A new port of call for rubbish debate

Wednesday 22nd July 2009, 3:00PM BST.

From Nick Manley.
NOW is the time for some joined up thinking on both sewage and rubbish disposal.

My suggestion has me looking across to the Cherbourg Peninsula where there is no shortage of space and third-grade agricultural or ex-industrial land. What better opportunity for a co-operative, multi-national effort?

Firstly, the new incinerator should be placed on hold and we should approach a port on the French coast – preferably one that lacks on-going viable commercial business – in a region that may also wish to update its sewage and rubbish disposal facilities. We should also involve the other Channel Islands, should they wish to participate.

Instead of the incinerator at La Collette, which we would resite in France, we should build a large, low-level covered rubbish sorting shed and a dock for New York-style garbage vessels.

Rubbish would then be pre-sorted and shipped from the Island, by covered garbage vessels, to the French port, where we co-operate to build a jointly funded incinerator, recycling unit and a new sewage disposal plant on land that they specify. They have plenty to choose from. The French in the area would also be connected into the system.

We then build a large pipe from Bellozanne across to France and connect it up to the new sewage plant. Guernsey and the other Channel Islands, with the possible exception of Alderney’s sewage system, could also be involved should they so wish.

The advantages are:
• Local jobs all round.
• New jobs (crewing the garbage vessels and sorting the rubbish, etc).
• The rubbish ends up in France, where recycled stuff can be easily sold on and transported by road and rail Europe-wide. This would apply to the French area’s rubbish as well.
• Bellozanne can be closed down and rehabilitated.
• The by-product of the sewage plant has direct access by road and rail to European agricultural nations.
• Capital costs can be shared.
• French port gets new lease of life.
• No more raw sewage outflow in St Aubin’s Bay.
Just in case anyone should start worrying that French sensibilities about their environment would be offended, all this would be state of the art stuff and I would point out that the nuclear waste dump further up the coast would appear to represent more of an environmental threat than this proposal.

No doubt someone will dismiss this as all having been discussed and rejected in the past. If so, excellent. It would be good to know at least some alternatives to the current expensive and long-term environmentally disastrous scheme were discussed.

Oh, and before someone shoots down the above on the grounds of expense, as worked out in the 1970s, I would point out that as technology advances, costs can come down due to that development. What seemed expensive and impossible, with the technology available then, may be an entirely different situation now.

As for halting the current incinerator contract, I believe the current contractors are French? And if so, it would probably be most compliant to such a rethink if a larger scheme on the French mainland was the option!

1
R B Bougourd

July 23, 2009 at 9:22 am

Presumably Mr.Manley can think of a suitable port, particularly one whose self esteem is sufficiently low that they might take up such an offer.

Off hand, I can’t think of any. Except perhaps Flamanville.

Perhaps they could take our rubbish and give us cheaper electricity in return.

Otherwise, there is a nice big ravine in the Channel NW of Alderney.

If the sewage went there it could be renamed from the Hurd Deep to the …

Report abuse
2
Cristina McDowall

July 23, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Inspired and logical – 2 reasons why it will never happen!

Report abuse
3
Nick M

July 24, 2009 at 10:41 am

R.B.Bougourd: I don’t think self esteem comes into it! you forget that the designers and lead contractors of the Incinerator project here are a French operation who have similar installations all over France. So there will be no objection then to the technology if re-sited in France where there is room to do the job properly!
Also the £150mn Jersey is spending and the £200mn Guernsey is proposing to spend developing local facilities is not chicken feed, and neither is the promise to the French Port and Region concerned of updated state of the art local facilities subsidised in quite a substantial way by the Channel Islands.
And that doesn’t include the ongoing scenario of local jobs and revived economic activity. Quite a return for some old commercial or third rate agricultural land of which I am sure they have plenty!
I do like your idea of a discount against our imported electricity costs, I hadn’t thought of that one, and it makes great sense if it is our rubbish that is in part generating it! Also we could probably get a discount on the price of construction as there will be no need for all those specialist French based construction people to relocate or travel back and forth quite so much if the whole thing is now in France.
Local contractors could get on with the sorting shed and docking facilities at La Collette.
As for the -urd Deep,this is already happening but a lot closer to home! I suppose as an insurance against French industrial action taking place and our sewage outflow backing up as a result, we could retain control of a large sea access valve in the pipe on the eastern end. It’s a leeshore so the pollution will only go in one direction should we be forced to open it!
I regret Christina you may be right! certainly we appear to be crunching ahead with the incinerator part.However the sewage treatment plant is another matter.
One further point to make is that such a French based operation would have the room to do these processes properly including recycling. Our local pilot scheme is already in trouble due to higher volumes than expected and a sudden fall in demand for recycled materials.Somewhere therefor is a local stockpile of these materials waiting for the market to revive? That requires room which we don’t have in the Island in abundance, so where is this stuff going at present?will this be a problem if the demand does not pick up? Your guess is as good as mine, but what I do know is that if I am a European Manufacturer looking for such raw material,I would buy it from a site in France with good road and rail links and room to stockpile to achieve economies of scale and therefore pricing, than seek it out in an Island where recovery is more complex and the amount not worth the effort and expence!

Report abuse