like ten and a half mega joules per kilogram as a design point.

  104. They are not flexible, are they, that is part of the problem?
  (Mr Chilton) Yes, they are quite flexible. The flexibility is if the calorific value changes the throughput through the plant has to change. If the calorific value goes up, throughput has to go down so that the heat released in the plant remains more or less constant. It is important to us when trying to calculate the long-term revenues on these plants that we do not underestimate calorific value because if we do and calorific value rises we would see a shortfall in revenue, and this gets back to the old argument of do we just demand the waste in order to make our investment pay off. The way we get around that is by designing for high calorific value waste now. It means that we have slightly larger plant in thermal terms and a slightly higher gate fee than we would otherwise have. That is being taken into account in our attempts to mitigate our risks over time. When we are trying to predict over 25 years what is going to happen to waste none of us can really do it, so we have to be careful and mitigate that risk to the extent that we can. We genuinely believe that we will see, and we are already seeing, increases in calorific value of waste.

  105. As you will be aware, the public is not terribly keen on incineration. Looking at the waste stream, could you tell us which items of waste, when burnt, create the most pollution?
  (Mr Chilton) I am sure you are referring to plastics here which is often a subject that people raise and, indeed, people suggest that all plastics should be removed from the waste stream. I think in the case of plastic films that would actually be a very difficult thing to achieve. In practice, we believe that modern incineration and modern gas cleaning equipment deal with all sorts of waste that we get thrown at us. In particular, the issue is on dioxins and the dioxin raising potential of plastics within waste. There have been recent figures published by Edmonton, which was claimed by Greenpeace the other day to be a "dioxin cancer producing machine", or something like that. Its latest dioxin measurements, taken in November last year, were 0.006 nanograms per standard cubic metre when the new level under the EU regulations is 0.1. This was 0.006. It is so small as to be not really there. Basically these plants reduce the dioxins within waste in totality by a certain amount but the amount of dioxin that is released through the stack represents such a minute portion of background levels that it would be hardly measurable.

  106. So are you saying to us—and I will come to Mr Collins on this point in a moment—that there is no health risk as a result of burning plastics in incinerators?
  (Mr Chilton) Yes, I am saying there is no health risk, and I do not expect you to agree with me, of course, Mr Collins. Certainly as far as the Environment Agency is concerned, we do not get authorisation for plants if there is any health risk. In a completely objective sense we can say there is no health risk, but it is always a matter of degree. We would argue in the case of dioxins there is no health risk because there is no dioxin in our flue gases.

  107. Mr Collins?
  (Mr Collins) There is "no health risk"? That claim will be coming soon to a t-shirt near you, I am sure.
  (Mr Hirons) The t-shirt would have the dioxin level if it did, Mr Collins.
  (Mr Collins) Thank you. There is "no health risk" from the stacks whether from dioxins; nitrogen oxides; particulates; sulphur dioxides or brominated dioxins? You went to dioxins and then you broadened it . . .
  (Mr Chilton) I just focused on dioxins because they are perceived to be the most evil of the emissions. When we permit these plants, or try to permit plants, we have to do a full dispersal modelling of all of the emissions, including Nox and particulates and everything else. Typically on plants that are designed at the level of regulation—and in practice most plants operate far below that, I just mentioned the dioxin figures for Edmonton—we get something like less than two per cent addition to background levels at the point of maximum deposition from stack releases. In the case of Nox, the big issue for Nox is transport, that is where most background levels of Nox arise from in the UK. The contribution from incineration, even the local contribution from an incinerator, is really very small.
  (Mr Collins) Thank you, if I can come back. This paper is from the Portsmouth Public Inquiry on the proposed incinerator there at which the expert for, Hampshire Waste Services, sister company of Onyx, was Professor Roy Harrison. He confirmed an unequivocal "yes" to the question "you agree that the proposal would bring forward hospitalisations and deaths?" He even appended this chart with the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths. That is the based on data from the COMEAP Group and it is used to look at deaths and hospitalisations brought forward from emissions. In some cases the NOx is affecting people from transport, in other cases it is coming out of an incinerator stack and affecting people. In the case of SELCHP, so we do not pick one year in particular and pick on them, if we look at 1997, 1998 and 1999, which are all good years for SELCHP, if you run it through the same formula which is from the Environmental Impact Assessment on the Waste Incineration Directive for the DETR, it shows 15.3 deaths brought forward per annum, 383 dead over the life of the plant. I think that claiming "no health risk", but "383 dead", is a tricky way to put things. I would also like to point out in terms of cars, everyone says you should be looking at NOx emissions from cars but SELCHP's emissions have averaged over the past two or three years 760 tonnes per annum, I believe that is correct. If you look at that as London's air quality unfolds over the next few years, if you built another SELCHP, say in Wandsworth or Belvedere, you would have to keep off the road 694,000 new petrol cars driving an hour a day every day of the year in order to remove that amount of NOx. That kind of decision for a city like London is excruciating and it simply will not go ahead. You will not find mayors and Assembly members and politicians saying "I am going to build that plant and then I am going to take 700,000 cars off the road." Turning briefly—

  Chairman: It has to be brief because we are getting behind and we have got a lot of questions to cover.

  108. Very briefly, Mr Chilton, you mentioned a figure of emissions from the stack in terms of dioxins. Do you have the figures for what is left in the residue because I understand that actually very significant quantities of dioxins are left in the residue, which you have not referred to?
  (Mr Chilton) I have not referred to it. Certainly at Edmonton—I cannot recall the precise figure—the dioxin level in bottom ash, this is the bottom ash we wish to recycle, is very similar to that naturally found in top soil or, indeed, the level found in waste, which is roughly 30 to 50 micrograms of dioxin per tonne. That is in waste before we start. The level in bottom ash is a similar level to that.

  109. But the ash that comes out of the scrubbers and chimneys—
  (Mr Chilton) That is quite a lot higher.

  110. That does have a substantial concentration and, therefore, we have in a sense a toxic material that has to be got rid of somewhere.
  (Mr Chilton) Yes, the dioxin in the scrubber residues is quite a lot higher. It represents a very small proportion by weight, about 4 per cent of weight by what comes in. It is a concentration of that dioxin. The total dioxin inventory through an incinerator is that there is an overall net reduction in dioxins compared to what comes in. Seeing as we have no interest in recycling those residues, they are taken away for safe disposal to landfill.

  111. Mr Chilton, why do you say that objections to incineration "are based largely on inaccurate or selective data"? Could you give your sources?
  (Mr Chilton) Let me just give the example of—

  112. The sources.
  (Mr Chilton) The sources are usually green groups, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, who quite often make statements which do not happen to be necessarily justified. If we take the recent issues at Edmonton as an example, it was claimed to be a "cancer factory, a dioxin producing machine", whatever, and when this data was presented to them they went on to a different tack. They do not know necessarily what these emission levels are. They are on the public record at some point but they do not necessarily look at them or they may not have been available when they made their comments.

  113. Do you accept that there may be all sorts of sources around which could be justified and confirmed and there may yet be other sources around which are supposed to represent accurate data when, in fact, that has been proved not to be the case, as at Byker, where things have been fiddled? Just moving on from that, what confidence could the public have in these-so-called correct figures which are then proved not to be correct, where awful things have happened? Therefore, how could you accuse environmental groups of issuing myths and inaccurate data? Do you not think that there ought to be an overarching regulation on this and independent monitoring, which we are not really getting at the moment?
  (Mr Chilton) We believe there is because the Environment Agency are responsible for monitoring them. Also most plants voluntarily are monitored by the local authority, although that is not their statutory duty to do so. Many of the emissions are monitored continuously. Others that are more difficult, like dioxins in particular, are monitored maybe three or four times a year depending on the level of concern. Those measurements are all on the public record. We are monitored and regulated by an independent regulatory body, the Environment Agency. Whether or not you think the Environment Agency is doing a good job is another matter. I think we generally think they are, but maybe we would say that. We are subject to that independent regulation.

  114. Mr Collins wants to come in here.
  (Mr Collins) On Edmonton ash, there is an interesting letter here received last week, from Vic Jennings, Public Inquiries National Co-ordinator for the Environment Agency, to my colleague, Alan Watson. "The Edmonton facility has had mixed fly ash and bottom ash since the plant started operation in the mid-1970s and continues to do so today. In this plant, fly ash is collected before the injection of lime and carbon." You have bottom ash and then fly ash. "Whilst the fly ash is mixed with bottom ash, the air pollution control residues are collected and disposed of separately". You have got bottom and fly ash mixed together at the Edmonton plant. "In general . . . the current practice is to dispose of all remaining ash residues to landfill . . . however Edmonton sends a substantial portion of its mixed bottom and fly ash for recycling". It goes in the streets; it goes into pavements; it goes into building blocks. "The Environment Agency", he says "to the best of [his] knowledge . . . has not independently analysed the ash residues".

  115. If it goes into building blocks with dioxins in it, is that not a way of actually stabilising the dioxins so that they are there in a concrete or a solid form and cannot cause problems? People are not going to go out and lick pavements, are they?
  (Mr Collins) There are questions of when it is spread loose, as it was in Byker across Newcastle—

  116. I am not talking about it being spread loose, you are talking about it being in building blocks.
  (Mr Collins) There are building blocks, then there is asphalt, using it under asphalt, concrete, and it also refers to fly ash being used as a binding agent for paints and inks and as a pH adjuster for liquid waste. If you are taking something with an awful lot of dioxin in it and put it in concrete blocks, let us say, and you run your hand across a block it gets coated in dust from it. Also these blocks etc do not last 1,000 years. Tarmac in the UK, I have noted, tends to be torn up and down fairly regularly, at least in my part of North London. You have people whose occupation is full-time to drill, burn and thrash that stuff and who breathe the dust in all day and every day. The sites where this stuff is laid are not mapped; consumers are not told whether their building block happens to have a bit of fly ash in it from Edmonton. The Environment Agency is not testing it. Tens of thousands of tonnes have begun to go out across this country. They are all through the streets and pathways of Birmingham; they are all over London; they are in Stoke and they are in numerous other cities. It is not just a matter of leaching, it is put out there on a daily basis just to save a few quid for this industry.

  117. The US Environmental Protection Agency are now concluding that dioxins may be some thousand times more toxic than previously thought. We cannot be flippant about that. Do you think that, as a source of data, is something that we should take note of?
  (Mr Chilton) Yes, I think we should take note of all proper scientific data. I would just repeat the point that the dioxin removal from emissions on incinerators is extremely effective. If we look at the Environment Agency's pollution inventory that was published for 1999 we can see that incinerators are now very far down the list. From being perceived to be the biggest contributor to environmental dioxin levels in 1995 and a little earlier when the initial EPA report was produced, it is now acknowledged that they contribute less than one per cent in the UK and are no longer a significant source.

  118. To Energy from Waste Association, what is the actual evidence that incineration is the Best Practicable Environmental Option for treating municipal solid waste?
  (Mr Chilton) Apart from members demonstrating it in tender processes, so we have evidence which would not be classed as independent, if you like, I think the most independent source would be the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, their report on incineration, where they said that in many circumstances incineration with energy recovery represents BPEO for waste streams. Indeed, I think the same comment is made in the Waste Strategy 2000. If you like, the source is Government and the Royal Commission.

  119. So you take that as a general statement without looking in any detail at specific instances?
  (Mr Hirons) I think you would have to look at local conditions, a particular stream, the planning by local authority/authorities. We come back to the point that we have been making from the beginning to say it is in part depending upon particular circumstances of an integrated waste strategy.