The decision that WLWA took on Friday to award a major new contract to Sita as preferred bidder, has now been officially announced. The contract last for 25 years, and is worth hundreds of millions of pounds, so it is certainly the biggest I have been involved with.
Once the new facility is in place, virtually all West London's waste will be diverted from landfill. This ties in well with the aim of moving up the waste hierarchy. Moving up the waste hierarchy is an objective I have emphasised before. What is not recycled, will be burnt for electricity and (later on, it is hoped) district heating of some kind. Burning waste actually gives lower carbon emissions than sending it to landfill, which came as a surprise to me when I first got involved in waste management.
UPDATE
The carbon emissions are higher from landfill as they come from rotting food, which accounts for a high proportion of the waste. This generates methane, which is roughly twenty times worse as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Burning the waste prevents the methane generation.
1 comment:
Please explain: what happens to the carbon instead, then?
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