Burning rubbish at EcoPark will meet new restrictions says site owner

A new incinerator that will burn rubbish from Camden and six other London Boroughs will meet tighter pollution restrictions, claims the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) which owns the facility currently under construction in Edmonton.

It is strongly opposed by the Stop Edmonton Incinerator Now (StEIN) campaign which says the waste plant will not capture carbon emissions nor filter out pollution, and will fail to increase recycling rates.

In late December, the government proposed a raft of stricter standards for approving and building new incinerators in the UK. Under the new rules, they would only be approved if they could ensure less rubbish ends up in a landfill or were replacing a less efficient plant. Ministers hope more efficient recycling will eventually lead to decreased demand for incinerators, as there will be less rubbish to burn.

The Edmonton incinerator will be overseen by the London Energy Ltd and is wholly owned by the NLWA, which manages waste collection and transport across the seven London boroughs. It is controlled by a team of 14 Labour councillors, two from each borough, including Camden leader Richard Olszeweski and cabinet member Adam Harrison.

The Edmonton EcoPark, which has faced staunch opposition by local campaigners, was given a development consent order in 2017 by the previous Conservative government.

According to NLWA chair Clyde Loakes, it will meet the tighter standards and “act as an exemplar for future facilities”.

The EcoPark will use the process of selective catalytic reduction — converting nitrogen oxide into water and diatomic nitrogen — and a combined dry-wet scrubber to capture particles.

It will serve seven London boroughs — Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest — and replace a half-century old incinerator that began operating in 1976.

Though much is made by the authority of its “world-class” capabilities, StEIN maintains that it should not go ahead.

The group wrote to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in December, formally asking him to pull the plug on the £1.5bn North London Heat and Power project.

Campaigners have also repeatedly raised concerns over the effectiveness of capturing fine particles, as well as the area’s “dismal” recycling rate of 30 percent, which falls far beneath the 2020 target of 50 percent. They claim this shows the NLWA does not prioritise recycling and is unaware of the links between incineration and low recycling levels.

In a written response to Milliband, Cllr Loakes said scrapping the project three years into construction would be the “worst possible outcome” for more than two-million people.

He said not completing the project would be “detrimental” to north Londoners and would deny them “a safe, clean and low-carbon solution for managing their waste”.

StEIN wrote again to Milliband this month to say that Loakes was greenwashing with his “long-refuted claims on the climate, health, financial, and recycling” benefits of the EcoPark.

In the letter they say “incineration produces far more CO2e than landfill”, the NLWA continues to “downplay health risks”, the heating network “is likely to require high prices for customers or subsidy from Enfield taxpayers”, and that there is a “correlation between incineration and low recycling” rates.

Government analysis revealed that London’s capacity for waste will be around 1.4mn tonnes below the amount being produced.

Cllr Loakes, who is also deputy leader of Waltham Forest Council, said “much more must be done” to curb rubbish. He argued “unnecessary and unrecyclable” plastics needed to be “designed out” or replaced with recyclable alternatives.

Once completed, the EcoPark will be capable of burning 700,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. It was initially slated to be up and running this year, but delays have seen the date pushed back to 2027.

A spokesperson for the NLWA said in December that construction was progressing well and steelworks had commenced.

Additional reporting by Linus Rees.

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