Zoë Garbett commits to a “pause and review” of the Edmonton Incinerator Plans

Green Candidate for Mayor of Hackney Zoë Garbett commits to a “pause and review” of the Edmonton Incinerator plans – as part of her far-reaching vision to create a circular economy in Hackney.

A Green Mayor will:

• Work with residents to increase recycling rates.
• Work with community groups to set up, promote, and support “Reuse and Repair” hubs across the borough.
• Transform Hackney into a zero-waste borough by 2030.

As the leader of the Green Group in Hackney Council, Zoë has championed the need for more ambitious and faster action on the climate emergency. In 2023, she successfully passed the Climate and Ecology Emergency motion which brought forward the net zero goal for core operations at Hackney Council to 2030.

Zoë says: “We are at the start of a sixth mass extinction. Now is the time for Hackney to elect a Green Mayor to lead the borough into a greener future.”

If elected as Green Mayor, Zoë Garbett commits to stopping the expansion of the Edmonton Incinerator.

A decade ago, Hackney Council, along with six other London councils, proposed to expand the Edmonton Incinerator which will lead to an estimated 700,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. In spite of declaring a “climate emergency” in 2019, Hackney council continues to push for the doubling of the incinerator’s capacity, without properly reviewing whether the plans are aligned with its climate targets.

When asked by Green Councillors, the Labour administration did not have a response to the fact that there is an over-capacity of waste-incineration in England – making any expansion redundant. Most troubling of all, incinerators have adverse health effects. There are official government figures from ONS showing how another incinerator near Selhurst raised infant death rates by 233%.

Zoë says: “I refuse to accept that Hackney will double the amount of waste it sends to Edmonton to be burnt – pumping out toxic air into some of the poorest communities in east London.”

Zoë believes that it is wrong to move forwards with doubling the Incinerator when the North London Waste Authority, vice-chaired by a Hackney Labour Councillor, has refused to release an independent climate impact study. Hackney council does not appear to have budgeted for the financial implications of the UK government’s proposed inclusion of waste-burning in the Emissions Trading Scheme from 2028.

As Green Mayor, Zoë Garbett will lead transformational change at the council towards a greener future, which reduces waste while supercharging material reuse and recycling. By moving away from wasteful incineration, she will also explore innovations such as material and biological treatment of residual waste.

Green Mayor of Hackney candidate Garbett is committed to:

1. Protecting the poorest communities from toxic air.
2. A sustainable future which prioritises the circular economy over outdated ways of dealing with waste.
3. Keeping money in the pockets of local communities rather than paying out to large corporations for climate-wrecking developments.

Read her full Waste Policy here