Dear Editor It's entirely reasonable for Sydney to deal with its waste closer to the source and at the Parliamentary Inquiry, some Sydney council representatives expressed concern at the cost to their ratepayers for transporting red bin waste long distances to be processed, expressed interest in other models, with some acknowledging the regional inequalities in this plan. They know what's proposed is not the best available technology but from a political perspective it's easier to shunt these dinosaurs out to the regions rather than try to explain they are installing less polluting models in Sydney and deal with any political fallout. I think it's correct the model PER (Parkes Energy Recovery) is planning, like Veolia's and many built in recent decades around the world, are genuinely inferior to the latest thermal treatment available and like the evolution of steam trains to modern electric versions, will only keep improving. It's a chemical engineering field but suffice to say the waste industry, government agencies and academics are well aware of improvements. The Japanese have models that combust at over 13000C resulting in more effective chemical decomposition, vitrify the bottom ash and use a more effective wet scrubbing method for flue gas deacidification. The Cenagen proposal at Kandos to produce methanol and capture CO2 is an improvement and Cenagen said a site at Botany was too expensive. As a GA (general assistant) at Tarago Public School for two years I worried over the health of the students and wondered why the shift from landfill with methane capture was necessary and am still perplexed. Modern landfill has come a long way since 1788 with securely lined excavations and methane capture, methane can be processed to urea for example or the hydrogen used in other ways. Only about 10 per cent of NSW landfill currently captures CH4 so it's a bit unfair to blame landfill on methane escape when better designs are available. Opponent groups of the Eastern Creek incinerator shout that they were successful in resisting that proposal but in reality has resulted in a relocation plan with similar arguments against. A great ideal but it may be many years before zero waste becomes a reality, meanwhile a suggestion is to pressure Sydney to fess-up and install the latest thermal treatments at home, or build more modern landfill. Matthew Ford, Tomakin NSW
