South Wales incinerator: Waste plant site to be revealed 1 February 2013 Last updated at 06:55 By Iolo ap Dafydd BBC Wales environment correspondent. Twitter: @apdafyddi Residents in Cardiff and Newport are expecting to hear later on Friday which area of south east Wales is preferred as a site for a new incinerator. Five south Wales councils formed a partnership known as to deal with household waste, and Prosiect Gwyrdd will announce a preferred bidder. The partnership consists of the Vale of Glamorgan, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire as well as Newport and Cardiff. Two firms are left in the race: Veolia Environmental Services and Viridor. While Viridor started building its energy-from-waste plant in Trident Park Cardiff last March, Veolia's planning application for a site near the Llanwern steelworks, close to Newport, was turned down last July, and its appeal will be heard next July. The shell of Viridor's plant is already taking shape with planning permission given by Cardiff council in 2010, and the Environment Agency awarding an operational permit in November the same year after consultation. We have already put great pressure, with some success, on Cardiff council to reconsider the whole question of enforcing the planning consent conditions End Quote Robert Griffiths Stop Newport & Monmouthshire Incinerator Campaign Protests groups have sprung up in both cities. While Stop Newport & Monmouthshire Incinerator Campaign (SNIC) is now waiting for an inquiry into Velioa's appeal, the Cardiff Against the Incinerator group meets each week. According to its chairman, Robert Griffiths, even a High Court order is being looked at to try to stop the incinerator being built near the Splott area of Cardiff. "We have already put great pressure, with some success, on Cardiff council to reconsider the whole question of enforcing the planning consent conditions," he said. In a statement to BBC Wales, responding to allegations of breaking planning conditions while building its new plant, Viridor said it had been "invited to stop" construction on its Trident Park site after apparently beginning work without meeting the "pre-implementation conditions" attached to its planning permission. At the time, Cardiff council said it had warned the developer that it would take "robust enforcement action" if the issue was not resolved, but when the use of enforcement action was put before the planning committee, members voted to defer a decision on such action until it had more information. Wildlife That council planning meeting is scheduled to discuss these concerns next month. In Newport, Veolia Environmental Services's bid for planning approval was thwarted by Newport councillors on the grounds of the following: Effect on wildlife and biodiversity That a new incinerator would not be compatible with the new St Modwen housing development nearby The impact on the M4 motorway and as well as Newport's south distributor road. The background to opening Wales' first new large scale incinerator is the Welsh government's 70% recycling target by 2025. The current average in Wales' 22 local authorities is 53%. During 2011-12 while 492,000 tonnes of household waste was recycled, over 710,000 of rubbish was sent to landfill sites. It's dealing with what's called "residual waste," is why the Welsh government favours incineration - especially if almost a third of waste in Wales is considered to difficult to recycle. Viable alternative Eventually as landfill taxes increase, rubbish tips are likely to be phased out. The Welsh assembly's petitions committee submitted a report on incinerators last December, and amongst its recommendations were that the Welsh government "seeks opportunities to support emerging waste treatment technologies that could, in time, offer a viable alternative to incineration." The committee also recommended that the Welsh government considers the feasibility of contributing to a comprehensive study to explore any potential health risks that could be associated with the release of very small particles from incinerators. This underlines the real health concerns many have regarding burning waste at 850 degrees Celsius, and the emissions and oxides released into the atmosphere. This is despite the 2009 report by the Health Protection Agency and what Viridor states on its website: "The emissions from the plant would be strictly regulated by the Environment Agency and the entire treatment process is designed to meet the requirements not only of local air quality standards but also of the European Waste Incineration Directive."