THE fight against the possibility of an incinerator being built in York has been stepped up with the launch of a new campaign group.

York Residents Against Incineration, or Y-RAIN, launched its protest by setting up an information and campaigning station in Parliament Street this afternoon.

The group aims to persuade City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council to reject the option of building an incinerator to burn the region's waste.

Led by Peter Sanderson and Richard Lane, the group has expressed its anger over the public consultation on a waste strategy which, the pair claim, offered two options - both involving the building of an incinerator.

Mr Sanderson said: "The consultation as it stands is a sham. It must be redrafted to give people real options, and a decent length of time to respond."

The group campaign states that:

Councils should adopt a target of 75 per cent of waste recycled or composted by 2015, and ultimately a "zero waste" policy of progressive waste reduction

Residual waste should go to a mechanical-biological treatment plant, where cutting edge technology separates out waste and recycles it, composts it or makes into soil improver

The public consultation should be re-opened, this time including a no-incineration option.

Mr Sanderson said: "An incinerator would be an expensive and polluting millstone around the councils' necks. Such a contract would encourage them to cop out of increasing recycling levels or reducing waste production."

York currently recycles about 26 per cent of its waste, and aims to bring this figure up to at least 45 per cent by 2010. Other councils already recycle more and have more ambitious targets, such as Lancashire County Council, which recycles 35 per cent and aims for 58 per cent by 2013.

Mr Lane said: "Incinera-tion is both a waste of money and a waste of waste.

"The scheme proposed is very unambitious.

"The councils are being seduced by big contracts and PFI money.

"They are not doing what is best for the environment and for the future of waste. An incinerator would be a huge millstone around our necks."

Coun Andrew Waller, City of York Council's environment chief, has said that the most likely option for York and the county council would involve an incinerator as well as other waste processing equipment, though the incinerator could be sited anywhere in the North Yorkshire area.

Updated: 09:23 Saturday, January 28, 2006