The Edmonton incinerator

• IT is sad to see the Green Party’s councillors Siân Berry and Lorna Jane Russell using an issue as important as the climate emergency to try to score party political points, (Incinerator will be devastating for communities, January 20).

What is even worse is that they do so with inaccurate data.

Their central claim is that the North London Waste Authority’s new waste incinerator will “generate 700,000 tonnes of CO2 each year”.

This is simply not the case. Any CO2 released into the atmosphere is dangerous, but let us at least stick to the facts.

The net CO2 emissions from the new facility is predicted to be equivalent to 28,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year as a greenhouse gas emission.

That is the best estimate and unless Cllr Berry and Cllr Russell can prove otherwise we should use it as the basis for any discussion.

But perhaps the really duplicitous issue is that they offer no real alternatives.

They know full well that Camden has pushed recycling as hard as it possibly can. Many of our residents follow the guidelines and this should be welcomed and celebrated.

But some do not. No amount of advice and encouragement will get them to recycle at present. To pretend otherwise is the politics of La La Land. It has to be incinerated or buried in landfill.

Sending the same amount of waste to landfill would generate 243,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents every year.

Camden – and the other North London authorities – have rightly rejected this option.

The alternative would be to continue to burn it in the existing, outdate plant which is a far worse polluter. Is that really what the Green Party wants?

The new plant will be the first in the country to use selective catalytic reduction to control emissions of nitrogen dioxide. It should be a world leader in this technology when it is opened and significantly reduce emissions.

But perhaps the Green Party should practise what it preaches. In Brighton & Hove City Council, which the party runs, guess what they do? Yes, that’s right. Even waste sent for recycling ends up being burnt.

As the local paper (the Argus) reported last year: “Thousands of tonnes of plastic left in recycling bins in Brighton & Hove ends up being burnt, according to a Brighton & Hove City Council report… the council report said: ‘Residents may assume that all pots, tubs and trays placed in recycling bins will be recycled.’

“The council must be clear that up to 70 per cent may not be recycled which may impact on public confidence.”

The report also said the mixed nature of the plastic material means that, depending on end markets, only 22 per cent to 39 per cent of the total would be regularly recycled.

Yes, the problem of recycling is tough: Camden is tackling it, but there are no easy answers, as the Greens have found in Brighton.

MARTIN PLAUT, NW5