In yet another example of how ill-served we are by the media, today we see The Independent offer a front-page headline proclaiming: "Waste crisis means 80 giant furnaces set for go-ahead in 2011". That "waste crisis" is, of course, the one created by the EU's waste framework directive. It prohibits the use of landfill - the cheapest and most effective option - for the disposal of household waste, and substitutes the most expensive and least effective ... incineration - and now, at enormous cost and disruption, these incinerators must be built.

View full article here

Thanks for the heads-up regarding waste incinerators.

I'm new to this forum, and assume that you are referring to Directive 2008/98/EC (the latest directive found on Google). However that document doesn't appear to mandate incinerators, it actually seems to proscribe their use with regard to recyclable materials. It also refers a lot to member states' 'waste management plans', and appears to allow deviations from the directive where it contradicts a member state's WMP. Is the problem that the directive is too prescriptive, or that the UK government merely rubberstamps EU 'One size fits all' directives, without any attempt to shape their application to the UK?

OT, but bearing in mind how chaotic Italian waste management appears to be, other member states do not appear to pay as much heed to these directives as UKGov...

Er... Isn't that the 'AGW we're all going to die picture'? Surely there isn't any CO2 coming out of these incinerators?

The independent is a misnomer, it is the flagship for the lunacy emanating from the EU/Brussels, similarly so, another champion of kleptocratic tyranny and corruption is the grauniad, kleptocracy, democratic deficit and socialist societal re-engineering fits nicely into the Grauniad's political ethos.

I often hear the socialists comedianistas (pinko commies) deriding the Daily Mail/Express, they must all read the grauniad/Interdependent - which are actually Socialist comics (BTW the Torygraph is fast following this slide into political advocacy of lefty policies, thanks to the Blues Brothers of the Brecqhou), they deride the Mail, because it (mainly) reports the way things really are.

The comedianistas don't want that, they would see the world through rose tinted spectacles and thus, the Interdependent and the grauniad are perfect organs, oh yes the Mail is too stark.

The Interdependent (on the EU) and the grauniad have the hots for the EU, what was a luke warm indifference in the 80s, has turned into outright advocacy, these blasted rags, thank God - no one actually reads them.

What it does is create a hierarchy of waste options, with incineration behind recycling and above landfill, while also penalising landfill. Since much recycling is either ruinously expensive or impractical (there being no market for the product), the directive thus essentially promotes incineration to the main disposal option ... which is why the longer term plan is to build 80 incinerators.

Incinerators used for power production aren't a bad idea in principle, if they're profitable. Are these used for power production though? Nothing has made it clear.

As if I should have expected any different.

If the EU has its way ... none at all. All the combustible refuse will have been recycled. That is the madness of it. The scheme is internally inconsistent.

They are not ... the problem is the consistency (not) of the combustion material ... managing the burn is a nightmare, and more often than not, you are having to augment it with bought-in combustible material, or pay for huge repairs and downtime.

Bit troubled by your 2006 account of your landfill solution near Stainland, Dr North.
Reading of your actions worried even this right-wing, crypto-anarchist thug (a fan of yours, at that): they seem to have been a touch Napoleonic, even, perhaps, verging on the - sorry to use this word - dirigiste.

Tsk, tsk.

Democratically elected representatives (well, OK, bit of a stretch there) and the population who voted for them were enraged. Quite rightly, in my opinion. The way you tell your tale gives the impression that you still feel that the end you achieved justified the means by which you achieved it.

We really don't want to replace EU-dirigistes with local dirigistes, now, do we? That's what greenies do.

Had I been your boss I would have sacked you on the spot; had I been one of the villagers you visited you would have felt the wrath of my lawnmower.

Still, you were a young man then and have probably mellowed by now.

Just addressing the logic of the situation ..., they could have rats and illegal tipping ... with endless complaints and no action ... or they could have benign megalomania. I would have thought Nelsonian rather than Napoleonic ... blind eye, and all that.

LOL. You've mellowed! Keep up the good work.

Dr North. Your reply to my mockery got me thinking. That, together with all the recent tales of inadequate and ineffectual responses to winter in the UK and now the news of the breakdown of the water supply in large parts of Northern Ireland.

Where have all the conscientious engineers, managers and administrators gone? People like you were in your callow youth. People who with good will identified problems that affected the common good and put themselves out to fix them - perhaps not in a politically sensitive way, but who got the job done. People with the civil courage to do what they think is right and be prepared to take the flak if they get it wrong. I like to think that most of today's crop are well-meaning, but on the basis of anecdotal evidence they seem to be a pretty incompetent bunch.

Perhaps they have all been neutered by the idiotic theories of management that took hold in the 80s. Perhaps they did not have the models we had - all the teachers at my school had seen service in the war, for example. Our parents' generation had to manage scarcity efficiently.

In short, I regret using mockery before I used my brain. It won't happen again (yes it will).

There is no place for initiative or confrontation in a female-friendly management system.

Sandy, could you explain what you mean by this please?

Green/AGW zealots have taken over and anyone of independent mind has been sidelined. Which is why we are in such a mess, as the zealot brigade are both theoretical and practical idiots.