Guardian Unlimited Special reports Greens attack go-ahead for waste-fuelled power station

Britain's biggest waste-to-electricity power plant was backed by the government yesterday, provoking accusations from green campaigners that ministers were going the wrong way about tackling the growing rubbish problem and climate change. Approval for the £200m incinerator in London, on the south bank of the Thames opposite the old Ford works at Dagenham, was given by the Department for Trade and Industry 16 years and two public inquiries after plans were first mooted for the site.

The decision shows the government's determination to press ahead with plans to burn three times more household rubbish in the next 15 years and avoid heavy penalties promised in a European Union directive to curb waste buried in landfill sites. The Belvedere project, in Bexley, on which work is expected to start by the end of the year, heralds a new wave of such incinerators, of which 16 already exist in England.
Energy minister Malcolm Wicks said: "London has a serious waste problem, much of which it currently exports to landfill in the home counties." There would be "ample residual waste to fuel the station" even if ambitious recycling targets set by the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, were met. Mr Wicks made much of the promises by the incinerator's operators to use the Thames rather than roads to transport waste, most of which will come from four London boroughs, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham.
Cory Environmental's subsidiary company Riverside Resource Recovery will run the plant, which will begin operations in 2010. Cory said it would save more than 100,000 lorry journeys a year by using tugs and barges. The incinerator will burn up to 585,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. Malcolm Ward, Cory's chief executive, said it would save London council tax payers from having to stump up millions of pounds in fines for not meeting targets for a switch from landfill.
Ministers have promised that the proportion of waste put in landfills should drop from more than 72% today to 25% in 2020, by which time incineration should rise from 9% of rubbish to 25%. Huge improvements in home recycling are also envisaged. But Jenny Bates, London campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "It will not only end up burning lots of materials that should be recycled, but it will also emit large amounts of climate-changing carbon dioxide."
Friends of the Earth favours technology such as anaerobic digestion, which takes food waste and converts it into methane, which can then be burned.
Mr Livingstone said the decision would mean there was less incentive to recycle, a view shared by Jean Lambert, the Green party MEP for London. She said: "It is a completely inappropriate facility at a time when we should be focusing on reducing the amount of waste we produce. Instead of making energy from waste we should be harnessing the energy that has been put into the original products by reusing and recycling."
Earlier this year Friends of the Earth suggested that more than 20 incinerators were planned and a dozen more might be needed to meet the government's waste targets.Special reportWaste and pollutionNet notes11.07.2002: Rubbish01.08.2002: RatsUseful linksWaste and recycling - Defra'Are you doing your bit?' recycling campaignCommunity Recycling and Economic Development programmeCommunity Recycling NetworkWaste and Resources Action ProgrammeUK Recycled Products Guide