Greens win Holyrood Vote against "Landfill in the Sky"
(NewDesignWorld Press Release Center) -- Parliament today endorsed Green opposition to plans for a new generation of incinerators, now rebranded as "energy from waste" plants. Green MSP Robin Harper brought forward an amendment (1) to this effect to today's Scottish Government motion, and both the amendment and the final motion as amended were passed at Decision Time. (2)
Robin Harper MSP said:
On the SNP's watch, many substantial incinerator proposals are coming forward, including unpopular plants in East Lothian, North Lanarkshire and Binn Farm in Perthshire. Burning a quarter of our waste, as the Scottish Government's plans permit, would commit local authorities to provide an endless conveyor belt of unrecycled packaging and other waste to pour into the furnaces. The irony is that Ministers have made good progress on recycling, meeting the 2010 targets early, and there has been good progress on anaerobic digestion and other properly sustainable technologies. This success should be the final nail in the coffin for incinerators.
These so-called "energy from waste" plants are fundamentally incompatible with a zero waste strategy. Calling incinerators something more pleasant-sounding may make politicians feel better about them, but local residents will still pay the price. Burning plastic bottles and discarded household goods is not clean, and it's not renewable energy. It's just 'landfill in the sky', and we know Scotland can do better. Today's vote is very welcome, and we will now addressing the problem of the present commitment to a unhelpfully high 25% cap during consideration of the new waste strategy.
Notes
1. The amendment in the name of Robin Harper MSP added the following text to today's motion:
, and believes that, given the good progress being made so far, there should be no necessity for any large-scale waste-to-energy plants to be built in Scotland and that reuse, reducing waste creation and recycling are the best way forward.
2. The amendment passed by 65 votes to 54 with no abstentions.
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