Eco ChurcH
Eco Blog by Lyn Hayes (Member of our church)
As Pat mentioned in October's blog, a group of us visited the Veolia Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) in Marchwood in October. They have 5 days per year (called Wonder Days!) when the public can book into a guided tour of the Facility. The non recyclable waste produced by Southampton City and South West Hampshire Districts are dealt with at this Facility.
It was fascinating to see what goes on there. We saw where the mountains of waste are delivered by the collection lorries, metals are extracted for re-use and then the waste is put into incinerators. The heat energy from this produces steam, which is used to generate electricity supplied to the National Grid. This electricity is sufficient to meet the demands of up to 22.600 local homes. Previously this waste would have ended up in landfill but that is now a last resort.
There were also a lot of questions answered by the facility and operations managers such as: why can no other types of plastics except for plastic bottles be recycled from home (Hampshire does not currently have the facilities but there is an ongoing plan to build such a facility). Another question was about toxins released into the atmosphere from the Facility – apparently one major firework display releases more toxins that the ERF does in 10 years!
The most reassuring thing to learn was that when we place non recyclable items in our general waste bags, we do not need to feel guilty as it will eventually end up as energy rather than in landfill.