Have you calculated the climate impact of the round trips of all lorries involved in haulage of waste to the site? What is this as a % of the calculated 'benefit' of diverting the waste from landfill?
The combustion of waste at the Buttington ERF, and generation of power displacing power from typical UK coal/gas mix, will lead to a net reduction of approximately 24,000 tonnes per year carbon dioxide when compared to disposing the same quantity of waste in a landfill with a gas collection rate of 78%.
Whist the impact of lorries has not specifically been considered as there would be a requirement to transport waste to some form of disposal facility, the impact of the lorries has been considered in terms of the overall air quality impact for the construction phase – this being the phase of development where there are most vehicle movements.
ADMS roads has been used to assess the impact of construction phase vehicles emissions (from nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (as PM10 and PM2.5)) and the full report may be found in Technical Appendix 6-2. A summary of the results at the point of maximum ground level concentration (“GLC”), also expressed as a percentage of the relevant air quality standard (“AQS”) is provided in the table below. For the purposes of this assessment it is assumed that construction is undertaken 2022 (the construction period is a 3 year process, however as emissions from road transport is predicted to improve year on year, then 2022 would be the worst case year from the construction period).
Construction Phase Vehicle Emissions Modelling Results
Pollutant Baseline (2022) Baseline + Construction Traffic Impact
µg/m3 %of AQS µg/m3 %of AQS µg/m3 %of AQS
NO2 7.90 19.76 7.96 19.91 0.06 0.15
PM10 2.75 6.88 2.78 6.96 0.08 0.250
PM2.5 1.67 6.66 1.71 6.82 0.16 0.64
The results of the modelling showed that during the construction phase, the impact will be less than 1% of the air quality standard for nitrogen dioxide (“NO2”) and particulate matter (PM10) and is described as not significant using Environment Agency screening criteria (see Section 2.12 of Technical Appendix 6-2). As the impact is substantially lower than the National Air Quality Objectives, it is considered that this therefore satisfies the requirements of National Air Quality Policies.