It is perfectly safe. It will include medical and industrial waste, plus the odd tyre or two which will slip through into the furnace without us knowing, along with the occasional gas cylinder. It will emit (among many other unpleasant things including dioxins) particulate smoke particles under 2.5 microns in diameter -which cannot be filtered out using current technology- and which can enter the bloodstream directly, causing ill health. Still perfectly safe...
That is what we are being told here in south London where 4 local councils (Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton) have decided to team up to look after their (our) rubbish. It's too hard for us to recycle and they are running out of room at the local landfill at Beddington so the solution is to burn it all in an incinerator.
Their friends at Viridor have offered to build this for them on their land at Beddington where they currently operate the landfill, composting etc.
Of course, as we will be recycling more and more (not so hard then ?) they will need to bring in more rubbish from farther afield to make it worth their while. So instead of the landfill being closed and returned to nature in a few years time, an incinerator will be burning for the next 30 to 40 years and directly polluting large surrounding stretches of London extending to Streatham and Beckenham for example.
Of course they (Croydon, Kingston and Sutton) have already signed a 'chosen partner' contract with Viridor which commits to the building of the incinerator despite the fact that no planning permission (dealt with by Sutton Council as the plant is on its patch) has yet been granted...There is of course a lot of money involved (almost £1 billion), hence the more than 600 pages of documentation supporting the 'proposal', swearing blind that there will be no effect whatsoever produced by this 'energy recovery facility'.
It would seem therefore that planning permission has already been tacitly granted and that any public consultation is now only for show.
Everyone living east of Sutton should be aware of the potential dioxin cocktail this Council has in store for them and oppose their plans.
For more information see Stop the South London Incinerator Campaign
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