2nd April 2007

Waste management is once again being discussed on the Sheffield Telegraph letters page (Cllr Price 16th & 30th March, Cllr Clement-Jones and Mr Wroe 23rd March).

Labour claims that incineration is "green"; the Lib Dems promise to spend an extra £1m on recycling because it’s what people want. The Green Party argues that neither of these stances goes far enough. Incineration with energy reclamation is indeed better than landfill, but it still produces more greenhouse gases than recycling. Cllr Price rightly points out that recycling uses energy, but he fails to acknowledge that the production of objects from raw materials uses even more. Plastics are critical as they are made (using energy) from oil (a fossil fuel). Even when the energy cost of collection, sorting, transportation and processing are taken into account, along with textiles, plastics are still the most carbon-saving waste-stream to recycle.

Last week Sheffield Green Party released a comprehensive waste strategy for the city which can be seen on our website. We show how reduction, repair and re-use are even better options than either recycling or incineration and make suggestions for how the City Council could lead on a truly green waste strategy. We say this should be part of a regional strategy and include commercial waste.

As for Sweden, Graham Wroe's point was that incineration is near the bottom of their waste management hierarchy. They reduce and recycle all they can (over 95% of glass and metals and over 80% of electronic waste). They convert organic waste into biogas and fertilizer. They apply this not only to domestic but also to commercial waste (which forms 90% of the total).

Environmentally friendly policies cannot be reduced to a “silver bullet” technology or one popular sound-bite. They involve carefully balancing and explaining the environmental and economic consequences of every option. But the clear principle driving this particular discussion should be the urgent need to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place.

Yours sincerely

Cllr Jillian Creasy
Sheffield Green Party