Farmers in a small South Island town are worried milk and meat produced in the area will be contaminated if a waste-to-energy plant goes ahead.
The giant incinerator would be located several kilometres from a school field in Glenavy, in southern Canterbury, and turn 365,000 tonnes of trash into electricity per year.
The $350 million project has already been given fast track approval and those behind the joint New Zealand-Chinese-backed project are promising the plant will meet strict air quality standards.
Glenavy School board trustee Adam Rivett said, “the dioxins in the air that these things release. If you look at the studies overseas, some of this is not good and obviously, it impacts children more readily than it does adults.”
Waste energy plants are common in Europe. Residential and commercial waste is delivered to a facility where it combusted in a specialised chamber, creating a stream that drives a turbine to create electricity.
Green Party MP Lan Pham criticised the proposed project, saying they “not only burn waste, but they actually create it”.
“The burning of it becomes airborne which means it gets into the community’s lungs or on pastures,” she said.
Local farmers are also worried.
“Cattle and sheep are grazing the grass, which puts a massive negative on our exports if things like toxins are found in our meat and wool for New Zealand,” sheep and beef farmer Ross McCulloch said.
The Glenavy site is close to dairy factories and Fonterra’s previously raised food safety concerns about a similar proposed plant in the past.
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said all the projects that get listed in the Fast Track Approvals Bill will go to an expert panel, which will then “weigh up the environmental impacts of particular projects and the economic benefits and then make a decision as to whether they go ahead or not”.
South Island Resource Recovery Ltd (SIRRL) – a joint venture between China Tianying Incorporated and New Zealand company Renew Energy – addressed concerns in a statement to 1News.
“The company wants to reassure people that the proposed Waste-to-Energy plant will use world-leading, best available technology and will have the most stringent environmental management practices in place,” director Paul Taylor said in a statement.
Taylor further added that the proposed plant “will not take hazardous materials or toxic waste”, and “all air emissions from the plant will meet the strict air quality standards set by the New Zealand Government and regional councils”.
The plant will incorporate the best available proven technology, including a seven-step flue gas treatment system to ensure that it comfortably meets both New Zealand’s air quality standards and the more stringent European industrial emissions standards.
“If SIRRL’s proposal does not meet the environmental standards, it cannot go ahead.”
But critics remain sceptical.
“Well, they haven’t got a track record of being open and honest,” Rivett said.
“How can we trust that this incinerator is going to be a good thing?” McCulloch added.