Waste incineration campaign group, The United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN), has this week launched an updated website.
According to UKWIN, the website will “support groups and individuals campaigning to stop the slide towards the UK burning rather than making best use of its resources”.
UKWIN is a not-for-profit umbrella organisation ‘helping those who oppose waste incineration’
The group added that the website, launched on Monday, 2 November, has a new design and layout, fresh content and a new page with what the network describes as “useful” facts and figures.
Josh Dowen, UKWIN’s associate coordinator and son of the network’s secretary Shlomo Dowen, said: “There is so much that is wrong about incineration and such an abundance of evidence to support the case against it that it can be hard for people to know where to start.
“It is great that we have had this opportunity to put decades of knowledge and experience at the fingertips of anyone who wants to learn more, whether they are environmental campaigners, journalists, politicians or curious members of the public.”
The updated site can be seen here.
Support
The website update had support of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, which said it “applauds” the work done by the group.
Sam Chetan-Welsh, political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: “We applaud the hard work of the hundreds of volunteers who campaign so passionately against the scandalous burning of our waste.
“UKWIN’s new website helps equip campaigners with the tools that they need to help bring about a more circular economy and a greener, better future.
UKWIN launched a report in 2018 called ‘bin the burners’ alleging that emissions from plants were being hidden
“The launch is well timed, as there is a real opportunity at the moment for politicians to pledge support for measures such an incineration tax, a moratorium on new incineration capacity, and legally-binding reduction targets that radically reduce our use of single-use plastic.”
History
Founded in 2007 with the support of pressure group Friends of the Earth (see letsrecycle.com story ), UKWIN is a not-for-profit umbrella organisation “helping those who oppose waste incineration”.
The group has launched a string of campaigns against facilities, and in July 2018, it released a report in parliament in front of MPs saying said that certain emissions from energy from waste plants were not being reported (see letsrecycle.com story).
Opposition
UKWIN and its network of members oppose new incineration facilities and say they want to see more reduction, re-use and recycling instead.
The network says its opposition to incineration arises from concern about how much recyclable material is being burned and the harm caused by incineration to local air and soil quality.
It says such contracts can often provide perverse financial incentives that favour the incineration of material that “could and should otherwise have been recycled or composted”.
Statistics
According to the network’s own statistics, there are currently 62 municipal waste incinerators in the UK with a combined capacity of around 17 million tonnes.
UKWIN claims more than 42% of England’s local authority collected waste was incinerated in 2017/18.
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
