Bradford Council was applauded in the early 1970s when it closed down the incinerator in Hammerton Street – burning rubbish was seen to be polluting and it was decided to dump it in a big hole in the ground well away from Bradford.

We even felt superior to Huddersfield when it replaced its old incinerator with a modern one, but gave it a new name.

The situation has changed significantly, and nowadays no-one talks about incineration. ‘Energy from waste’ and ‘combined heat and power’ are the terms that are used to disguise the old process which is still about disposing of unwanted rubbish by burning it.

Indeed, Sheffield has had an incinerator for many years that used the surplus heat for district heating in city centre buildings, and countries like Denmark see this as the normal form of disposal with some useful electricity on the side.

Whatever they are called, incinerators arouse opposition from local communities, stronger even than for wind farms, and, countrywide, there are more than 80 local groups fighting the plans for the many energy-from-waste or heat-treatment schemes that are in the pipeline.

Disappointingly, their arguments are based on the expectation that there will be serious health problems from emissions, despite the fact that modern technology, regulation and inspection have significantly reduced the impact.

It’s been more difficult, though, to control the fallout from the words ‘dioxin‘, ‘toxic’ and ‘carcinogenic‘. Indeed, there are more health problems from coal-fired power stations, garden bonfires and Bonfire Night festivities.

The opposition might have a point if they considered all the lorry journeys involved, but there are more compelling reasons for rejecting incineration, or whatever it’s now called, to do with individual responsibility, recycling, cost, jobs, electricity production and CO2.

These energy-from-waste schemes remove the incentive from individuals to reduce their waste by increasing recycling as they ignore the fact that 70 percent of household waste can be recycled with alternate weekly collections of all materials sorted at the kerbside.

The high capital cost, with contracts worth up to £800 million over 25 years, means that there are very few jobs due to the complex level of technology involved, with most of the money going to overseas shareholders rather than being spent locally.

There is also less electricity produced by mass burning of mixed waste than by using anaerobic digesters for bio-waste and the production of natural gas.

Indeed, burning general plastic rubbish, oil-based, energy from waste plants produces a third more CO2 than efficient gas-fired power stations.

How come, then, that later this year Bradford and Calderdale councils will sign up to a second-rate energy-from-waste scheme?