Less airborne pollution with incinerator upgrade
An article from The Budapest Times and Budapester Zeitung by Jacqueline White
While a bigger and better incinerator that will consume three-fifths of the city’s garbage is now online, bad air between city council and the district mayor of Újpest still lingers.
“Budapest can breathe easier: as of now the incinerator’s neighbourhood will have cleaner air,” said Mayor Gábor Demszky, on announcing that the HUF 19.1 billion (EUR 74.9 million) renovation of the Rákospalota plant is complete and within schedule.
Újpest’s council, concerned that toxic fumes from the incinerator had been wafting into District IV for years, entered into a protracted legal battle with the city’s incinerator operator FKF Rt. in 2003. Although now welcoming the prospect of fresher air, Újpest’s Fidesz mayor Tamás Derce told The Budapest Times and Budapester Zeitung last Wednesday that he was unconvinced by the city council’s commitment to environmental protection: “Neither the city council, nor the Environmental Protection Supervisory Board took the necessary steps to stop the pollution for a decade. They were in cahoots with one another”. He added, “It is only because of our council that this upgrade has actually come about”. Almost half of the funds were for the installation of a scrubber to clean the exhaust from the plant located in District XIV, which borders District IV in the city’s northeast.
Hungary was given until December of this year to bring its incinerators into line with EU directives. With all four of its furnaces upgraded and a new filter installed, the incinerator’s emission levels now fall below EU limits. Gábor Gyóni, the incinerator’s energy head, told The Budapest Times and Budapester Zeitung that the site’s main advantage is “its ability to generate heat energy, which can then be converted to electrical energy”. It has a capacity to incinerate 15 tonnes of rubbish per hour, and at the same time generates steam to turn a 24 megawatt turbine.
More waste than neighbours
According to the EU’s statistical agency, Eurostat, Hungary’s total waste output is below the EU average, though significantly higher than that of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Although the proportion of waste incinerated in Hungary is low, in Budapest the incinerator plays a crucial role. The plant burns 60% of the 4.6 million cubic metres of waste generated by the city each year, whilst the city’s remaining rubbish is taken to landfills out of town.
Budapest city council presents the incinerator as only one element of its waste management strategy. According to its press statement, Budapest will become home to more than 500 new collection sites for recyclable waste within the next three years, bringing the total number to 1,100. Alongside construction of the Csepel sewage treatment plant, significantly more money is to be injected into eliminating illegal landfills, whilst an extensive bio-waste scheme is soon to be launched.
Environmental group HuMuSz, which campaigns against incinerator use, is not convinced that incinerators are the way to go. “Costly incinerators provide no incentive for reducing waste production, since a guaranteed level of waste is needed for them to continue to operate economically”, Balázs Tömöri told The Budapest Times and Budapester Zeitung.
The incinerator has become the target of a fresh political debate too. Following an article by news agency MTI which stated that Demszky mentioned that the city is thinking of privatising the incinerator, Fidesz deputy faction leader, Zsolt Wintermantel, called on Demszky to unequivocally declare his position. Demszky denied the allegations made in the article.
Jacqueline White