Building off M5

[newshound]

Thanks, interesting links. I recognise exactly what you mean about the corrosive and polluting nature of many combustion products.

For Javelin Park (fairly local for me) I'm inclined to trust that our EA and other regulators get the balance about right. It had temporarily slipped my mind that the landfill tax, which strikes me as being a good way to move forward from some of the dubious practices of the past actually originated with the EU.

Intrigued at your reference to burning radioactive medical waste. Obviously, the technology you need is very dependent on the isotopes being used. In many cases the half lives are short. Presumably you were monitoring your discharges in the same sort of way that is done at nuclear power stations (and I recognise that it is much more difficult for "small" plant with highly variable throughput).

[harry]

Bugger all was being monitored, it was all kept very hush hush. The amounts of radioactivity were tiny but I suppose it would fall to the ground and accumulate over the years. We weren't recovering any heat. Back then it was considered nigh on impossible.

[harry]

I would think that a lot of the plastic and paper would be removed for recycling these days. This would help the incineration process.

[newshound]

Apparently once they open they are going to have a "Visitor Centre", and group tours can be organised. I shall certainly try to get a look around. My impression is that the sorting for recycling will be done elsewhere and that this site will just take non-recyclable stuff.

I have two complaints about recycling, firstly that there is no national policy so that the approaches are wildly different depending on where you are, secondly that there is very little guidance anywhere on what can be done easily at home to make operations at the plant easier or more efficient.

[Tim+]

Absolutely! I believe that contamination by non-recyclable waste is such a problem that in some American states, their mantra now is ?if in doubt, leave it out? (of the recycling bin).

No one ever explains to the public clearly what is or isn?t acceptable ?contamination? of plastics. For instance, a plastic tray that is sealed with a thinner film of plastic as a lid. Are the plastics the same (and compatible for recycling)? Does a blob of hot glue in the base represent contamination? How about the sticky paper label that requires a long soak, much scrubbing and possibly solvents to remove fully?

At what point does the carbon cost of cleaning recyclable plastics in the home make the whole thing a nonsense?

The Scottish government is annoying me considerably with their ?zero land-fill? goal when this is just leading to us exporting plastic waste do god only knows where, where more than likely it?s getting bulldozed into he sea. They are dead set against incinerators (which has lead to massive problems with hospital waste).

We really need a ?zero waste export? policy, at least for the regular household waste.

Tim

[harry]

A while back there was talk of banning "composite" plastic containers ,ie containers would have to be all the same plastic. Dunno if anything came of it.

We clean up all our containers etc before putting them in the recycle bin but I suppose most people can't be arsed.

[ARW]

There is not much you can actually do to keep the Greens happy is there?

They complain about an overpopulated planet. But they are not queueing up at the trees with a couple of metres of rope to help the situation are they?

Even if they did turn up to hang themselves it would be in a 30 year old f***ed VW camper van spewing out a load of pollutants after they called for their giro on the way.

[Dave Liquorice]

It maybe "dirty" but it's total carbon foot print is likely to be less than a modern car just rolling off the production line.