Birmingham Friends of the Earth is shocked to hear that a new contract to feed and to operate to 2034 the Council’s rubbish incinerator at Tyseley has been advertised, using ‘officers delegated authority’. This seems to us to ignore the Climate Emergency with its zero carbon goal and the Waste Strategy.
We have opposed the incinerator since it was built in the 1990s. It only exists due to a huge public subsidy and it requires that Birmingham remaining at the bottom of the national recycling league. Half of what is burned is organic matter, such as food waste, which the council will soon be forced by government to collect separately for digestion to biogas. The rest is items that should be reused or recycled or plastic packaging which again will be phased out. The plant is highly polluting and inefficient and is not compatible with moving towards zero carbon emissions or clean air. Other local authorities are decades ahead with recycling their waste, but Birmingham keeps failing to learn from them .
Birmingham Mail article https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-city-council-could-keep-18274327
