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The Editor, The Surrey Advertiser, Stoke Mill, Woking Road, Guildford, Surrey GU1 1QA |
Guildford Anti-Incinerator Network, c/o 5, Orchard Road, Burpham, Guildford, Surrey GU4 7JH 16 October 2005 |
Dear Sir/Madam,
The Guildford Anti-Incinerator Network
(GAIN) was established 6 years ago and through research adopted a philosophy
based on in-principle opposition to incineration anywhere whilst strongly
supporting an incinerator-free approach based on high levels of recycling and
composting. Our approach is not
simply concerned with what is proposed for any one location.
In an article in your newspaper
(30th September 2005) Marianne Cole from Surrey County Council
confirms that 80% of household waste in the County can be recycled or
composted. Despite this, Surrey County
Council is only planning to recycle 25% under its contract with Surrey Waste
Management. Surrey's contract assumes
the rest will be burnt in 2 incinerators.
The Government is setting higher recycling and composting targets and
Guildford Borough Council has a clear commitment to 60% recycling and
composting by 2010.
In 2003, Surrey County Council and
the 11 District Councils in Surrey accepted that an incinerator-free approach
is feasible and offered this to residents as 'Option H' in the Surrey Local
Government Association consultation held that year. This approach relies on proven methods of recycling and
composting and received overwhelming support from residents. Ever since, Surrey County Council has tried
to ignore public opinion and bury 'Option H'.
Is this because their outdated
contract is for 2 incinerators?
GAIN accepts that for 'Option H'
to work investment in recycling and composting facilities is required. However, in 1998, up to £100M of Private
Finance Initiative funding was made available to Surrey County Council by the
Government for providing waste treatment facilities. Seven years later, about
£80M of this funding has not been used. In our view, rather than holding this money back for building
incinerators, Surrey County Council should require its contractor to invest
this money in well-proven biological treatment facilities such as composting.
There has been a failure of
democracy on waste issues in Surrey.
Over the past 5 years, there have been almost 85,000 objections to
incineration from across the County. In
consultation after consultation residents have supported an incinerator-free
approach, but Surrey County Council is not responding to residents views.
In a letter to the Surrey
Advertiser (14th October 2005) Councillor David Munro, Executive
Member for the Environment at Surrey County Council argues that incineration is
safe and relatively cheap. However, he
has failed to release the health and safety appraisals and financial
assessments on which he bases these claims, despite being asked to do so in one
of the five petitions against incineration residents have submitted to him at
Surrey County Council in recent months.
Residents continue to have
legitimate concerns over the health risks associated with incineration. This is not scaremongering and it is
insulting to residents to suggest it is.
Parliamentary Post Note 149 confirms that incineration produces 20
pollutants including dioxins, particulates and heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium,
thallium, lead and arsenic.
Industry claims that fewer
pollutants escape up the chimneys of modern incinerators. These claims assume perfect operating
conditions when, in practice, incinerators have a poor track record, with
disturbing incidents such as fires, chimney filters being switched off and many
emission breaches.
Even if the pollutants are
captured in the chimney filters as "fly ash", this highly toxic
material is so dangerous it has to be transported in sealed containers to a designated
hazardous waste landfill site.
Councillor Munro has not yet identified a suitable landfill site for
hazardous fly ash in Surrey.
It is misleading to set up
landfill against incineration. In
another letter to the Surrey Advertiser (7th October 2005)
Councillor Munro suggests that incineration is an acceptable method of reducing
landfill. However, incinerators don't
avoid the need for landfill. In
addition to needing a landfill site for the highly toxic fly ash, which is
equivalent to 6% of the waste burned, another 30% of the waste burned in an
incinerator comes out as "bottom ash" that would also be sent to
landfill sites.
If it is true that Surrey County
Council is reserving incineration to deal with the residual waste left after
all other processes have been applied, what evidence is there that this policy
is realistic, and what evidence can Surrey County Council provide to
demonstrate it is investing in facilities higher up the waste hierarchy to
maximise recycling and composting?
Surrey County Council appears to
be trying to convince residents that incineration is the only option, and that
all we have to decide is which community in Surrey should suffer. We find it wholly unacceptable that
residents are not being offered the feasible alternatives to incineration by
those who are elected and paid to serve us.
In the forthcoming consultation on
Surrey County Council's Waste Development Framework, residents across Surrey
must stand together and reject the introduction of a technology, which would
burn valuable resources, create dioxins and risk spreading pollution across our
County. GAIN will continue its vigorous
campaign of opposition to incineration anywhere and will continue to promote
the incinerator-free alternatives which residents so clearly support and have a
right to expect.
Yours faithfully,
Colin Matthews,
Chairman of GAIN