A judge has ordered The City of Cardiff Council to disclose how Viridor’s new Trident Park incinerator can be classed as a ‘recovery’ rather than ‘disposal’ operation.

Currently, the European Commission deems that municipal waste incinerators meeting or exceeding energy efficiency levels of 0.65 (known as the R1 status) should be classed as energy recovery facilities, rather than disposal facilities. (However, R1 status is not mandatory for energy from waste plants and is not a requirement for the incinerator’s environmental permit. Instead, the Environmental Permitting Regulations require that plants recover as much energy as ‘practicable’.)

The Trident Park Energy Recovery Facility in Cardiff, currently in commissioning phase, will have the capability of handling 350,000 tonnes of residual waste a year once fully operational this summer, generating 28 megawatts of electricity - enough to power around 50,000 households.

R1 calculation dispute

Viridor’s business case for the energy-from-waste (EfW) plant outlined that it would have an energy-efficiency ratio of 0.675, thus surpassing the R1 limit, making it a recovery facility. The waste partnership’s technical advisors also concluded that the calculations for the plant meant it was a recovery facility. As such, Trident Park received Stage 1 R1 compliance from Natural Resources Wales (NRW) at the design stage and NRW told Resource earlier today (7 January) that the plant still holds this status.

However, the Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, Gareth Clubb – who is opposed to the incinerator – has questioned the council and Viridor over the methodology of the R1 calculation, and submitted a request for the information to the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) via an Environmental Information Regulations request. This request was denied over claims that the disclosure would ‘very likely lead to Viridor’s competitors obtaining and utilising the methodology for their own gain’, and could ‘discourage innovation’.

Clubb appealed this decision, and Judge Chris Hughes ruled yesterday (6 January) that the calculation ‘does not disclose any information which demonstrates how the Viridor plant works or what technological innovations enable it to function in a way possibly superior to its competitors’. Further, he argued that as the information has been ‘widely used in the decision-making of various public bodies about this substantial project; the projected performance of the facility is key to its acceptability and viability’, the matter is ‘of considerable legitimate public concern’. He therefore ruled that the ICO should have revealed the information, which Friends of the Earth Cymru first requested in June 2013.

‘Incineration is the wrong answer to our waste problem’

Speaking after the ruling yesterday, Clubb said: “This is a hugely significant decision by the judge. He has rightly determined that spending more than a hundred million pounds of public money should be subject to full public scrutiny.

“Incineration is the wrong answer to our waste problem."

The City of Cardiff Council stated: “All interested parties are now considering the decision made by the tribunal yesterday and following consideration will respond in due course.”

Viridor has not commented on the decision.

Incineration ‘overcapacity’

Concerns over the UK’s reliance on EfW facilities to manage residual waste have been hotting up recently, with environmental consultancy Eunomia warning last year that the UK’s recycling rate in 2030 could be limited to 66 per cent due to 'overcapacity' of EfW infrastructure construction (such as incinerators) and reliance on waste exports.

It added that the issue could be further exacerbated if local authorities are successful in reducing waste arisings.

Read the full ruling from Judge Hughes or find out more about the Trident Park incinerator.