No incinerator in Sajóbábony - case study

In the summer of 2007 a member of the local government of Sajóbábony called the Waste Prevention Alliance with the news that Piro-Energia Kft was planning to build a new incinerator in the town. He was worried about the planned investment since there are already two incinerators in operation there. He asked the Alliance to help to review the documentation with a specialist in order to find out whether the incinerator would pose any risk to the local population. After the phone call we received the documentation of the ex-ante survey presented by the company as well as the project description. Since by that time the preliminary stage of the proceedings had already been closed we could not step up as a client in this case, we could only summarize our opinion about the documentation in six pages and send it to the politician.

The ex-ante survey documentation written by a company from Debrecen was one of the lowest standards of its kind we have seen so far. The documentation devotes barely 20 pages to the plant and its environmental impacts. It did not specify who would supply the technology, whether there is a reference plant, how far the inhabited area is from the plant, what the current condition of the air is etc. We have summarized our objections in 16 points. The politician who turned to us found our opinion on the plant alarming and together we have decided that if the authorization process continues we will take part in it in good time and form an opinion on the documentation. This happened in the spring of 2008. In April the company handed in the uniform authorization documentation for environmental use together with the feasibility study. The member of the local government of Sajóbábony asked for a copy of this document from the Inspectorate for Environment and sent it to us by e-mail.

From the documentation it has become clear that the initiators tried to get authorization for a pyrolysing incinerator without consideration to the law on incineration, attempting to classify the future plant as a fuel stoker. The emission values of the plant did not comply with the stipulations of Decree No. 3/2002 of the Ministry of Environment and Water on incinerators. Therefore the whole documentation proved to be unrateable. From the documentation it has also become clear that fuelling pyrolysed waste in diesel engines would cause a substantial environmental load. Actually it would be higher than that of the pyrolysing of the waste. The completed evaluation has been handed in by the politician and the "Válaszúton" Foundation and afterwards our association has applied for client status in this case. Our association was supposed to take part in the committee meeting of the local government but this did not happen. Although the Foundation was not recognized by the Inspectorate as a client, due to the evaluation sent in by the politician the company was called for the completion of the documents with regard to the presented alarming points. Since the company did not respond to the authorizational notice within the given deadline the Inspectorate repealed the proceedings. Unfortunately this decision was challenged by the company so the case we thought we had won goes on.

This is a good example of a company with (seemingly) no appropriate background attempting to have a relatively new technology authorized making serious professional mistakes. Such a plan might even be defeated by one single person with adequate professional support.


Translation: Tünde NAGY-KOVÁCS
Proof-reading: Bev Lovatt