front of pipe homepage > PFI misleading scrutiny (2007) Cambridgeshire's Waste PFI project gave the Council's Scrutiny Committee a substantial report on 2nd May 2006. The errors and omissions of the report make it seriously misleading, with the result that genuine scrutiny of the PFI procurement process was impossible. Introduction
xi c. The Council cites £150/tonne fines without saying that purchasing allowances precludes any risk of a fine (see scare tactics).
xiii The PFI's report to scrutiny projects that the County will exceedb its landfill allowance by 2010 do not mention how this assumes no new waste prevention, reuse, recycling or composting schemes (Council waste 'facts' page 2). In reality with recycling already above 50% (9 years ahead of its Waste Strategy aim of 50% by 2015) the LATS targets are not the urgent crisis portrayed by the Council. The 2002 Waste Strategy shows at 4.7 that LATS targets could be met with just 45% recycling at 2010. Despite being ignored by the Council as an alternative to the PFI, the option remains of initiating new waste prevention, reuse, recycling or composting schemes. The Council claims to want to maximise these options - but will they actually do it? Consultation
1.1 The report claims three waste strategy consultations took place between 2001 and 2006. In fact there were only two and only one of those was valid. The public scrutiny meeting on 15th March 2006 was not a consultation. Public comments were received only by the Scrutiny Committee. The event was not designed as an opportunity for the public to provide information to or ask questions of any Council staff. The 'consultation' in 2005 involved seriously flawed questionaires and unpublicised events where strategic questions were blocked.
1.7 The Council is not properly implementing its waste strategy, with key commitments being ignored. The Council is pursuing procurement options which were actually excluded from the strategy (see 4.8 where waste burning is not listed as a possibility).
1.8 In 2006 the Council was 9 years ahead of its Waste Strategy targets (50% was due to be reached in 2015). This should have triggered a rethink of the need for the waste PFI, which should have involved the public.
1.9 The 2005 'consultations' were not meaningful or valid. A formal complaint about this has been ignored by the Council. The full extent of their investigation (up to June 2007) was descibed by the Council's Head of Waste Bernard Warr on 3rd April 2006, "I have no suggestions to make at this stage". 1.10 Rewriting the strategy after the PFI contract is signed will serve no useful purpose. There is every possibility that the recycling target over the entire PFI contract duration (60%) will be achieved before the PFI starts work in 2009 or 2010.
1.11 Meaningful consultation on waste treatment technologies is difficult only when meaningful consultation on waste strategy has been absent during the PFI procurement and when there is no regular public forum for discussing the issues. The 2005 'consultation' events offered participants just the one waste treatment option (MBT) to consider and neglected non-technological (cheap) options such as continuing improvement in prevention, reuse, composting and recycling. The 2006 scrutiny meeting neglected the option of delaying the PFI to consider forthcoming waste technologies. All discussion with the public has failed to conside waste treatments based upon further source-separated collections, despite this being identified as one of the "prudent" measures in 4.5 of the Council's Waste Strategy.
1.14 Commercial confidentiality is no excuse for failing to meaningfully consult on the strategic options for waste (What is our vision for resources? How much can be recycled? How fast to reduce residual waste? When to invest in new treatments?) The options assessment stage of the PFI would have been ideal for public consultation. Unfortunately discussions were held instead with a private waste-burning company, who gained an opportunity to influence the Council's decision to adopt a preferred option to produce RDF for burning. The Council's Outline Business Case (application to DEFRA for public funding) contains no apparent commercially sensitive information and could have been placed on a website. Commercial confidentiality is no excuse for providing unreliable information to the public.
1.16 Witholding information about strategic choices from the public amounts to dumbing-down the dialogue and harbouring control of key public service decisions away from the public. The public have no chance of involvement if the mechanisms of involvement are absent (ref waste forums) or manipulated (ref 2005 'consultation'), and if information provided by the Council is consistently unreliable.
1.19 The waste scrutiny meeting in 2006 would have received greater public interest had it been addressed to the relevant question of whether to tackle residual waste with expensive treatments involving waste burning or to continue rapid improvements in prevention, reuse, composting and recycling. Public support for non-burn methods may be judged by the results of the 2001 consultation, showing 97.5% opposition to waste burning. The question addressed by the scrutiny meeting (of which PFI technology to choose) is irrelevant, since neither of the technologies on offer are compatible with sustainable waste management. The problem in Cambridgeshire is not lack of waste technology but lack of vision in waste management.
1.22 The opportunity of objecting at the site planning stage was also offered as a solution by the chair of the 2005 'consultation' event when James Greyson commented that only one option (for residual waste management) had been provided. This is contrary to Council policy, national guidance and EU Directive 2003/35/EC. It is also plainly ridiculous in any Council claiming to operate democratically in the public service.
Conclusion. The public have had no opportunity to comment on undisclosed major revisions to the Waste Strategy, including the procurement of a PFI based on waste-burning options which were excluded at section 4.8 of the Strategy. The public have had no organised opportunity to ask Council staff about the waste PFI. Health effects
2.4,2.5 and 2.11. The Council notes that evidence on health effects is conflicting, but chooses to accept the advice of government agencies, who offer advice consistent with the national policy of tripling waste burning without concern for the health effects. The Council's duty of care to the public should have allowed them to observe that some of the most dangerous emissions from waste burning such as PM2.5s are not regulated or monitored at all by the Environment Agency. Thus following EA and HPA advice offers no protection against serious health risks. Had the Council been more willing to protect the health of its residents it would familiarised itself with the conflicting evidence it mentions. The Council was provided with this information in 2006, as given by the British Society for Ecological Medicine but has evidently not considered it, given their continuing enthusiasm for a treatment leading to waste burning. Cambridge University is well stocked with expertise on waste, chemicals and health (including Dr Richard Skaer, who provided information to the scutiny meeting). The government's main study on the health and environmental effects of waste treatments (written by consultants to the the incinerator industry) was peer reviewed by the RSA. One of the RSA's peer review panel, Sir Peter Guthrie, is based in Cambridge and confirmed to James Greyson that the study is unsuitable to guide local authority waste management decisions. Sir Peter is also on the University's central environmental management board, which he said had not been informaed about this PFI nor invited to the 2005 consultation events.
2.14 The Council have compared some of the heath effects of PFI proposals in comparison to the historical option of landfill. The Council have not considered the PFI technologies in comparison to the actual available options which include a shift away from all forms of disposal, greater waste prevention, greater localisation of materials handling, and delaying decision on technology until forthcoming safer options are on the market.
Conclusion. Due to failure to act upon the above 2 points, the Council are in no position to conclude that their PFI technologies should not pose an unacceptable risk to health. The Council have not acted to offer reasonable protection to the health of its residents. The Council's belief that "nothing in life is risk free" is no protection at all. Local and global environmental effects
3.2 The Council does not have to rely on the Environment Agency in deciding whether to pursue treatments involving waste-burning. Such treatments can be considered only by ignoring the key BSEM evidence cited above.
3.5a The Council claim to use the waste hierarchy but appear unfamiliar with its use. Options placed lower in the hierarchy (such as disposal to land or air) are relevant only where options higher in the hierarchy (the sustainable options of prevention, reuse, composting and recycling) have been exhausted. Since the Council is using a Waste Strategy which emphasises end of pipe disposal options and have pursued a PFI procurement which ignored sustainable options, the waste hierarchy has not been applied.
3.5c The so-called Self-Sufficiency Principle (the extent to which the solution is complete and self-contained) is irrelevant for judging environmental effects. Sustainable resource management is a multi-faceted activity where diverse opportunities are pursued together with a wide range of societal participants. The wish for a self-contained solution is driven by administrative convenience not sustainability.
Conclusion. The Council's scepticism about determining environmental effects serves to mask their failure to actually apply the waste hierarchy, to properly implement their Waste Strategy or to consider sustainable options. Their conclusion contradicted by their own published statement that gasification/pyrolysis being "attractive because compared with incineration the emissions to the atmosphere are low." A belief that different waste management options are not indistinguishable environmentally is false and serves only to shield the most damaging options from scrutiny. Need for waste treatment
4.4 The Council's assertion that "the Zero Waste Option is unproven" reveals a breakdown of imagination and vision. As an aspirational goal, zero waste is identical to sustainability or climate stability. None of these are proven to be possible (until the point where they may be achieved) but failure to plan towards such goals is equivalent to planning for unsustainable business as usual. James Greyson was aware of Council staff's aversion to the term zero waste and duly provided an alternative conceptual framework of 'front of pipe strategy' which drew on the terminology used in the Council's own Strategy. The Council were also provided with information on an economic instrument which could implement zero waste throughout entire economies and 4 pages of detailed unexplored opportunities in Cambridgeshire. In response the Council have chosen to continue with a PFI procurement based upon disposal to landfill and air. The Council have failed to engage in any discussion about alternative options.
4.5a The Council misrepresent activities in Kamikatsu, Japan where 80% of household waste is recycled. The 44 containers are at neighbourhood sites, not in homes. In Cambridgeshire the neighbourhood sites needlessly duplicate collection of materials already collected door to door.
4.5b The Council's calculation of household waste recycling in San Francisco is unreferenced and may not be relied upon. County Councils in California are not known to separately measure household and non-household wate treams. The example of San Francisco is now surpassed by Marin County in California where 77% of household and commercial waste is recycled (without any mixed waste burning). Both San Francisco and Marin County have found zero waste a useful concept for shifting Council and public attitudes away from reliance on waste disposal and for inspiring the necessary collaborative effort. Cambridgeshire County Council could benefit by learning from other places rather than heckling them.
4.6 The point of zero waste is not to achieve 100% recycling in the short term, but to move away from dependence on disposal. The Council's efforts to lock in long term dependence on disposal is a public service and economic disaster for the County. Zero waste may prove possible in the long term with suitable economic instruments and source-separated conversion of carbon-based unrecyclable fractions with forthcoming technologies such as plasma gasification. In fact conversion of source separated carbon-based unrecyclable fractions are an obvious significant low-emissions fuel source for the medium term. These possibilities were made known to the Council in March 2006 but did not spark any interest. 4.7 In the right combination (with active waste prevention and recycling rates above 70%) the new treatment facilities proposed under the Waste PFI Project would have no part to play in long-term waste management. The Council's arbitrary decision to restrict recycling ambitions below 60% has no part to play long-term waste management. The Waste Strategy's proposal (in 4.5) of separate biodegradable collections from commercial customers (including schools) remains unimplemented. A multitude of missed recycling opportunities remain to be considered, all of which would support rapidly reducing waste requiring disposal.
4.9 The Council claims that no other UK local authorities think they can meet their landfill diversion targets by waste reduction, reuse and recycling alone. Cambridgeshire's high recycling levels allow it to consider options which are unavailable to other local authorities. Since Cambridgeshire is 9 years ahead of its planned recycling targets it is ideally placed to delay decisions on long-term treatments.
4.10 European reliance on waste burning is a legacy from an era when recycling wa thought to be too hard. Many areas worldwide are actively working to reduce their reliance on waste burning. In the future, with climate in mind, it is likely to be illegal to incinerate mixed wastes since disposal to either land or air is a waste of resources.
4.11 The waste hierarchy is national policy but as in Cambridgeshire, it is commonly applied backwards. "If we can't landfill then what is the next option involving least administrative effort and change of attitudes?" The waste hierarchy is designed to be used forwards, "if we can't prevent this waste then can we reuse it, etc."
Conclusion. The proposed new treatment facilities have a part to play only if the Council believes it has no role in attempting to reduce waste generation levels or to shift attitudes of dependence on waste disposal. The Council's proposed waste PFI has a part to play only where any vision of sustaintainable resource management is not attempted. Compatibility with waste reduction, reuse and recycling
5.3 The Council claims to have an ambition to remain the top recycling shire county in the UK. In reality Cambridgeshire will lead at best until other Councils surpass Cambridgeshire Council's self-imposed long-term recycling ambition of 60%. If the PFI results in reduced initiative with at reduction, reuse and recycling then other Councils will overtake Cambridgeshire sooner. There is no known mechanism whereby the PFI contractors expectation of minimum guaranteed waste levels can inspire the Council to try harder to reduce waste levels. A complete analysis of how the Council's PFI scheme will damage sustainable waste management options is given on pages 5 to 7 of this report.
5.7 The enhanced educational work which the Council will pay PFI contractors to undertake is not expected to actually reduce waste, as shown on page 72 of the Council's Outline Business Case where payment is made for waste minimisation activities irrespective of their quality or effect.
5.8 The Council misrepresents the argument about Peterborough City Council. Their decision to pull out of the PFI allows them more time to consider more sustainable options compatible with minimising residual waste. A delay in deciding on any waste treatment allows consideration of how to minimise residual waste (which Cambridgeshire Council has not done) and availability of emerging treatments such as plasma gasification (which is unavailable to Cambridgeshire Council due to needless rushing).
Conclusion: The Council's view that view that reduction, reuse and recycling are not intrinsically incompatible with waste treatment is a misleading statement of principle which does not apply to the Council's PFI. It is implausible for vast sums to be spent on the disposal technology of MBT without affecting funding for waste reduction, reuse and recycling. Has the Council considered the full range of technological options for waste treatment?
6.1 The Council claims that its waste management strategy does not favour a particular technology. This is untrue. Section 2.6 of the Strategy clearly describes favoured technologies (anaerobic digestion, gasification and pyrolysis). MBT is to be relied upon only if none of these processes prove to be feasible. Mass-burn incineration will be pursued only as a last resort. A summary of options in 4.8 excludes incineration from the list of possibilities. The Council's pretence of impartiality in choice of waste treatment serves to cover-up a major variation of the Waste Strategy which has neither been disclosed to the public nor been the subject of any consultation.
6.3 The Council's suggestion that waste treatment choices are too complex to be considered by either the public or the Council is a simple abdication of responsibility. Whilst some waste treatments are technically complex in their construction, their defining characteristics are not complex and choices are not beyond the ability of interested members of the public or interested Council staff. The 2 Universities are also well stocked with expertise, unused by the Council. The Council's lack of interest in treatment choices served to facilitate bids by waste disposal companies for "last resort" incineration technology and an options assessment exercise informed by "encouraging discussions with the cement industry to identify a potential outlet for RDF" OBC page 10. The Council has abandoned its published Waste Strategy treatment preferences in favour of options attractive to the waste disposal industry.
6.4 The Council's PFI process does not offer the industry so much "contractors room to innovate" but rather opportunity to profit from perpetuating solutions based upon disposal. See comment on 6.5 below.
6.5 The Council's belief that the waste industry might have offered solutions compatible with sustainable waste management is näive. The Council clearly stated its preferred treatment (of MBT with RDF for burning) to bidders and unsurprisingly this is the main technology which was offered. The only other technology offered (incineration) was even less sustainable. There was never any prospect of the waste industry offering non-technological solutions since they profit largely from capital spending and the non-technological solutions were already within the remit of the Council. If the Council chooses not to maximise reduction, reuse and recycling there is little the waste industry can do to help them. The waste industry are also unable to offer technologies which, although compatible with sustainability, are not yet available on the market (eg cellulosic ethanol and plasma gasification). The PFI choice of technologies is precisely what may be expected from a Council which alienates the public on strategic choices in favour of close regular contact with the waste disposal industry.
6.7 The Council's allegedly robust procurement process has determined that gasification/pyrolysis is not yet proven nor bankable in the UK. This has not stopped Bristol City Council from deploying this technology and gaining DEFRA funding, with the plant expected to be operational in autumn 2008. The bankability of treatments is determined by financiers, not known for their appreciation of sustainable development.
Conclusion. The PFI process may be considered robust only by ignoring its numerous serious flaws as detailed here. What are the main issues in relation to MBT?
7.3 The Council does not state the main issues about MBT. This is a technology based primarily upon disposal since the metals and hard plastics which may be recycled are extracted with great difficulty and at very low quality. The recyclate consequently is unlikely to have a positive market value. The other two products of MBT involve disposal to land and air. The Council's RECAP site states plainly: "There is currently no real market for end-product." Neither is there likely to be in future (see analysis on value of outputs). Irrespective of any future government permission to use grey compost on land it would be unethical for the Council to seek to contaminate soils with grey compost made from mixed waste.
7.4b It is misleading for the Council to note that technically, RDF does not have to be burnt. This is like arguing in favour of greater car manufacture on the grounds that they do not have to be driven. Why waste money and energy making RDF if it is not to be burnt? The RDF disposal market works to undercut the cost of landfill. Thus although there is no equivalent to the landfill tax for waste burning, market forces will charge as if there was a tax, with the profit going not to public funds but to waste burning companies. Thus disposal to air is almost certain to be the cheapest long-term disposal option for RDF with the result that the Council will have instituted a form of waste treatment which they knew to be unacceptable to the public.
7.6 and 7.7. It is misleading to note that RDF can be transported long distances since the Council also say at 3.5a they are bound by the Proximity Principle, requiring waste to be treated close to its source. DEFRA PFI guidelines also require the Council to seek agreed markets for their RDF as a condition of receiving the PFI subsidy of public funds.
Conclusion. It is pointless to offer further consideration of the outstanding issues surrounding MBT since the main issues with MBT (treating materials which should not be mixed in the first place, and producing outputs with little prospect of a positive market value) are implicit to the technology and could be addressed only at the options selection phase, which was done in secret and in a way that happened to suit the needs of a local waste burning business. Will a 25-year contract be prejudicial to innovation?
8.4 The Council does not mention that the contract term has been extended to at least 25 years nor that there may be an extension for a further 5 years. The Council's Waste Strategy promises a contract of just 20 years. This change has not been made public nor has the public had any opportunity for comment.
8.7 and conclusion. The Council's contract negotiations and outcome-based approach will provide no protection whatsoever if it is decided that the County actually needs a different technology or source-separated treatments in future. Spent money can't be respent. MBT equipment can't be transformed into a different technology. This white elephants will have to be fed for 25 years.
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