Who really wants mass burn now?

PROPOSALS from the Public Services Department to spend an initial #80m. on a mass burn incinerator have drawn criticism from a wide range of individuals and groups.

Now, that unease at what is planned for the island's east coast has come together in a campaign to persuade the States to reject what's on offer.

It is a tall order to convince deputies yet again to retreat from the brink, especially with Mont Cuet tip filling so rapidly.

Yet the objectors have some prominent voices and a compelling argument against the plans.

The recommended plant is huge, ugly (less so than the earlier design but nevertheless still an eyesore), ruinously expensive, represents yesterday's technology and has such an enormous capacity that it will have to burn materials that could be recycled simply to stay alight.

So are there alternatives? Emphatically yes, say the objectors. And underpinning their philosophy is recycling, combined with micro-burners. Their bolt-on nature provides flexibility and cheap price means as alternative solutions become available so they can be junked without massive loss of taxpayers' money.

But the mass-burn incinerator pursued by PSD would lock the island into a once-and-for-all waste 'solution' for the next 25 years regardless of better treatments coming available.

There are many other objections that the anti lobby can marshall but PSD's counter-claims to the headline concerns do not look credible.

Waste arising figures remain open to question and the department's assertion that it was open-minded to treatments other than mass burn are not, in the objectors' minds, borne out by the tendering process which they say ruled them out.

The suspicion is that PSD is going for a belt and braces burner with the dubious fig leaf of generating a small amount of electricity because it is a risk-free way of getting the job done if you ignore the cost, the environmental impact and dramatically hiking disposal fees.

Perhaps one way of resolving the dispute is to ask a simple question.

If mass burn incineration is such a good idea, how many such plants has contractor Suez actually got orders for?