The detailed case against ‘The South Tyne & Wear

Waste Management Partnership Solution’.

The South Tyne & Wear Waste Management Partnership comprises of Sunderland City
Council, Gateshead Borough Council and South Tyneside Council. The partnership was set
up to seek a solution to how we dispose of the waste we all produce. Joining forces allows
the three authorities to access Government funding guaranties, PFI, P rivate Finance Initiative,
where privately supplied funding is used to provide public facilities. Earlier uses of PFI were hospitals
and schools; however the deals struck are now causing problems with the affordability of the high
repayment costs. Some hospitals face crippling debts, which are likely to affect the clinical services
they need to provide.

Companies who provide the funding for this finance do so to make money, which is what
businesses are about, but and it is a big but, how much profit is reasonable? It is becoming
increasingly obvious that these profits in many cases are excessive, but because of the long
term nature of the PFI contracts we, the taxpayers are stuck with these financial millstones.

Turning to the waste PFI it is even more unpredictable, as burnable waste is undoubtedly a
diminishing quantity, it has to be if all these ‘Green’ initiatives are to materialize.
Which is one of the major problems of burning waste, whether you produce some electricity
or not.

The contract about to be signed by the Partnership with Sita UK Ltd, who will operate the
‘Energy from Waste’ plant in Teesside, funded by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The contract is
expected to cost £1.6 billion! and will have a life of 28 years starting in around 2014/5.
We face the prospect of increasing costs for a reducing burnable waste stream, remember
profit is the Idol here and will be worshiped at all times.

On 29th October 2010, Veolia Waste Company won an appeal in the High Court preventing
Nottinghamshire County Council revealing details of its £850 million PFI contract to a council
tax payer. As our councils prepare to sign a contract worth double the Nottinghamshire one,
we need to ask who benefits from this secrecy, not apparently the council tax payers!

So how do we deal with our waste?

Currently all waste disposal methods have drawbacks, none more so than land filling, it is
very much a case of out of sight, out of mind, but of course it remains active for hundreds if
not thousands of years, continuing to pollute our water and air. Land fill operators would
have us believe how safe and well managed their sites are, a review of prosecutions over
years tells us otherwise. Fortunately better technology and companies better able to
manage that technology are emerging to treat waste safely rather than chuck it into any
available hole in the ground. For example VT Technologies Ltd, who was Vosper
Thorneycroft, the high tech military ship builder.
One of the emerging technologies and one we believe offer the best solution currently
available. This is Autoclaving, the sterilization of waste using high temperature, high
pressure steam. The process has been used for many years to sterilize medical equipment
and over recent years to treat medical waste rather than burn it. Over the last three years
this process has been adapted to treat domestic and commercial waste with several local
authorities selecting it as their preferred waste disposal solution. A plant in Rotherham has
now run since 2007 and is now being doubled in capacity to 200,000 tonnes per year.

Autoclaving already offers greater diversion from landfill than is planned by The South Tyne
& Wear Waste Management Partnership, which expects to achieve 50% by 2020, whilst
Autoclaving currently offers 80%. Autoclaving offers a ‘second chance’ to collect recyclable
materials, whilst many residents use their blue bin, some do not and are not likely to in the
future. Incineration destroys this material; autoclaving cleans, reduces and separates plastic,
aluminium and steel cans. After treatment a fibrous is left, which is quite wet, obviously this
material, although sterilized, does contain contaminates. Further processing of the wet fibre
is expected to be developed quite soon, with
anaerobic digestion as the most likely option.

The fibre is placed in a sealed vessel and quickly

decomposes to produce high volumes of biogas,
ten times more than can be collected from
landfill. It is expected that enough gas will be
produced to power the boilers used to produce
the steam for the autoclaves.

Autoclave Fibre

What other methods of waste disposal are there?

Other processes have pros and cons. One such process is MBT which fundamentally shreds
waste, removes recyclates and then dries the waste in windrows for two weeks. The dried
waste is then subjected to further shredding. The dried waste can be burnt to produce
electricity or more commonly used to fire brick kilns. However it is usually free to the brick
makers, which makes little environmental or economic sense.

Plasma Gasification again is a form of incineration which basically burns the waste at low
temperature and burns the gases arising from the initial burn at a much higher temperature
which is used to produce electricity via steam generation.

The above demonstrates that several waste disposal methods need to be explored. Future
solutions may involve one or a mixture of each process. Of course if we enter into a 28 year
contract with Sita UK Ltd, all of these options disappear (along with vast sums of our
money).
 So what’s the answer?
Do not commit to a 28 year contract. As council tax payers we cannot
let our money to be squandered in this way.

Place a five year contract to use the existing privately funded new
facilities in the region, including the Autoclaving plant in Gateshead.
We can select contract periods because we do not need to fund a
facility over many years, as with the Sita plant.

(The 5 years is a suggested time, it can be longer or shorter and can be

renewed if & when required)

THAT SOLVES THE WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM FOR A MINIMUM OF

FIVE YEARS. THE VAST SUM OF MONEY SAVED CAN THEN BE USED TO
PROTECT COUNCIL STAFF, WHO DELIVERS FRONT LINE SERVICES.

What happens during the five years? Investigate local autoclaving plants to be installed
where the bin motors are garaged, thus greatly reducing travel. Autoclaves do not have to
be built as massive structures like large Energy from Waste incinerators. They can be
modular and can be built off site and delivered as a working installation in multiples as
required.

Bin motors return to their local base to discharge their load directly into the autoclave
facility. Even if each authority built several of these facilities in their area, it would still be
much, much cheaper and not have a need to generate high profit levels or repay an
expensive ‘mortgage’.

We make no apologies for wanting to stop The South Tyne & Wear Waste
Management Partnership contract.

 Our aim is to save a vast sum of public money.

 Dispose of our waste in the most environmentally way currently
available.
 Divert waste from Land fill four years earlier than the STWWMP plan.
 Protect essential front line council jobs, with the money saved.
 Use the five years to develop local Autoclave plants (or any better
process, which may have emerged in that time)
 We are asking all Councillors, all our Members of
Parliament, Environmental Groups and anyone who agrees
with this approach. TIME IS RUNNING OUT. We are only
days or weeks away from a debt lasting 28 years!
www.houghtonrats.org.uk

Issued by Houghton Residents Against Toxic Site (RATS).

Houghton-le-Spring
and
Independent Councillors Colin Wakefield, Sheila Ellis & Derrick Smith.