Covanta have today formally given up in their quest to build an incinerator outside Merthyr Tydfil. They cite the local authority’s unwillingness to look on it as a national facility for Wales as the main reason although at the same time as they withdraw from that planning process they have applied to have their permit changed for the Ince Marshes incinerator so it can take in an extra 180,000 tonnes of material a year.

In all this Covanta appear to be working as hard as they can to become the biggest burner of residual waste in not only the country but also the world, thereby shackling the generations of tomorrow to a 19th century solution that does not solve the waste problem but simply turns it into an invisible and deadly cocktail of chemicals.