He says the application is still in its early stages. In fact, we are in the final six weeks of a process which started with pre-application discussion in 2007; the application was received on May 28; official consultation period ended on June 24; a decision is due by September 2.

He says the environmental impact assessment is not yet completed. In fact, the environmental assessment is already on the council website. It misleadingly claims that the impact of trucking 75,000 tonnes per year of domestic waste (currently landfilled) into Sheffield and 75,000 tonnes of commercial waste (currently incinerated) out to Doncaster will not worsen Sheffield's carbon footprint because commercial waste produces less greenhouse gases than domestic waste landfilled.

He says that Green Party councillors voted against recycling measures. In fact, these measures were part of the Lib Dems' budget, which proposed to take £1.4m from mainstream council funds to spend on kerbside collection of glass and cans.

Green councillors support recycling, but believe that it should be funded via the Veolia contract and not by cutting other services. We also know that glass is the least carbon-saving material to take out of the incinerator. The priority is plastics.

Coun Jillian Creasy, Sheffield Green Party

I WRITE in response to your article July 12 "You'll turn us into the dustbin of South Yorkshire."

With regard to the question of lorry loads of waste being transported, why not transport the waste from Rotherham by canal? This used to be the method over 50 years ago for bringing coal to the Blackburn Meadows power station. The canal goes right to the door of the incinerator.

More thought needs to be applied to the role of the incinerator. This is not just a waste disposal plant, it is an energy facility that feeds many hundreds of properties in the city. I was proud to be involved in the setting up of this project in 1986.

I would ask Veolia how much bio-waste is in this 75,000 tonnes, and do we want it in our incinerator?

Bio-waste can cool the incinerator and we need steam to generate electricity and heat.

What we should be doing is extracting bio-waste from all of our waste streams and using that to generate electricity, heat and fuel for our vehicles from specialist bio-waste recovery plants.

In 1986, we were light years ahead of all other councils in the UK and sadly, in the last 20 years, we have stood still.

Landfill in Barnsley and Rotherham will affect all of us, apart from the millions of pounds that will be needed for landfill costs and taxes. Landfill generates methane which is generally recognised as being 40 times as damaging to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Alf Meade, Sheffield S6

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