Spread all over the front page of The Times (no link) was the putative cost of the defence equipment being junked – nice cuddly things like Harriers and the Ark Royal, all at £12 billion, putting us firmly into the third-rate. Yesterday, I pointed up other areas where saving could be made, but on this particular figure it is interesting to see the near-symmetry with another figure, the £10 billion required to finance our waste policy.

This is taken up in detail by The Independent which tells us that the CBI is calling for a "coherent waste policy", to make sure Britain is making the most of its rubbish.

View full article here

It is painful to see the amount of monies committed to trash science. As appealing as recycling appears, the measurable benefits often fall far short of costs and leave us with having committed a horrid net waste of resources.

I suppose that we could argue that we must start trying somewhere, and that we will get better at it as we go along. The problem it seems is the determination to go forward full steam without any sanity checks on measurable progress. It's like driving a car at 50 mph toward a brick wall and hoping that the wall will miraculously vanish before impact and all the passengers are reassuring each other that it is going to be Okay, it is going to work-out. "I see signs that the wall has begun to fade...". "Don't be alarmed, I built a model and as it turns out it's not even real bricks." I do find alarmists alarming, but perhaps not in the manner they fancied I would.

This is the point where it would be really helpful to have a clear, simple, well-researched statement of why we have plenty of landfill available here, why the EU regulation is designed for Holland and doesn't need to apply here (is that right?), and generally why we don't need this.
It needs to be simple, so journalists don't have to think too much. It needs to be right so Moonbat can't find some small error with which to rubbish the whole thing.

And what the heck is a "waste management centre" anyway ?

An arsehole…

Its a place where we chuck good money after bad

It's the curse of Cassandra: we can see the disasters coming as a result of so many government/EU decisions (esp climate related stupidities), but noone will listen. The gods must be lefties to punish us so unkindly!

Right, thanks.

Is my memory playing me false that the levels set by the EU were something to do with the problems of the Dutch, who have less quarrying than us ?

In any event, would this be a good time to package up this info in an easily digestible format and send it to the Express, to give them fuel for their "Out of the EU" thing ?
(Where easily digestible = basically write the article for them, then provide detailed links to source data so they don't have to work too hard checking their sources.)

Yes, I know this is what the idle sods at the Express are paid to do, but the question is how to affect things for the better.

Water table ... Rhine countries can't dig 'oles ... they fill with water. The had to find alternatives, which gave us a trading advantage, which would never do ... so we had to be brought into line and similarly shackled. That's how it all started ... under single market rules - nothing to do with greenery.

I recognise the blog post you refer to about the capacity for landfill and I seem to recall a comment or post with the actual calculations. I believe there was a very large hole in the NE somewhere that was mentioned

There's that 10 billion Euro figure, again,
http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/index.php?id=2746

Raedweld did some calculations on amount of landfill here:
http://raedwald.blogspot.com/2011/02/no ... pdate.html

Raedweld's conclusions were:

"1. The UK has some 819 million cubic metres of licensed landfill capacity, sufficient for over 11 years of waste at current levels
2. The UK's potential landfill capacity is increasing at the rate of 114 million cubic metres a year, a surplus of some 42 million cubic metres a year over and above our annual landfill waste disposal needs
3. There is no shortage of landfill in the UK".

You really can't believe this.
In the Netherlands a waste burning facility is providing hot water and heating to a residential area.

For this purpose waste has been separated at each home.

There is a gray bin for household deposits, a green bin for paper and cart board, and a yellow/gray bin for plastics and and cans.

For each can a separate collection run has to be performed.

When the waste burning facility organized an 'Open Day' for the public I noticed that the separated garbage was mixed before entering the burner. When I asked why, the answer was they had to mix the plastics with the household garbage to keep the oven temperature at a low level because otherwise the oven walls would crack.

I have nothing against separating waste but not for the sake of 'conditioning'.

We now know that we pay double or even tripple the true costs it takes to dispose of our waste and now the waste burning facility is importing waste from Germany to keep up with the rising energy demand for the expanding residential area.

They make incredible amounts of money for burning the waste and even more money heating the residential area.

The big crash of course comes when heavy snowfall prevents the waste collection for two weeks.

That's when people are left in the cold and the piping system will freeze up.

The moral of the story however is that a waste burner selling it's access heat to a residential area is a profit center and doesn't need a penny of government support if implemented wisely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duive ... _19.39.JPG