Manywells tip and the failings of environmental policies - why the Greens are wrong.

Back in the early 1990s planning permission was granted for a landfill site to be constructed in the disused Manywells Quarry on the hill above Cullingworth. Over the subsequent 9 years or so much of Bradford's household waste - the stuff you and I put in the bin every week - was dumped in the site. Now think for a few moments about what you throw away - the empty bleach bottles, the batteries, used medicines, cosmetics containers and unwanted food. Even the most assiduous of recyclers throws some of this away and the result is a poisonous mess of highly contaminated waste as dangerous in many ways as the 'hazardous' waste some campaigners get so bothered about.

Landfill sites for controlled waste (such as the stuff you throw away) are essentially a large plastic bag stuck in a hole in the ground - a sophisticated plastic bag to be sure - but still a pretty fair description. As the stuff placed in this bag rots it generates gas - methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulphur compounds in various mixes - and leachate (about which the less said the better - you really don't want to know what's in it). As you can see this isn't a very environmentally sustainable way to deal with waste - indeed landfill is considered the least sustainable means of dealing with our rubbish. As a result Government's across Europe have agreed to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by 50% by 2012 (a target we'll almost certainly miss).

Cullingworth folk know about landfill - before Manywells they put up with the even larger and more contaminating Sugden End tip (which took over £5 million to remediate) - which explains why the recycling point in the village is one of the District's best used! And I have spent much of my time as a Councillor trying - often in vain - to get the Council to improve its waste strategy and to stop planner approving more of these hideous contaminating places.

So what's this got to do with the 'Greens'? Surely they agree with all this stuff about reducing waste? Well yes and no is the answer - the 'Greens' call for the reduction of waste to landfill, get all agitated about supermarket packaging, plastic bags and nappies but fail to answer the obvious question - what is the alternative? When asked this simple question they get all hypothetical and talk about 'zero waste strategies' as an aspiration rather than answering the question - what are going to do with all the rubbish we're generating NOW?

So just like the most sensible medium term approach to reducing carbon emissions is nuclear energy - which the 'Greens' (proving once again their anti-science credentials) don't like - the sensible medium term solution to the waste issue is to carry on the effective strategy of reduction, reuse and recycling and combine it with energy-from-waste via incineration or other heat treatment. The alternative is that we will go on using landfills - nasty, smelly, contaminating, greenhouse gas generating piles of rotting rubbish. The 'Greens' are wrong to oppose incineration because of their absolutist obsession with the (quite appealling but rather utopian) idea of 'zero waste'.