Bin your bin

In 2003, East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council signed what is believed to be a billion pound contract with Onyx to manage waste disposal in the county for the next 25 years.

At the heart of the plan is an incinerator, which will cost
around £125m to build. To operate effectively it will need 200,000 tonnes of ‘fuel’ a year, which accounts for half of all the waste currently produced in East Sussex by a population of little over one million. In return, the company says it will generate enough electricity to power 16,000 homes a year. What’s more, the council faces penalties if the level of waste Onyx have contracted to ‘deal with’ drops below 200,000 tonnes annually.

The incinerator is proposed for the small port town of Newhaven,
which has an ageing population and a history of neglect, as resources are directed to the more glamorous coastal locations of Brighton and Lewes. A study by Greenpeace found that incinerators are generally sited in deprived areas, as politically they are considered the point of least resistance.

At 170 metres long and 31 metres tall, the incinerator has two 69 metre high chimneys that will dominate...

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