Industrial and Commercial Waste Incineration

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the incineration of industrial and commercial waste.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to see many Members from different parties, and indeed from across the UK, at this important debate. I know that the issue that we are debating is of great concern to Members across the House, and I hope we will hear some of their points during the course of the next hour.

Looking out towards the east of Cardiff today, one can see the waters of the Severn estuary stretching into the distance and, not far from our brand new Eastern High School, a large wind turbine—visible evidence of the green transition that we all want to see to renewable energy and renewable sources for the future. Now, imagine planted right next to that a huge industrial burner, complete with a chimney of pretty much the same size as the wind turbine pumping out yet more carbon emissions, and a trail of heavy goods vehicles delivering waste while providing their own blast to local air quality with diesel fumes, PM10s, particulates and so on. What a contrast and, fundamentally, what a contradiction. Worse still, it comes as part of a chain of proposed incinerators running from Swansea to Barry, to Splott in my constituency—where we already have an incinerator that I opposed—right through to Monmouthshire and across the water to Avonmouth, and in many other clusters across the UK.

I want to set out my total opposition to the proposals for the so-called energy recovery facility—it is, in fact, a huge industrial-scale burner—for the Rumney and St Mellons area in the east of Cardiff. The proponent, Môr Hafren Bio Power—businesses always choose these greenwashed names to cover up what they are up to—is essentially an arm of CoGen, a well-known company that is involved in these activities and based in Stoke-on-Trent. Interestingly, the main director, Ian Charles Brooking, has a series of other commercial interests, from rubber crumb companies to food products, as well as multiple variations of the Bio Power brand that are planning lots of speculative burner applications across the UK. An allegation has been made to me that CoGen and other companies will probably end up burning their own industrial and commercial waste—how convenient. I have been pleased to join thousands of local residents across the area in making our opposition known over the past six months, and we have been supported by colleagues on our local council and from across the parties.

There are many reasons why this facility is completely inappropriate, and I shall touch on them before I go into the wider issues. The first is about emissions and traffic. Much is made of the treatment of emissions through burner chimneys, but, given the climate crisis we face, the carbon emissions from such facilities make a crucial difference. I have already mentioned the emissions from traffic, and we are talking about potentially hundreds of vehicles going to and from the facility to deliver waste.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I represent a neighbouring constituency. According to a recent Birmingham University study, air quality in Cardiff is the fourth worst in the UK. It is even worse than in London. Does he agree that allowing the incinerator to be built not only risks moving our city further up the league of shame, but undermines the hard work that has gone into Cardiff Council’s wide-ranging transport and clean air green paper, which is currently out for public consultation?

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a crucial point. The proposed facility would represent a contradiction to the excellent and forward-thinking paper on air quality in Cardiff that the council put so much work into, and to which I hope residents will contribute. The facility would sit in opposition to that direction of travel.

There are many other issues, including the financial viability of this prospect; whether waste can be burned there commercially or whether things will be shipped in, which I will return to; the proximity to schools and residential locations, including a Travellers’ site; the traffic and the HGV movements, because despite being next to the south Wales main line, they will not be using rail; the visual impact of the clustering of existing incinerators in the area; the failures in the consultation process; and even a GDPR breach that the company has been involved in.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making a very good point. Does he agree that when we talk about building incinerators, we are talking not just about the incinerators themselves, but about their effect on traffic and all their other potential unintended consequences, which make them so unwieldy and inappropriate for places such as Cardiff?

[Stephen Doughty]

I agree that all those issues have to be considered.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am reluctant to make this point to my hon. Friend, because I am a good friend of his. Is he aware that many of us who have specialised in this area over the years think that energy from waste is absolutely part of the answer to climate change, when it comes to the waste that towns and cities create and do not want to take responsibility for? Is he aware that modern energy from waste can be excellent in scooping up that stuff, bringing us energy and stopping us exporting waste all over the developing world?

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend and I take slightly different approaches to this issue. In the waste hierarchy pyramid, which will be familiar to many people, incineration of waste is only just above landfill; indeed, there is some controversy about that. The key thing is that we need to reduce the waste that we create in the first place, so that we do not have to burn it, put it into landfill or export it, as he suggests.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I will make a bit of progress, then I will happily take some more interventions.

Ultimately, the decision on this particular project is a devolved matter, and I hope that Welsh Ministers, the Planning Inspectorate for Wales and Natural Resources Wales will listen to the growing cross-community and cross-party opposition to the proposal. However, the implications of a wider policy on the incineration of waste and, most critically, on whether we continue on the path of wasteful waste production and climate-changing linear economy or revolutionise the way we live our lives, are a matter for the whole of the UK and globally. I hope Wales will uphold its own responsibilities to future generations, but this is part of a wider context. I do not want Wales to become a dumping ground for waste from other parts of the UK or further afield. I am sorry to say that sometimes it feels, particularly in my area, as though that is an issue. We saw what happened with the mud from the Hinkley nuclear sites, and we have seen other incinerators being built in the area. When we look at the history of Wales, we can think back to the dark days of Tryweryn, for example. We do not want that sort of relationship between Wales and the rest of the UK.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Stephen Doughty]

I will not give way to my hon. Friend, because I have done so already. I will give way to others shortly.

I thank all my constituents who have raised concerns, and I thank the various campaigning organisations who have provided evidence for the debate.

[Wera Hobhouse]

My main concern is that we do not know about the end destination of our household waste. Stuff gets incinerated or recycled, but it may actually go further afield or get dumped at sea. Does he agree that an onus or a legal obligation on councils to disclose the end destination of household waste would be a way forward?

[Stephen Doughty]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady’s point. Indeed, a lack of data on that is an issue I will come on to very shortly.

It is clear that this is a topic we need to talk more about, given the climate emergency that we face. In 2016, the commercial industrial sectors produced 41.1 million tonnes of waste, which is some 18% of all waste produced in the UK, but there is no clear published breakdown of how waste from those sectors is treated. The average UK incinerator produces approximately 230,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year. To provide a comparison, 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ is equivalent to 6.1 million cars driving from Cardiff to London per year. That is quite an extraordinary comparison. In Wales alone, there are already 10 sites for proposed incinerators, nine of which are in south Wales, where two are already located.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I support much of what the hon. Member has said, and I have sympathy for the communities living near incinerators. Barry in my constituency has been battling this issue; it was one of the first things I challenged nine years ago on being first elected to represent the Vale of Glamorgan constituency. Does he recognise that the Welsh Government took a conscious decision, back when my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and I were Assembly Members, to prioritise incineration as a means of dealing with waste, and that has led to the string of incinerators along the estuary that he talks about?

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point. He will know that one of the strongest opponents of the Barry incinerator is the Assembly Member for the Vale of Glamorgan, Jane Hutt, who sits in the Welsh Government. She was with me at the protests outside the Senedd, making her views clear alongside many of my other friends. It is good that concern is being raised across the political spectrum. In fact, the Chair of the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee in the Senedd, Mike Hedges, has made it clear that he thinks there should be a moratorium on incineration.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Stephen Doughty]

I am going to make some progress, because I am conscious of time. Lots of people want to make speeches—[Interruption.] I will let my hon. Friend intervene before the end of my speech, but I want to make some progress.

The lack of data is crucial. I have been asking a series of parliamentary questions over the past few months about this issue, and there appears to be a lack of data and no strategic approach for locating incineration facilities, in relation to travel times, emissions from travel and so on. For example, there is apparently no clear information available on how much waste travels between England, Wales and Scotland, on how much waste we are exporting and importing, or on the emissions caused by transporting waste by road to incineration locations, including the differences between, for example, transferring things by rail and other means. If we do not take that holistic picture of carbon and other emissions into account, how can we make strategic decisions?

The proposed incinerator in my constituency would lead to as much as 200,000 tonnes of commercial waste being burned each year, and it would operate 24 hours a day in a predominantly residential area. Where would the waste come from? How far would it travel? What is the impact of clustering incineration facilities? I hope the Minister will be able to explain why that information is not recorded at a UK level and made available so that decisions can be taken, whether by the UK Government or by devolved Administrations and councils.

I am also concerned—I hope the Minister can answer some questions on this—about why the UK Government have been promoting, in their UK Trade and Investment “GREAT Britain” strategy, overseas investment into CoGen and the facility in my constituency? In a glossy brochure on the energy investment portfolio, the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), asked for investment in the proposed incinerator in my constituency. Again, that seems to be at odds with what the UK Government are saying overall about carbon emissions. We are hosting the Conference of Parties this year. Given their position, why is that going on? Why are they actively promoting this facility, which has not even received planning permission yet?

[Mr Sheerman]

My hon. Friend knows that I was a councillor in Wales many years ago, so I know a bit about Wales. I have to ask him the acid test question: what is the answer to all the waste that is generated in south Wales? Most of the local authorities have low performance in recycling; the national average is certainly not good. Will the waste be exported to my constituency, or to Indonesia or some other country? What will he do to take responsibility for that waste, which he has a moral duty to deal with in some modern way?

[Stephen Doughty]

Actually, Wales has extremely strong targets and good performance on recycling. This is industrial and commercial waste, and it is not clear that all of it will be coming from Welsh sources. That is an issue that I have been raising. It looks like it will be shipped in from elsewhere. Unless we can be clear about where that waste is travelling from, how can we take strategic decisions about how it should be dealt with? I certainly feel that three incinerators located within five miles of each other in my area of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan seems like overkill. Why are they not being shared out fairly across the country?

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for securing this debate. He is making some powerful points, especially about Wales leading England in recycling. Does he agree that it is crucial that the views of the local people who will be affected by the incinerator are taken into account? After all, it is their lives, communities and homes that will be affected, and we must take account of that.

[Stephen Doughty]

I absolutely agree. I thank my hon. Friend for her support of the campaigners. The issue obviously affects her constituency, in locations such as Marshfield, Peterstone and elsewhere. I am glad that she will be supporting the campaign and meeting the campaigners and others.

I want to touch on a few more issues before concluding, but I am conscious that others want to speak, and of course we want to hear from the Minister. One of the big arguments that is often made for these plants is, “Well, they’re going to generate combined heat and power and they are going to give all this energy back to the grid.” However, the reality is that, although there are 40 energy-from-waste plants in England, only eight currently operate in combined heat and power mode. In fact, the official CHP list includes the Viridor plant in Splott in my constituency, but, although the plant might be enabled for combined heat and power, it is not currently providing that. Viridor told me that the plant cannot export as much energy to the national grid as it is capable of doing, because of infrastructure issues relating to the feeders—I do not understand the technology behind it—and the technology that would allow it to export to the grid. It is not even being used in that way.

I hate the sort of “jam tomorrow” promises that developers often make—they say, “This facility will contribute to district heating, cheaper bills and provide energy into the grid,” when the ability to do so is not there, and the benefits may not be realised for many years. Such contracts often lock in councils and Administrations for 20 to 25 years. I hope that in 20 to 25 years, we will have made a dramatic transition to a more circular economy and will not be producing the type of waste that needs to be burned or sent to landfill, and yet we are locking ourselves into a model for dealing with waste that is not the worst, but is one of the worst.

Incinerators such as the one planned in my constituency emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour than any other fossil fuel source, including coal. As well as the emissions from the traffic coming to and from the site, and potentially other emissions coming out of it—there is a lot of controversy about that—there is also the issue of what happens to the ash. Incineration is not a complete replacement for landfill, because the ash has to go to landfill, potentially in a soluble form. There is much concern about the risk to water courses, lakes and water supplies. Incineration is not some sort of magic panacea that solves all our waste problems. As I said, we need to address the production of waste in the first place. The idea that incinerators such as this are some sort of magic solution is very far from the truth.

What are the alternative ways forward? As I said, I think we need to be looking much more at creating a circular economy and reducing waste in the first place. We need to understand that there is a difference here: we have a landfill tax, but we do not have one on incineration. Where are the incentives to recycle more and produce less waste in the first place? I am aware that the Treasury considered that in 2018 and said that it would be willing to consider an incinerator tax once more infrastructure had been put in place. Will the Minister update us on where the Government are on their thinking on that, particularly given the example that we will need to set this year as we approach the crucial COP conference? What are the Government doing to reduce the amount of waste that needs to be incinerated or go to landfill?

There is a whole bunch of challenging issues here. There is a very clear case against the proposal for my constituency, but it sits within the wider issue of the responsibility for waste and how we deal with it. Obviously, there is a lot that we can do on an individual, personal level. I urge those at the top of businesses that are sending vast amounts of commercial and industrial waste to incinerators to reconsider their business practices.

There is also the uncertainty around Brexit. Some of our waste usually travels via Europe, so perhaps the Minister can update us on how the import and export of waste will be managed after 31 January. I know that one of the cases being made for the incinerator in my patch is that it is thought that trade with the Netherlands is somehow part of the solution. How will that be affected, and will it add further uncertainty?

The negative impact of incinerators cannot be ignored. Burning waste into our atmosphere is simply not the solution to coping with waste. Skyfill does not replace landfill. My message to CoGen and Môr Hafren Bio Power is this: we do not want you in south Cardiff. I hope that the Welsh Government and others will listen to the many people from across the spectrum who oppose the project.

[Several hon. Members rose—]