ARE RUBBISH INCINERATORS KILLING OUR CHILDREN?
Sunday May 1,2011
Lucy Johnston
AN INVESTIGATION is to be launched into incinerators after claims they are linked to cancer and high death rates among babies and children.
A team at Imperial College London is to carry out research for the Health Protection Agency.
Dr Dick Van Steenis, a retired GP who has been campaigning about the potential dangers of incinerators, said: “I welcome this study as long as it is carried out honestly and properly.
“Incinerators in the UK are of inferior quality and badly designed so they let through dangerous particles.
“These poison the foetus in the womb which is why evidence shows an increase in health problems and infant mortality rates downwind of incinerators.”
Retired civil engineer Michael Ryan, 62, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, is convinced the deaths of his son and elderly mother were caused by pollution from nearby incinerators.
In June 1995, his teenage son David was diagnosed with leukaemia. Despite receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor his immune system was so weakened by treatment he died from pneumonia aged 19 in March 1999.
Mr Ryan said: “I sat by his hospital bed and watched him take his last breath. Only four months earlier, he had insisted on going to my mother’s funeral. She, too, died from leukaemia, at 78.
“I discovered that another boy in David’s class had died of leukaemia and there were other cases. That’s when I thought there must be a connection.” Mr Ryan, who has two surviving sons, carried out two years of research. “My family tragedy is being repeated across the country,” he said.
“There’s no reason why waste can’t be disposed of safely. Children should not be at risk.”
Britain has about 50 incinerators, including those controlled by local authorities and hospitals, with another 80 proposed following Labour’s policy of burning more waste.
Environmental campaigners, including UK Without Incinerators, argue there are safer ways to deal with refuse, such as recycling.
The group’s national coordinator Shlomo Dowen said: “There is no need for incinerators in this country. Incineration, even when it produces energy, burns resources and harms health.”
Government health officials have always insisted modern incinerators do not pose significant health risks.
In a statement issued to the Sunday Express the Health Protection Agency said: “Well-run and regulated modern municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health.
“However, we recognise that there are public concerns about this issue.
For these reasons we are in discussions with researchers at Imperial College London about a potential study into birth outcomes around municipal waste incinerators and a detailed proposal for what will be a complex study is being drawn up.”
Additional reporting: Mark Metcalf
STOP PRESS: As expected, Veolia has, with the support of Shropshire Council, lodged an appeal against the Council's own decision to refuse the Battlefield Incinerator. This is likely to cost the council (i.e. using our money) several hundred thousand pounds, at least, at a time when huge cuts are being made to essential services and waste continues to fall in Shropshire. An unwanted and un-needed incinerator would be a burden on the council-tax payer for the next 30 years + and then the Council will need to pay the decommissioning costs.
Although SWiS is not intending to register as a Rule 6 Party in order to contest the appeal, we are making such resources as we have available to those organisations that are intending to. In particular, we will be jointly funding expert testimony with Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth.
Safe Waste in Shropshire thanks all its supporters for sticking with the campaign so far - 3 long years and counting. More information on Shropshire's campaign and also the national picture can be found at UKWIN (UK Without Incineration).
It is already apparent that Veolia will need to bring in waste from outside the county, whatever it says now. Exactly as currently happens in Hampshire. After Veolia built 3 incinerators there, it got the ever-obliging Environment Agency to vary its permits to burn more waste, some of which comes in from outside Hampshire. Expect the same to happen in Shropshire if this scheme goes ahead.
The Public Inquiry is scheduled to begin on 27 September, 2011.
Although SWiS is not intending to register as a Rule 6 Party in order to contest the appeal, we are making such resources as we have available to those organisations that are intending to. In particular, we will be jointly funding expert testimony with Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth.
Safe Waste in Shropshire thanks all its supporters for sticking with the campaign so far - 3 long years and counting. More information on Shropshire's campaign and also the national picture can be found at UKWIN (UK Without Incineration).
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