| Choosing the best sites |
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WtE plants are perhaps not the nicest facility to have next door. Careful thought needs to be paid to identifying sites which can be accepted by the local people. Choosing a site for a large-scale facility is very difficult –since nobody wants to live next to a site processing all of their county’s residual waste from miles around. A more sophisticated approach to finding sites for medium and local plants is required, since they should be located in areas of high waste arising, but also spread across the county to ensure that their impacts, both positive and negative are shared amongst the communities and towns of the county. Whatever the size of facility, they must be near to a good road network to ensure good flow of waste transport to the facility The site must be near to a point of the electricity network, which provides a suitable connection. This is often where there is local demand for power and this relates well to areas that have high population and therefore waste creation. Sites should not be in environmentally sensitive areas that are valuable for their nature or archaelogical value. Perhaps, most importantly sites should be on an industrial site or area, where the land use already matches the nature of WtE activities. This is also important from a climate change point of view, since adjoining factories in the industrial area may be able to use the heat generated from the WtE plant, as well as its electricity. |
