Members of Sustainable Crediton recently accepted Crediton Town Council's offer to visit the Energy from Waste site with them. Operational since July 2014, this facility has state of the art technology to monitor the waste and its outputs. It takes the waste from a population of 779,834. 55% of household waste is now recycled but this still leaves approximately 1 ton per household to deal with. Landfill has run out and this facility was deemed the solution rather than long distance shipping of waste to another facility.

Waste is brought in by an almost continuous supply of a vehicles which then tip the waste into a huge concrete hole in the ground. One side of the wall is a glass viewing screen via which staff operate the crane feeding the hoppers that fill the incinerator, a 24 hours a day operation.  Part of the waste is stacked to make sure there is enough to keep the system running at night. It is part space age technology as you watch the many screens monitoring and adjusting the oscillating  furnace machinery for optimum operation and part nightmare as you watch the grab lift the waste and see just how much there is that could and should be recycled.

New treatments mean the waste from the end of the process is a lot safer than earlier incinerators, the formerly dangerous fly ash is now starting to be used to make breeze blocks and the remaining waste goes for road making. The news that only part of the energy produced is usable locally was disappointing. As the plant was built after the surrounding businesses and homes, the infrastructure is not there to supply it.

Devon County Council is not complacent, they are still promoting recycling and suggest that up to 71% of waste could be recycled. Currently in Mid Devon we are at 53.4% with Teignbridge leading with 55.7%, though Mid Devon has shown the largest growth recently. A lot of work is going on with school education, as DCC believe it is by educating the next generation we may hope to reduce waste and recycle more.