Thurso man foresaw eco issue as tons of Caithness waste set to be transported 300 miles south for incineration
The eco issues of waste from Caithness travelling hundreds of miles to an incineration plant at Dunbar have been highlighted by a Thurso resident.
Highland Council says that all non-recycling waste, currently being sent to the Seater site in Caithness, will travel around 300 miles to Viridor’s EFW plant in Dunbar at the end of this year. The variety of materials banned from landfill includes non-recyclable black bag municipal waste, wood, textiles, paper and food.
The matter came about due to the Scottish Government’s aim to hit waste reduction targets by the end of 2025 to “reduce landfill waste, extract resources from waste, and minimise greenhouse gas emissions” and was originally mooted as part of the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012.
Thurso community councillor in abeyance, Alexander Glasgow, said that he had highlighted the issue in the Caithness Courier back in 2018 when the original date for the plan was set for January 1, 2021, but was delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
At that time, he stated that Highland Council may have “to pay to export its domestic waste to sites in England”, which could cost around £80 a ton. In 2018, it was thought that the waste material from Caithness would go to a planned energy-from-waste site in Inverness, but Mr Glasgow feared that the facility was not a viable option and “not ready” for the amounts of waste it would have to process.
However, the updated plan shows the waste will now be driven around 300 miles south from Caithness to an energy recovery facility (ERF) run by Viridor at Dunbar.
Viridor says its ERF site opened in 2019 and is “integral to the Scottish Government’s ambitions to deliver a zero waste, circular economy which encourages waste reduction, boosts recycling and recovers vital low carbon energy from what remains”. The waste will be incinerated at the site to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 103,404 homes, states the company.
Viridor adds: “The site generates around 258GWh of base-load renewable energy direct to the National Grid – the equivalent of 39 wind turbines – enough to continuously power 70,656 homes. What’s more, the plant will offer up to 10MW of heat available for local use.”
BBC’s current affairs series Disclosure stated last week that “up to 100 truckloads of Scotland’s waste will be moved each day to England” once the landfill ban takes place.
It further stated in an article dated June 16: “The Scottish Government is banning ‘black bag’ waste from being buried in landfill from 31 December but acknowledges that there are not currently enough incinerators to meet the extra demand.”
In the Courier article from seven years ago, Mr Glasgow said it would be good if traffic was reduced, but said that would be offset by the cost of exporting the material south.
With the updated information, he stated this week: “It’s good we’ll be avoiding landfill tax, but there’s still the environmental issue of waste being transported 300 miles from Caithness to Dunbar.
“There have been two applications for incinerators in or around Inverness rejected. What is going to happen when this five-year contract expires? We should be focusing on local energy from waste incinerators.”
Mr Glasgow also feels it would be worth extracting “rare earth metals” from the landfill site at Seater. “If we chuck away computers and other electronic equipment, I wonder if there are plans to extract the rare earth minerals from them.”
He added that though his Thurso Community Council position is in abeyance due to mass resignations earlier this year, he hopes that a full community council will reform after elections in August.
A Highland Council spokesperson said: “Highland Council has a contractual agreement with an energy from waste plant based in Scotland. This arrangement ensures that no waste will be exported outside of Scotland when the ban is introduced.”
The council confirmed that non-recycling waste will be going to Viridor’s EFW plant in Dunbar.