Pensioner feels compelled to urge people to resist incinerator proposal
By Anne Huggett
surreynewspapers@trintysouth.co.uk
A MAN living in the shadows of
Britain's biggest incinerator has told communities across Runnymede, Elmbridge
and Spelthorne facing a possible waste management plant plan to "fight all
the way".
David Morgan's
home is about a mile from the Edmonton Incinerator near Enfield.
His grim experience has prompted him to tell readers: "I would not
wish an incinerator on anybody."
When Mr Morgan and his wife Hazel, 61, bought their house in the
early 1970s, they had no idea a huge rubbish-burning furnace would be built
almost on their doorstep.
Mr Morgan, 65, suffers from emphysema and, although he cannot prove it, he
is convinced it is linked to breathing in the fumes emitted from the burning
rubbish.
Mr Morgan
claims life at home is constantly marred by of the effects of the incinerator.
He said: "It's not very nice living near one at all.
"A couple of years-ago we had black all along our washing
line.
"It looked like burnt plastic. It came from the fumes."
He said he can see smoke billowing from the chimney from his bathroom and
can frequently smell the rubbish fumes.
He added: "And then there's the worry about cancer and birth
defects. It really is
frightening."
Mr Morgan said people living within three kilometres of the furnace
suffer the most but the fumes pumped out affect people for miles around - even
if they do not realise it.
He said: "If they can't see it, I suppose it's not something they
think about. But they still breathe it
all in."
Although the
London waste plant is an older style construction, the former builder wants to
tell people living near the potential incinerator sites in Runnymede, Elmbridge
and Spelthome to oppose the planning applications at every opportunity.
Chertsey's Lyne Lane, Molesey Road in Hersham, Trumps Farm in Longcross,
Charlton Lane in Shepperton and Martyrs Lane in Woking are on a list of sites
short-listed for possible waste plants, including incinerators.
The six are among 13 identified as potential sites for waste management
centres by County Hall chiefs to deal with Surrey's annual mountain of 600,000
tonnes of household waste, currently being dumped in landfill sites, which are
quickly filling up.
The period of public consultation will end on December 12.
Surrey's waste plan project manager John Shelton claims the county
council has no alternative to exploring other options before landfall sites are
overflowing.
He said: "We have to
provide a waste plan for the next 10 years and deal with it in a sustainable
way."