‘Luddite’ says no
Despite attempts for months by experts in waste-to-energy technology to get an appointment to see her, the Green
Party’s Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage has refused all approaches, claiming waste-to-energy plants “don’t fit with the government’s waste reduction plans.”
But the German Federal Environment Agency says that “there are several reasons that the claim that waste incineration is thwarting waste prevention efforts is unsustainable.”
It also says, “Waste incineration is making a contribution to climate protection and helps save natural resources” in Germany.
Emissions from the new generation plants were negligible, while rubbish dumps generated methane, said to be the worst of greenhouse gases, and CO2.
Ms Sage appears to have a luddite view of new technology in the waste disposal field, preferring to see waste buried in the ground, leaving the after-effects, like the possibility of toxins leaching into waterways, for future generations to deal with.
She is out of step with the Green Party in Germany, which is promoting a complete ban on land-filling by 2020.
It maintains that landfill sites are “black boxes with uncontrolled biological and chemical processes that need intensive care for generations, with a permanent danger of leaks and tears,” likely to “cause major impacts on groundwater and soil.”
More than 2000 pyrolytic plants operate across the world, in countries like Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Belgium and other European countries, and recover a substantial value in material from the waste stream before turning the remainder into electricity, slag for use in road building, and ash.
Social Credit would fund the building of a wasteto-energy (WtE) plant south of Auckland, where demand for rubbish disposal and electricity are both fastestgrowing, and ensure ownership remained in New Zealand hands.
We want the government to pass legislation requiring at least 60 per cent of waste to be re-processed by 2025 rather than being dumped into landfills.
Those countries with waste to energy plants are taking responsibility for their own rubbish disposal, whereas Ms Sage appears happy for New Zealand to send much of ours offshore for someone else to deal with, and simply bury the rest in the ground and hope it goes away.
"Ms Sage appears to have a luddite view of new technology in the waste disposal field, preferring to see waste buried in the ground, leaving the aftereffects, like the possibility of toxins leaching into waterways, for future generations to deal with."