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STATES OF JERSEY
IMPORTATION OF WASTE FOR
TREATMENT IN THE JERSEY ENERGY FROM WASTE PLANT
Lodged au Greffe on 20th September 2018 by the Minister for Infrastructure
STATES GREFFE
2018 P.104
PROPOSITION
THE STATES are asked to decide whether they are of opinion
to approve the principle of waste importation into Jersey for treatment in the Island's Energy from Waste ("EfW") plant for recovery.
MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
REPORT
On 17th February 2010, proposition P.17/2010 (Importation of Waste: approval by the States Assembly) was lodged for debate in the States by the Environment Scrutiny Panel. The proposition asked the States Assembly –
"to agree that the importation of waste into Jersey for treatment in the Island's Energy from Waste plant shall not proceed, and that no discussions or negotiations on this matter shall take place, until the principle of waste importation has been discussed and approved by the States Assembly.".
This proposition was approved by the States on 20th April 2010 (as amended), before the EfW plant was commissioned, and while the States of Guernsey were still debating whether to build their own Energy from Waste plant or find an alternative solution.
Currently, residual waste produced in Alderney is sent to Guernsey's Mont Cuet landfill site for disposal. The landfill site is now full and new waste solutions are needed. Since P.17/2010 was adopted by the States, the States of Guernsey has approved a residual waste strategy and entered into a contract with a third party to export waste off-Island for recovery in a European EfW plant. In preparation for the start of this contract in October 2018, Guernsey have also introduced a food separation scheme to remove the food waste from the residual waste. This resolves Guernsey's waste problem, but not that of Alderney.
On 26th March 2018 during a visit to Jersey, the President of Alderney requested the possibility of assisting Alderney with processing waste in the Jersey EfW plant. Due to the population size in Alderney, introducing a food waste separation scheme is both uneconomical and impractical. Alderney produce around 600 tonnes per annum of residual municipal waste, as compared with the annual throughput of the Jersey EfW plant of about 75,000 tonnes. The population of Alderney as of March 2016 was recorded as 2,035, slightly higher than the population of the Parish of St. Mary in Jersey, which generates on average 850 tonnes of black-bag' waste per annum.
If the proposition is adopted, it is expected that the waste would be delivered to Jersey in "lift-on-lift-off" containers, each with a load capacity of 10 tonnes. Based on Alderney's annual waste generation of 600 tonnes, this would require 1–2 containers to be transported from Alderney on a weekly basis.
When P.17/2010 was lodged in 2010, States Members were concerned that the ash generated by burning waste from the other Islands would be deposited in perpetuity in the "ash cells" at the La Collette site, and would fill the limited landfill capacity available in Jersey. This is no longer an issue as, since 2016, all ash produced by the La Collette EfW plant has been exported and reprocessed in the UK.
States Members were also concerned about accepting waste from the other Islands before the EfW plant was fully commissioned and operationally proven. The EfW has now been running for 7 years, and its operating parameters and capacity are now fully understood. The EfW plant was designed to, and operates to, the European Waste Incinerator Directive ("WID") emission limits, and has successfully processed all of the Island's municipal waste since January 2011. The additional increased tonnage, should Alderney waste acceptance be approved, would be of minimal consequence for the plant. The EfW is capable of processing up to 105,000 tonnes of waste per year, and is
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P.104/2018
presently processing 75,000 tonnes per year, thus has the spare capacity to accommodate 600 tonnes from Alderney.
It is proposed that the gate fee for this waste from Alderney would initially be set at £150.00 per tonne, generating an income of £90,000 per annum that could be offset against operating costs.
Jersey has the largest population of the Channel Islands, and the economies of scale mean that Jersey is able to operate infrastructure facilities that would be impractical or inefficient for other smaller jurisdictions. Given the available capacity within the EfW, it would seem appropriate to make use of that spare processing capacity to help out a neighbour with a waste solution. Offering help and capacity in our EfW to neighbouring Alderney has the advantage of supporting Alderney's sustainable waste management arrangement and demonstrating that the Channel Islands can work together to deliver environmental solutions.
The competent authority for waste in Alderney comes under the jurisdiction of Guernsey's Environment Department. They have been contacted about waste from Alderney being transported to Jersey and are aware of the proposal. Guernsey officers have indicated that Alderney can choose what they want to do with their waste.
To enable the movement of refuse derived fuel ("RDF") between jurisdictions for use in an efficient EfW plant, the receiving plant has to be classified as an "R1" recovery operation. R1 means that the EfW plant has been audited and passed a strict set of European criteria to demonstrate the high efficiency of the plant. During the summer of 2018, the R1 operation has been confirmed on the EfW plant, by calculations undertaken by an independent body and approved by the environmental regulator.
While this proposition has been initiated to help Alderney's waste problem, approval of the proposition would also permit Growth, Housing and Environment ("GHE") to import waste under the same tight environmental and regulatory controls from other jurisdictions. If approved by States Members, any future importation of waste would be subject to the same strict Waste Acceptance Criteria ("WAC") that all Jersey waste is subject to.
It should be noted that States Members' approval of this Proposition does not automatically permit the importation of waste from other jurisdictions. In addition to the political approval to import waste, the Environmental Regulator also has to authorise and process trans-frontier shipping consents for movements of waste between jurisdictions. If this proposition is approved, any future imports of waste would still require the agreement of both the Ministers for Infrastructure and the Environment.
Financial and manpower implications
The importation of waste will require no additional manpower.
An income of £150/tonne will be received from the States of Alderney, which will cover all expenses incurred in processing the waste and exporting the by-products off-Island for recovery. There will be no additional financial impact on the Public of Jersey.