SIRRL director Paul Taylor says he got behind the idea of a Waste-to-Energy plant
because, “as a farmer, I’m a caretaker of the land.”
Project Kea is an initiative from South Island Resource Recovery Limited (SIRRL) to
build the first Waste-to-Energy plant in New Zealand. The proposed site for the plant is
near the Glenavy township in Waimate.
“Waste-to-Energy is about the conversion of non-recyclable materials into various
practical forms of energy,” Taylor explains. It sounds appealing: instead of shoving New
Zealanders’ waste into landfill, such a plant could burn our waste at high temperatures,
producing valuable energy.
So why are more than 150 Waimate locals against SIRRL’s proposed Waste-to-Energy
plant?
“There is no doubt that, in terms of absolute risk, this plant raises the stakes,” says Dr.
Crispin Langston, a Waimate GP.
“In South London, around the Edmonton plant (also known as Edmonton EcoPark),
there’s an increased incidence of cancers and birth defects, and these have been
attributed to the plant.” Greenpeace have previously staged protests at the Edmonton
plant to “stop the facility emitting cancer causing chemicals.”
But according to Taylor, Project Kea will incorporate new technology which is much
safer than older technologies. “Dioxins were a major issue. As I understand it: now,
dioxins are handled very comfortably within the processing system.”
“My concern,” replies Langston, “is that it’s technology. And technologies always fail at
some point.”
“Why have they chosen Waimate?” Robert Ireland - artist and spokesperson for Why
Waste Waimate - asks. “They want to truck the waste from all around the South Island,
mostly from Christchurch, incinerate it, and truck the residue ash away again. It’ll be
134 heavy truck and trailer movements per day.”
Taylor explains: “[Waimate is] an area that’s centrally located to waste throughout the
South Island. It’s intended that we will move upwards of 50% by rail, if possible.”
In March 2023, members of Why Waste Waimate took to the streets to protest the
proposed plant.
“Since SIRRL have come here and pitched their proposal, they haven’t really
acknowledged us,” says Ireland.
“They were not readily engaging with the local community,” agrees Langston. “So the
local doctors, five of us, got together and wrote an open letter [about health risks of the
proposed plant].”
“We went to discuss the project initially,” Taylor says. “We didn’t have a piece of land at
that stage, and we hadn’t prepared all of our technical reports. That process took a long
time, so it was a long time before we returned to the community.”
“At one of the meetings,” Ireland says, “Mr. Taylor was asked: If the Waimate community
showed that we didn’t want the incinerator, would [SIRRL] leave town? And his
response was: ‘They’ll get to like it.’”
Langston believes that New Zealand does not have a severe enough waste crisis to
require building an incinerator. “There are countries that have a true waste crisis,
where they have to send waste offshore. But that’s not the case here.”
Niki Bould, a Dunedin-based sustainability consultant and waste expert, agrees. “We do
need to make change, in terms of what we’re all buying, consuming and throwing away.
But it is changing. I’ve been working in this space for years, and I can see that.”
Bould points to Waimate’s four-bin system as an example of Kiwi councils working hard
to encourage recycling and reduce residual waste.
Taylor acknowledges the efforts being made to increase recycling. But, he says, there
will always be residual waste, “albeit in smaller volumes,” and the question is what to do
with it.
“We do not have the population in New Zealand to sustain massive burning machines,”
says Bould. “To keep the energy coming [out of the plant], we would have to feed it.
“Where are we going to get all that waste from? It just means we’re going to have to
encourage people to waste, which is the opposite of what we’re trying to do.”
In late 2022, SIRRL applied for resource consent for the Project Kea waste-to-energy
plant. They were rejected twice due to a lack of environmental and cultural impact
information. They have since appealed, and, on May 15, it was decided that their
application will enter the system.
So: how do Taylor and Ireland summarise their thoughts about Project Kea?
“I’m pretty passionate about this,” says Taylor of his company’s initiative. “I think it’s
the right thing for New Zealand.”
“We need to be designing waste out of our lives,” says Robert Ireland. “Not creating
another market for it.”
Credits:
Producer/Director: Gerard Smyth
Editor: Tracey Jury
Researcher/Writer: Nicole Phillipson
Production Manager: Jo Ffitch
Post-Production Coordinator: Andy Johnson
Sound Design and Mix: Chris Sinclair
Attributions:
Architect’s drawings of proposed plant provided by SIRRL
LondonWaste EcoPark photograph by John Davies, CC BY-SA 2.0
“Action at Edmonton Incinerator in London” photograph © Greenpeace / Nick Cobbing
20 май 2023
