The States having voted to go ahead with the incinerator, I have a number of questions for the people standing who want to go back on that motion:
a) Do you personally know what the position is regarding a new incinerator? In other words, have any contracts been signed, and if not what is the deadline for signing them? What penalty might there be if they are signed?
b) How much of a delay do you see in any debate on alternatives? Will it set the time table for putting a new incinerator in place back by one month, six months, a year? Or is the alternative incinerator available in less time?
c) In the meantime, should the current one completely break down before there is anything to take its place, what practical contingency plans would you put in place to dispose of rubbish for the interim, for instance, household rubbish, and do you how much is that going to cost?
The more facts and figures - costings especially - the better. Alternatives may look good on paper, but it is the fine detail of a business plan that is needed.
I'm undecided, but if the incinerator breaks down catastrophically, then I can see (1) costs of shipping waste out - if we can find a taker (2) massive health problems - rats, smells etc etc It would be nice to recycle everything overnight, but that costs too - shipping costs at least - and I'd like to see some real budget facts and figures.
I know someone who works at Bellozanne - not management, but ground floor workforce - and the news I have from them is that we are living on the brink of chaos.
17 hours ago
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a) Not to the nth degree but I know that the Scrutiny panel seem very confident that, as it has not got full planning permission yet, it can be stopped. Should there be a penalty clause to come, it may be worth paying it because the Scrutiny panel's alternatives, which I broadly agree with, are about £53 mill as opposed to £106 mill+
b)It's very possible that voting for the alternatives could lead to us having a fully flexible waste treatment/recycling/re-use system in place well BEFORE a large incinerator could have been commissioned, owing to the modular nature of some of the technology. This would REDUCE the time span a complete break down could occur in (see following).
c)Should the current incinerator "break down completely" (actually a manipulative scare tactic from TTS) then I am sure TTS must have suitable contingency plans which would work (if they don't, then why do we pay the Department any wages at all?). The present incinerator consists of three "streams" - the first two built in the mid 70's (next to my father's house...) and the third stream (twice as big as the first) at the end of the 80's. Apart from the "reception bunker", where the waste is tipped in - which recently had extreme maintenance so is unlikely to be unreliable for quite a long time - the old and the new streams are fairly distinct, engineering wise, so there is actually very little chance of a complete breakdown. The new stream (the Von Roll grate) is definitely not "past its use by date" as TTS slyly suggest by conflating, in public statements, with the two older streams (which are knackered).
Hope that helps
Nick Palmer
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