News050906

Peter Woodall ('Industrial city should be proud of this incinerator,' Letters, August 30) suggests that we should not object to plans to "improve" Nottingham's Eastcroft incinerator and that he marvels at the miracle, as he puts it, in transforming thousands of tonnes of waste into heat and electricity.

The plans to "improve" the incinerator actually mean an almost doubling in capacity so that, in addition to Nottingham waste, we can burn other people's waste as well.

I, like many, am not proud of an incinerator which repeatedly breaches authorised emission levels and has received more written warnings from the Environment Agency than any other incinerator in the UK. In addition, Eastcroft burns waste which could otherwise be recycled, leaving Nottingham with almost the lowest recycling rate in the UK.

Incinerators are designed to break down toxic poisons and in doing so they have to maintain very high furnace temperatures. They are not designed to efficiently recover heat energy like a coal or gas boiler would, consequently much of the heat is lost up the chimney. The energy recovered is a mere fraction of the energy that would be saved if the waste was alternatively recycled.

Furthermore, Enviroenergy, the Nottingham City Council-owned company which purchases the heat from the incinerator, is making a massive financial loss as the heat is too expensive and the process too inefficient, costing the council tax payers over £5m in the past three years.

There's no miracle in destroying a valuable resource, polluting our environment and consuming the earth's dwindling resources in the process.

JON BERESFORD Nail (Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill) Boxley Drive, West Bridgford