Veolia have announced that they are intending to submit a planning application for the waste incinerator at Cross Green on 1st June.
The No2 Incinerator and No Incinerator Leeds groups campaigning against the incinerator have seen the plans and model and had this to say.
The building is massive in size and a massive missed opportunity. The building faces south over 60% of it will be in direct sunlight all day. The waste incinerator is designed to produce electricity and is connected direct into the national grid. But Veolia has missed a crucial opportunity to make money for Leeds. The building could have incorporated hundreds of square metres of solar panels in the design.
Solar panels would generate thousands of pounds of revenue per year for Leeds City Council which could be spent on community projects in the local area or across the city.
They would also help the Council meet its CO2 and climate change reduction targets by producing green electricty. They would also provide jobs for local contractors to install. To cap it all the Council have removed the need to apply for planning permission for solar panels on any new buildings in the Aire Valley Enterprise Zone which is right next door to the Cross Green site.
A spokesperson for NIL said "this building is such a missed opportunity, Veolia should go back to the drawing board"
A spokesperson for NO2 Incinerator said
" We hear constantly of this buildings design being innovative and marking the gateway to East Leeds. This building will also mark an area of high poverty and deprivation where many people live in fuel poverty. The addition of solar panels would be an extra revenue stream for LCC and in these times of austerity when Inner East Leeds seems to be bearing the brunt of viscous cuts in services we support the call for a revision of the plans for this building"
NIL is a coalition of Leeds based organisations and local residents who oppose waste incineration as a means to deal with residual waste for the following reasons:
1) It reduces the incentive to Reduce Reuse and Recycle and suppresses local recycling rates.
2) Incineration releases Greenhouse Gases - Incineration involves the release of high levels of CO2, the main climate warming gas.
3) There are better and cheaper alternatives to incinerating waste that are more flexible, quicker to implement and better for the environment.
4) Incineration creates toxic emissions and concentrated hazardous ash which has to go to landfill.
5) Incineration poses significant health risks - Although incinerator fumes pass through expensive filter systems, modern incinerators still emit significant levels of NOx and of ultrafine particles. The latter includes nano-particles which are of great concern because they can pass through the lung lining, causing internal inflammation and penetrating to organs. Incinerators also have emissions unlimited by license, during start-up and close-down, and from ash dispersing during transfer to landfill or construction sites.
6) Incinerators tie councils down to long contracts with ongoing demands on the amount of waste that is needed for the incinerator each year.
7) Incinerators often require hundreds of lorry loads of waste to be transported to the incinerators every week which has a detrimental impact on the local community and air quality.
8) Compared to reuse and recycling incinerators create few jobs and little in the way of additional benefits for other companies in the local economy.
For further information contact
NIL David 0113 230 1799
No2 Sarah 07920784958
If you wish to voice your objections in person do feel free to come along to the Richmond Hill Community Forum - Monday 11th June 6pm at East Leeds Working Mens Club. Our ward is now solid labour and we cannot rely on our elected representatives to object to this project on our behalf. We need to demonstrate to them that this project is unnecessary and unsustanable. Come along and make your voice heard.
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