Any Objections after all? Decision Making on the Siting of a Domestic Waste Incinerator in Wijster, the Netherlands

The initiative to realise a waste incinerator facility was taken in 1986 by the waste treatment company ‘Vuilafvoer Maatschappij NV’ (VAM) in the village of Wijster. This village is incorporated in the municipality of Beilen, which is located in the province of Drenthe. The VAM company has a long tradition of composting the Dutch biodegradable waste fraction. The compostable fraction is taken there by train from all over the country. As a result of terminating the traditional process, the waste fraction that had to be deposited (at the same location) increased tremendously, which resulted in an increase in the deposited volume of 6 million cubic meters in about 7 years. At that time the existing landfill had nearly reached its maximum capacity. In order to reduce the fraction of the processed waste that had to be dumped, the VAM company proposed to build a waste incineration facility. The incinerator was planned to reach a maximum capacity of 350,000 tons/year of domestic waste. In order to build this incinerator several phases had to be passed: the environmental impact assessment, the provincial waste plan, the region plan, and changing the local land use plans. These procedures developed partly in parallel in a coordinated way.