East Ayrshire Council want local 'waste to energy' facility - but stop short of backing controversial incinerator

dailyrecord.co.uk:

East Ayrshire Council says it is in favour of a local waste to energy plant to reduce its carbon footprint – but has stopped short of backing the controversial Killoch incinerator.The issue was raised during a presentation on climate change to EAC cabinet.It revealed that almost half of the council’s carbon emissions came as a result of waste.However, a ‘gamechanger’ in the form of a new waste to energy contract signed in May, could all but wipe that out, reducing EAC’s overall carbon footprint by half.In 2022/23 alone, the council expects a 20 to 30 percent reduction in waste to landfill.Contractor Enva processes the waste collected by East Ayrshire’s bin lorries and transforms it into Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) at its Linwood depot.

A portion of this is sent to Europe where there is a greater demand for RDF use.It is estimated that around 63 tonnes could be processed into RDF instead of going to landfill.Conservative group leader, councillor John McFadzean, said he welcomed the approach, but said he was concerned that the council was simply passing on the problem to other places.He said: “We are going to improve our figures by turning waste to pellets rather than send them to landfill.

I can’t see the point in creating these pellets and then shipping them somewhere else.“We keep speaking within the council, within Scottish Government and at Westminster about saving the world.“If we create these pellets and ship them somewhere in the world to be burned for energy used.

All we are doing is creating a larger carbon footprint.“It may not directly impact us, although if we send them to Europe, the emissions would probably blow back over our country anyway.”He added that the ‘we are not solving a problem, we are just moving a