IS THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON WASTE GENUINE?
Hull City Council says it is committed to dealing with waste arising in our area through sustainable and effective means, but this surely needs to be backed up with firm actions.
Here are some salient points by Barry Robinson.
Is the public consulation on waste, organised by consultants Enviros, genuine? Are East Riding Council and Hull City Council deceiving us?
I believe they are not genuine. The two councils are deceiving us.
Why is the consultation to be dealt with over the period 2 Aug – 17 Sept, the peak holiday period, when, traditionally, parents take their children to the seaside for a fortnight?. Could it be so that filling in the questionnaire is forgotten? Is it that Parish Councils and Town Councils close down for that period? Does anyone remember the Hull incinerator, telephone consultations? Allegedly, 1,000 residents were asked for their opinion by ‘phone? In five years of campaigning, I have not come across one of those people!
Why haven’t Parish & Town Councils even been informed of the exercise, and been invited to attend?
Why was Enviros, with the two councils’ backing, allowed to give a private press conference to put across Enviros’s biased, edited, message, with no possibility of residents or councillors being able to question ? Why were the only good things that came out of that, the fact that eight residents made such a fuss that officers daren’t stop us talking to the Press, and an unbiased reporter printed an unbiased article in the Yorkshire Post?
Why were there no Press Conferences in other towns such as Goole, Brid, Beverley?
Why have there not been Public Conferences where members of the public can talk to each other at the beginning of the consultations?
Why is everyone I speak to binning their questionnaires?
Why is Goole Town Council up in arms about the consultations?
Why is it so easy for me to get residents to let me have their copies of the questionnaires that they intend to bin? I could so easily fill them in with MY opinions. No signature is required. Shades of ‘corruption’ in postal voting!
Why one questionnaire per household? What about those, where husband and wife are happily married, but totally disagree on the answers to the questions? What about households with adult children, having very different views to their parents?
Why no questionnaires in Urdu, Cantonese, Bengali? There are good, respectable Indian, Chinese, Pakistani, Bengali residents, who are not completely au fait with English, who want their children to have a better world.
Why do the councils, (who are the ones pushing the alleged consultations), seem to have abdicated responsibility?
Why did one caring, hard working senior councillor insist on it being made absolutely crystal-clear that the fact that an incinerator, or other facilities necessary for the waste treatment could be built near anyone’s home, should be prominently mentioned in the questionnaire, only to find it tucked away in the small print?
Why is it that an East Riding councillor told me that that councillor was proud of the way that the Council usually handle public consultations, yet is in despair over this shambles?
Why did one senior councillor send me a message that, ‘If we allow this consultation to go ahead, just as, WRG, Enviros, East Riding Council, and Hull Council want, it is inevitable that someone, somewhere will get an incinerator’?
Why is it that a KHCC councillor sent me a message, along the lines, ‘Thank goodness someone is awake’?
Why did DS, a Customs Officer say, ‘If I had several hours to spare, I could work out the questions, and the answers’? Why did GR say, ‘It will take me several hours to answer the form, and by the end, I will be ticking any box’? Why did AE say, ‘I was suspicious of the language on the form, so I’ve binned it’? Why did BR say,’ Question 1 gives us information overload. Why do Enviros say that we have to answer everything exactly right, otherwise they’ll bin the questionnaire? Why do Enviros pretend that hard-worknig residents must have time to sort out this serious subject’?
Why are 200 residents, picked at random, to be asked to go to each of the belated workshops, when they will already have filled in, and sent off their questionnaires? Is it because, most of the invitees will say, ‘Thank you. No thank you’, and so Enviros will be able to say, ‘Residents are just apathetic’? Why are people who are vitally interested in the subject, not going to be able to attend? Why are there 7 workshops for probably 750,000 residents to attend?
Why is there no transparency in the process,? Why is the evaluation to be secretly done by Enviros? Why no truly independent experts?
Oh, yes. I’ve also got some questions.
I have real information file, which I am happy to discuss with anyone who still doubts that the consultations are crooked.
It is a catalogue of confidence tricks, manipulated truths, half-truths.
First page.
Statement. ‘We cannot continue to bury waste in landfill.’
Why not? If we decide to incinerate our waste, we will automatically produce 10% fly ash, (by year 2020 it should be 42,000 tons per annum). It is so toxic that it is a ‘Hazardous waste’ which has to be handled carefully and put into landfill. If it goes to Winterton Quarry, it will quite possibly leach into the water supply for the area.
I believe there will also be105,000 tons of bottom ash, which many of us think too dangerous to use for construction work Will it have to be landfilled?.
Finally, ‘Is there really a shortage of landfill in the East Riding?’
Statement. ‘If we continue to produce waste at the rate we do, by year 2020, it will cost £30 million.
We understand that ERYC officers pointed out that ‘waste is increasing by 12% pa by volume’. Did it not dawn on them that waste statistics are determined by weight? One dustbin of old-style solid waste weighed more than two bins containing all this new plastic film? Much of our modern waste is simply light-weight film.
People are taking old clothes, books, to charity shops.
Some waste experts believe that the apparent increase in household waste, is due to illicit business waste.
Unfortunately, when emphasising that we could be faced with a bill of £30 million to get rid of our waste in year 2020 ‘if we do nothing’, no-one says , if ‘we do do something’,
And burn it in any way, or make refuse-derived-fuel (RDF), inevitably, the toxic ash has to be landfilled. At what cost? £100 p ton? £150 p ton? That alone could cost £6.3 Million.
Statement. ‘We need to find an environmental, cost-effective way of dealing with waste we cannot recycle.’
Why don’t we do all we can to recycle first, and then talk about what we can’t recycle?
At present, the two councils have no intention of exceeding minimum recycling targets..
Enviros had some involvement in a successful 4-year trial in Essex. In an area similar to the East Riding, recycling readily reached 59% without effort. This was achieved by, 17% paper, 7% cans, 1% plastic bottles, and a phenomenal 34% garden waste.
East Riding Council discussed a motion recently. to collect, at the kerbside, separated garden waste, and take it for environmentally- friendly composting. This would have produced real compost. One of the signatories to this document you are reading, had carried out a simple experiment that showed that, on occasions, householders put out for collection, separated from all other rubbish, garden waste, forming 50-55% of the total waste for their area. The motion? Passed to Scrutiny Committee, where it will presumably languish.
Statement. ‘Listening to the views of local residents is vital’.
Then, why is no attention paid to the views of our ethnic minorities? Why are questionnaires not being sent, say, to respectable, Urdu- or Bengali-speaking residents? Why is only one questionnaire sent to each household? I know many lovely families where wife, husband, adult son, adult daughter, have distinctly differing views on important matters. What about blind people?
Statement. ‘Remember, any of the proposed technologies could be sited near you’.
In other words, as is proposed by WRG at N Ferriby, by year 2020, you could have a 300,000 ton facility built in your area of beauty? A hard-working, senior ERYC councillor, had demanded that this point be prominently posted, so that respondents would be aware of the possibility. In fact the note is almost hidden. Does the bland statement really respect his wishes?
Statement. ‘If you need further information, contact KHCC on 01482 300300, or ERYC on 01482 393939.’
So, when we need advice on technology, on assessment, on recycling levels, we ask some poor girl, who immediately says, ‘Simple, Sir, ATT is …’
No. If we need information, we laboriously go through the process of tracking Enviros down. Hey, just a moment, do we trust Enviros? Wouldn’t we be better asking our own, knowledgeable colleagues? Of course, but probably, they will give different, more accurate answers!
On page 2, Info. on technologies, let’s just point out that no-one mentions costs or pollution, or health hazards.
Let’s not forget that, whilst Enviros congratulate themselves on, with great effort, reaching 45% recycling, I have already shown that 59% is perfectly feasible.
Don’t let them confuse you about composting.
There are two, completely separate aspects to this.
Composting garden and kitchen wastes, collected separately at the door, to produce PROPER, saleable compost, part of recycling targets,.Then there is composting of mixed waste, the rubbish straight from your wheelie. This is the stuff they’re wheelie talking about!.. It produces? --- rubbish!
On to the next two pages. At a couple of stages, it is indicated that, if we fill in the questions incorrectly, the questionnaire will be binned. I understand that, when a senior ERYC officer was asked if ‘not answering some parts of a question counted as incorrect’, he admitted that the form would be binned. What we think it really means is, that if you do not give the required answers, Enviros is justified in binning it.
One has to answer the questions in exactly the manner prescribed.
So, one has to ‘assess waste treatments factors’ as, high, medium, or low, importance.
This Question 1, is really for undermining arguments put forward by objectors at any public inquiry. Consider
Q1c. Some technologies are harmful. How important?
Q1f. Waste technologies can cause water pollution. How important?
Q1k. ‘Some technologies are more tried and tested. How important is reliability?’
Q1l. ‘Some technologies fit better with Govt. targets. How important?’
Q1m. ‘How important is it that technologies are acceptable to the public?’
You will note that we have used up 5 assessments. Presumably, we feel all five statements are high priority?
These questions should simply not be asked. We all realise that technologies must not be harmful. That they must not pollute. That they must be reliable, (otherwise, on cost grounds, why use them?). What importance is it that a technology fits in with govt. targets? The Council simply has to choose a technology that achieves, no ifs, no buts. Of course a technology has to be acceptable to the public. The alternative is a Stalinist state.
(Do you notice though, all our treasured high priority gradings have been used up!)
Additionally, these particular questions are crucial. If WRG can prove that sufficient people seem not to be bothered about harmful or polluting technologies; that people are not bothered that they be acceptable-to-the public technologies, or even that enough people will accept unsightly plant, then these objections are seriously weakened when put forward as reasons to turn down a planning application.
Incidentally. Where are questions such as, ‘Do you want a 300,000 tons pa facility on your doorstep, looming over your back garden every time you put out the washing, or, will you agree to a smaller, 10,000 tons pa facility, 400 yards from you, if the other waste, created by other people, is dealt with in their backyards?’
Do people filling in this questionnaire, know that it is preferable to have small, localised plant in many locations, rather than a giant, centralised facility? The only people gaining from the latter, is the waste management company. The Proximity Principle is better satisfied with small, local facilities. Also, they are more acceptable to the public.
Question 2 Technologies
Although there is an indication of the scoring system, I suggest that, if one is in a hurry, one easily slips up, and uses the numbering in reverse, ie, 6 is points given, rather than position in ranking.for the preferred tech. Why? Because I made just that mistake. Presumably one cannot correct it because the disfiguration renders form, ‘completed incorrectly’ Better idea, grade by letters A-F. OK. So we are grading them. Don’t forget that you have to grade all. Let’s say you don’t want incineration, advanced thermal treatment, or autoclaving, under any circumstances. However, you have to give them all a score. You have to give one of them 4, and yet, you don’t like any of them! So, we get to MBT. Didn’t we see earlier, that it is not a complete answer to the problem? But we give it 3.
Why,
As the technologies are supposed to be state-of-the art, why has Enviros, persisted n refusing to consider, the ‘Swedish technology’ described by Douglas Marcham? This is not like any of the six alternatives given. It is approved, I believe, by the Swedish Govt.
I note that no mention is made of health hazards / toxicity / pollution hazards, of any of the technologies we are allowed to choose from. For example, if incineration is used, we can look forward by year 2020, to 42,000 tons per annum, of highly toxic fly ash, that has to be landfilled, being handled extremely carefully. That is, unless, as at Edmonton, the management was allowed to store it out in the open. Or, as at Byker, Newcastle, the Council is allowed to spread it on allotment paths. Of course, with an incinerator, waste managers can always let it blow out of the chimney, illegally as at Nottingham.
Question 3. ‘Would you be prepared to have more containers in your home?’ (Hoping we answer, ‘NO’).
But, wheelie bins are totally unsuitable for garden waste, and disgusting for food waste. Garden waste is seasonal, -- gigantic amounts in the summer, little in winter.
Why not use reasonable-sized, plastic bags? Binmen won’t hurt themselves, and the system will be adaptable to seasonal fluctuations.
Will you be willing to pay more for better recycling.
Of course not. This is a scare tactic. The question should have been,
‘Do you believe the Council should divert more finances into recycling’
Now to,
The ‘organisation’ of the waste consultation.
Despite there having been a strictly private, public press conference, there is no public, public conference, where the public can interact, ask awkward questions, come to realise that something is amiss. Don’t think that the consultation workshops are the answer. At these seven, that are to satisfy the whole of the Hull and the East Riding area, probably 210, yes, only 210 residents, randomly picked by computer, can attend. .Even if one is bursting to be involved, unless one is invited to attend, one can’t. So the other, (is it 249,700?), residents will have to work it out for themselves.
How do we know that the answers we apply to the three questions, will actually be used in the evaluations by Enviros? There are no independent auditors. All is to be done in secret. Sorry o be cynical, but in the fight against Hull’s incinerator, we believe that 10,000 objections were mislaid. I know fro personal experience that, when trying to moddify the Draft Joint Waste Plan (Hull and the East Riding), my objection form was,’ too late sent in’, despite the fact I know it was sent in early.
Miscellaneous points.
Many residents aren’t apathetic towrds the councils, just cynical, realistic. Believe, from the bad track record that no notice will be taken, so why bother. Attaching the questionnaire to the East Riding News, was certain to get it binned.
Many, including myself have no time for junk mail.
Don’t forget the adage, ‘Council Officers come, go, move on. Mistakes stay, to be paid 4 by the taxpayers.
What exactly, are the faults in fillingin the questionnaire, that allow Enviros to bin our efforts? There seems no fixed guidelines.
Will we ever know, should the councils still persist in carrying on these consultations, despite the risks of residents sending in other peoples’ questionnaires, (that they have illegally filled in), (this showing up the total nonsense the questionnaire represents, and leaving the councils wide-open to prosecution, as I for one have already proven that it is
easy to do,) Will we ever know how many forms were binned?
Barry Robinson
