THE comments by Cllr Theodoulou about the proposed Community R4C facility in your article of August 5 were seriously misleading and we would like to clarify a few facts for your readers.

As its name makes clear, the Community R4C project has been founded for the benefit of our community, will treat waste as a resource and will also have a positive impact on both the environment and the local economy.

Contrary to Cllr Theodoulou’s comments, the advanced Mechanical Biological Heat Treatment (MBHT) process being proposed by Community R4C has actually been in use in a number of UK locations since the 1980s, treating both black bag domestic refuse and commercial and industrial waste.

The MBHT manufacturing process produces no significant emissions and therefore does not breach any air pollution laws.

The biofuel which will be produced by the Community R4C facility is a refined product, which has been cleaned of harmful substances and plastics.

The fuel is high quality and burns in a similar way to dried wood pellets.

Working with Biocentre, we have already lined up a number of customers for this fuel and expect to develop further local uses.

Community R4C is a not-for-profit organisation.

Publicly available data clearly shows that there is ample municipal, commercial and industrial waste generated within Gloucestershire to supply the Community R4C facility and enable it to meet its costs.

It does not therefore require waste to be imported from outside the county.

This technology, far from being more expensive, is in fact the very opposite.

It would cost only £15million to build (as opposed to an estimated £150million for the proposed incinerator).

Simply, the difference in the gate fee (taken by plants for each tonne of waste received) would save GCC about £10million per year compared with the incinerator.

We would like to invite your readers to visit our website communityR4C.com to find out more and if they like what they read, to get involved in supporting a project which will turn Gloucestershire’s waste into a valuable community resource, instead of reducing it to ashes.

Technical Team Community R4C