ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners claim new expansion plans will make Nottingham the "incinerator capital of the East Midlands."
Waste Recycling Group (WRG), which operates the city's Eastcroft plant, is to ask the city council for permission to allow articulated lorries to bring in waste from throughout the region to be burned.
This would be on top of the normal refuse lorries bringing rubbish from the Greater Nottingham area.
WRG has already secured a ten-year �7m contract with Rutland County Council which involves bringing waste to Nottingham for incineration.
During a recent community liaison meeting, the company also revealed it would ask the council for permission for more waste to be burnt in the two existing furnaces, increasing its capacity from 160,000 tonnes a year to 200,000.
The capacity would then be further increased to 300,000 tonnes a year by installing a third incinerator line by 2013. This has already been granted permission as have plans for an external makeover, following a planning inquiry in 2009.
And WRG is already considering a fourth line to take capacity to 400,000 tonnes a year.
The incinerator building has always had the potential for up to four lines of incineration since it was built in the early 1970s.
Nigel Lee, of Nottingham Friends of the Earth, said: "They are looking in the long term to expand to 400,000 tonnes – so to make Nottingham the incinerator capital of the East Midlands.
"This is at a time that recycling is increasing while total waste from households and businesses is reducing.
"WRG has claimed that the increased waste will come from commercial and industrial waste.
"But Veolia, who operate an incinerator in Sheffield, have found that commercial waste is not suitable for an incinerator. They are now asking for permission to take household waste from a much larger area including parts of Notts and Derbyshire.
"That would indicate that to burn a lot of commercial waste is not going to be borne out in practice, so we are going to be burning everyone else's waste."
Mr Lee added that Nottingham's incinerator was "highly inefficient" with around 33 per cent of the energy created being recovered as electricity or heating for the district heating system.
A spokesperson for campaign group Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill (NAIL) said: "These plans need to be challenged on principle and we have grave doubts about how this commits Nottingham even further to being the East Midlands' dumping ground – especially as waste being burned in our city could come from what could be anywhere in the UK."
Mike Snell, general manager for external relations at WRG, said: "Work will begin this year on installation of the third line and associated architectural improvements to the exterior of the Eastcroft facility, for which planning permission was granted in February 2009.
"The extension will allow the facility to process an additional 100,000 tonnes of waste, reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill and generating more renewable energy.
"As well as this, WRG will be submitting an application to vary the annual waste throughput, as specified in the site's existing Environmental Permit, to enable the existing lines one and two to operate at their combined design capacity of 200,000 tonnes per annum.
"A planning application to extend the Tipping Hall to improve vehicle access to the facility will also be submitted.
"These changes to the facility will produce additional energy which will help in expanding the existing district heating scheme and improve vehicle access to the facility," he added.
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