'How to respond to the NLWA Edmonton Incinerator consultation'

There are exacting targets to be met: the UK government target of halving residual waste by 2042 and the London Environment Strategy target of recycling 65% by 2030. 

Curiously there isn’t any actual mention of incineration as the cornerstone of NLWA recycling activity - that our rubbish and recycling are burnt in the incinerator and this is their plan to generate heat - but there is plenty of scope in the comment boxes to raise further issues.

NLWA needs to urgently review its decision to build a 700,000 tonne incinerator to burn a rapidly shrinking waste feedstock. 

Dorothea Hackman has concerns about the proposed Edmonton Incinerator (Image: Archant)

The main concern to raise in the survey responses is that we need a modern, state-of-the-art pre-sorting facility on the Edmonton site. Everything that can be recycled must be taken out of our rubbish and recycled rather than burning so much of it.

In the seven boroughs served by the NLWA, the recycling rate is less than 30%. So while trying to push the blame and solution onto individuals and the companies producing packaging is worthwhile, it is too late and insufficient by itself to avert the climate and ecological catastrophe. 

To do that, we would need to immediately and completely stop the manufacture of plastic and clean up our oceans for starters. We need businesses and governments to take dramatic action to move to a green and circular economy. This keeps being identified at the COP meetings, yet the promises aren’t kept by the participating countries, such as the Paris agreement.

The survey can be found at https://northlondonwaste.commonplace.is. In responding, there’s also a worry about needing to burn waste to generate heating for homes and business: if a certain amount of heat is contracted and must be delivered, and our recycling and rubbish continue to reduce, then will the NLWA have to import lorryloads of rubbish? And where will this come from as we have overprovision of incinerators both in London and the UK?

Even more alarmingly, COP28, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, coming up in November, is being chaired and run by the fossil fuel giants. Reducing global warming to save humanity from fire, flood, drought and famine is their challenge, but there are already millions of climate refugees. There are challenges in rapidly turning economies around, but delay is deadly. 

Continuing to exploit oil and gas with the licences granted by governments is how big oil generates profit. It is difficult to believe the tiny proportion of their activity on green projects will be enough to save the planet and her ecosystems, when for instance they haven’t even cleaned up the decades old spillages and pollution in the Niger Delta.

• Dorothea Hackman is chair of the Camden Civic Society.