Basingstoke MP Maria Miller recently met up with Cllr Hayley Eachus, Cabinet Member for the Environment at the Borough Council and Chris Noble, Head of Project Integra, which is a Hampshire-wide partnership managing municipal waste across the county. Maria had asked for the briefing on the role of the waste incinerator in Basingstoke ahead of her participation in a Parliamentary Committee looking at new EU proposals on waste management issues.
Maria said: “When the decision was taken more than a decade ago to build an incinerator in Basingstoke, this was very controversial. But this has meant that we send very little rubbish to landfill, and also generate energy to heat homes. Even the ash left behind after incineration is recycled and used to make roads.”
Maria heard that in England, the ash left in the incinerator cannot be counted towards the recycling figures, even though it is used as aggregate for the roads. This is different from the situation in Wales, and some European countries, where the ash is included. If it was included here, recycling rates for Basingstoke would rise from 35% to 46%.
Maria said: “There needs to be a level playing field, and I will call on Government for a change in this policy.”