Incinerator.

[snooky]

The Environment Agency have granted a license to Viridor to build and operate an incinerator to burn household rubbish from five nearby counties,common sense has prevailed but,no doubt,the usual suspects will crawl further out of the woodwork and intensify their scare-mongering and whip up a frenzy of opposition to it.
The incinerator is to be built on a brownfield site in what is now called Cardiff Bay here in Cardiff.In reality it is in the Docks area and on land which is traditionally for industrial use.

[Mike Vogel]

I don't know anything about the science of this, Snooky, but I believe the technology of suppressing emissions is sufficiently advanced to enable companies to eliminate almost all nauseating or damaging emissions from incineration. The actual incinerated stuff itself, on the other hand, could be cleansed and re-used perhaps. The objections stem from the mistrust of companies and the perception that they may cut corners to cut costs. Occasionally such suspicions have proved justified,hence the problem now.

[Monika]

On the continent, many cities run their central heating systems from the heat output of household rubbish incinerators. They are well out of the way, have very tall chimneys and their smoke and chemical emissions are very strictly controlled. And they appear do produce an enormous amount of energy.

[PLUMPUDDING]

My son went to Estonia earlier this year and said that most of the towns had incinerator plants to use up any burnable rubbish and these were fairly close to the towns. In return these provided lots of cheap heat and hot water.

They don't need cooling towers like in this country as all the heat produced is made good use of. Also their proximity to the towns means that little energy is lost transporting it, unlike here where we are so sensitive that our power stations have to be miles out in the country. Although saying that, Sheffield has an excellent system along the European lines that provides heat for lots of council flats and buildings. They had a lot of opposition from various green groups at first, but nothing has been said about this for ages. I'll have to look up more details about how it is performing.

It seems a very good idea to reduce the amount of waste we produce by putting it to good use and it would mean much less reliance on coal and other methods of energy production.

[Primrose]

I don't know about industrial incinerators, but I believe some crematoriums are now fitting heat generating equipment from their burners so that the previous generation can warm those still present.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Sheffield's up to date recycling plant is now run by Veiolia waste and there are full details of this on their web site.

They produce electricity for the national grid and heat for the city - it is strictly monitored and sounds like a very efficient process for disposing of the city's waste.

[retropants]

how extremely sensible