I’m not sure if I would consult with a doctor about whether a waste to energy plant is a good idea. They should probably stick to what they are trained and qualified for.
Unless its a doctorate in environmental economics, or energy management, or advanced engineering.
MD though can stay in their lane.
I would absolutely trust a doctor to advocate for public health, they know better than anyone how factors in the environment can affect health, an important voice in the debate I think. Public consultation isn’t about asking one person who is the most qualified.
You have no problem with the toxic waste left over from the ash?
Isn’t it already toxic waste before it’s burnt?
By definition, no, it is not toxic. That is why plastics are used for food packaging etc…
Chemical degradation into simpler feed socks, would be a much better idea than burning it and effectively wasting it.
Chemical degradation into simpler feed socks
Can you elaborate on this? I don’t think we have discussed alternatives in this thread yet.
Complex plastics can generally be degraded to simpler feed stocks, the process is far from perfect, but you get a pretty significant percent of raw material back.
The stuff you get back, however is not the material to make what you started with, it is going to be a lower grade then that. But this is an extremely active area of research, I read a paper recently about a process to recover the original feed stocks, which if it can be scaled, could make some plastics almost circular…
Technically burning is a form of degrading… It’s just the worst kind, especially if you don’t trap the combustion products.
But there are a lot of you start looking. The difference is these take energy rather than generating it.
Thanks for that, it’s interesting.
But I’ve gone back through the comments, and rewatched much of the video. Is the proposal to burn plastics? I can’t see where that’s proposed, the proposal is to burn rubbish otherwise heading to landfill.
Can we not investigate better plastic recycling, reduce plastic usage, and still burn what is left over?
Now personally to me taking 100 tonne of rubbish and turning it into 25 tonne of ash doesn’t seem like the greatest plan ever. But if the alternative is coal then that’s got worse health incomes for those nearby, though I think we can all agree that coal should be phased out. But for the sake of discussion, why isn’t it feasible to burn what can’t be recycled?
My bad, I was replying to two separate comments that my head melded together.
Just watched the video, plastics are not specifically mentioned. But will 100% be a significant portion of the waste steam.
Whilst coal is really dirty, burning general waste, will inevitably be much worse. With coal, they try to control what goes in, to quite a great extent. General waste, by definition is “general” aka uncontrolled. You literally just burn whatever comes through the door… Batteries, computers, poopie nappies, piles of plastics, wood, light bulbs, bike tyres… Just whatever the fuck gets dumped into the bin.
The leachate from a landfill is some pretty evil shit, the fly ash leachate from a coal plant is worse mainly due to concentration of the bad stuff that leaches out. I would hazard a guess that the leachate from a waste to energy plant would be worse again.
I would be very skeptical of the claim “they wouldn’t import waste”… Does getting it from the North Island count as importing???
The last sentence in this is the most important:
‘We need to be tackling this at the source, designing waste out of our lives, not creating another market for it.’
Yes, exactly!
Can we get to legislating one use plastics out of use, get glass bottles back in, use paper for packaging etc etc? If those things don’t happen, we are really going to need this plant. The population is increasing, and so is waste.
Amen.
I have nearly a van full of polystyrene that I have no idea how get rid of. Can’t recycle it, can’t throw it out with my regular waste as it would cost me hundreds on half empty council bags.
And you can’t vote with your wallet. Nobody tells you you’re getting three cubic feet of shit along with your new fridge or whatever. The stuff should be banned.
Where I live, Mitre 10 has free dropoff of polystyrene for recycling.
There’s a list of dropoff places on this page: https://www.expol.co.nz/recycling-programmes
The list seems to only have Auckland and South Island stores, I’m in neither and my local takes polystyrene so definitely check in with your local store.
It notes that they can’t do large volume, only up to 2 rubbish bags full equivalent at a time, so you may have to drip feed it in.
And as an aside I’ve noticed a lot less polystyrene in appliances these days if you get more expensive brands.
I do wonder how we would change out plastic packaging for a lot of foods etc. with paper based products with current technology. We’ve become so dependent on things being sealed. I guess it would have multiple levels to it, including technology and behaviours.
I guess what you need is an organic substance that breaks down quickly enough to be useful but slower than the product it’s holding.
Home compostable packaging is already available and is often used for things like bags of coffee beans. These in theory should be able to be expanded to other dry products.
You’d probably be able to get away with similar packaging for things like bread. Has water content but the bread only lasts a few days anyway so it doesn’t matter if it starts breaking down in a few weeks.
I reckon much of the technology we need for alternatives exists already, but the cost is currently prohibitive.
Probably better getting something useful out of that waste, instead of either sticking it in the ground, or shipping it overseas and making it someone else’s problem.
Oh boy, I’m really curious to know what amazing reason there is to dump plastic into the environment instead of burning it all up in a closed system.
