A BLUEPRINT to deal with Cheshire's spiralling waste problems includes the possible provision of incinerators and landfills in Mid Cheshire.
The plan outlines proposals to tackle the problems of managing Cheshire's ever increasing mountains of waste.
It reveals the need for an integrated, larger and more varied network of waste management facilities and suggests options on 23 preferred development sites - mostly industrial.
They include two sites at Lostock, one which is listed as possibly being suitable for thermal treatment (or incineration), one at Brooks Lane Industrial Estate in Middlewich which is also potentially suitable for an incinerator, one at Kinderton Lodge in Middlewich which is suitable for landfilling, a waste transfer station at Chester Road, Oakmere, and three in Winsford, two overland areas for household waste recycling centres and Winsford Rock Salt Mine, which could be used as a hazardous waste disposal site.
Members of Cheshire County Council's Environment and Resources Scrutiny Sub Committee this week recommended the initial draft of the county's Replacement Waste Local Plan as a 'basis for consultation'.
Cheshire is currently over-dependent on landfill, with more than one million tons of waste deposited at three main sites in 2002.
Committee chairman Dr John Fraser said: 'We are facing a future crisis - a threat to our quality of life - which is not going to go away. Doing nothing is not an option.
'Not only is landfill space in this county rapidly running out but 90% of waste currently going to landfill should not be ending up there.'
Nationally, household waste - which constitutes just 30% of Cheshire's total - is increasing by 3% each year, a rate which, if unchecked, will double present volumes by 2020.
But the European Landfill Directive - intended to promote recycling and reduce the impact of landfilling - calls for a reduction of biodegradable waste going to landfill by the same date.
'European and national targets for recycling and recovery of value will carry heavy penalties for those authorities that fail to meet them,' added Dr Fraser.
The 23 preferred sites suggested for consultation are spread around the county, the majority on industrial estates. Each has suggested options for different types of waste management facilities ranging from household waste and recycling centres, to in-vessel composting, thermal and mechanical biological treatment, aggregate recycling and anaerobic digestion.
Dr Fraser said: 'It is not intended that all the sites should be used, nor that all the suggested uses should be contained on one site. This is a basis for a flexible solution to the challenges.'
Northwich County Cllr George Main-waring is leading the calls for thermal treatment to be removed from the draft plan in favour of other methods of treating waste, but council chiefs are insistent measures will be needed.
The agreed Replacement Waste Local Plan will provide guidance to the public and the waste industry on sites which may be suitable in principle for waste management uses. It will also establish policies against which applications for the development of waste management facilities can be assessed.
Dr Fraser added: 'This is the very first stage of what could be a long and difficult process involving a problem that impacts on all of us.'
The draft plan will now be considered by Cheshire County Council's executive early next month.
