Vote Conservative and win a free incinerator?

I was interested to read this


The Global Anti Incineration Alliance (GAIA) has accused Dr Caroline Jackson MEP, rapporteur for the Waste Framework Directive, of having a conflict of interest due to her paid post as an advisor to Shanks plc.

GAIA said: "Jackson is accepting money from Shanks plc, a waste company with a terrible record of pollution and financial interests in landfills and incinerators. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, (GAIA) is calling on the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, to reject MEP Jackson's text for the WFD and launch an inquiry into her conflict of interest with the waste industry."

Caroline Jackson is a keen advocate of incinerators. She believes that if they burn enough rubbish to create energy and have enough regulation they are a solution. She is one of the key policy makers who shape European waste policy, so her advocacy means we are or more likely to find an incinerator on our doorstep.

Caroline Jackson is a Conservative Party MEP but not all of her party members support burning as a solution, Peter Ainsworth has an excellent anti-incinerator statement here. Unfortunately Caroline Jackson probably has more influence at present over waste policy than any other MEP!

Burning waste remains polluting....going for zero waste where we produce less waste in the first place is always the best solution.

The Green Party is strongly opposed to expanding incineration.

In an article I wrote last year I discuss some of the problems with incineration.

Local authorities are signing long-term contracts – as long as 25 years – with the incinerator projects, with the paradoxical outcome that they have to keep on feeding them waste. If the amount of rubbish is reduced the incinerators will lack financial viability, so incinerator building locks us into a system that is based not on reducing waste but producing more. This is one reason why Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London and London’s Green Party MEP Jean Lambert campaigned so vigorously against the expansion of incinerator projects in the capital.

Health hazards

Health effects are also a very serious worry. While modern incinerators are less likely to produce dioxins if properly run, there is much evidence to suggest that they are not always run with enough care. The incinerator operators in Edmonton, north London, have been fined for breaching health and safety legislation. Without very careful monitoring, a new generation of incinerators is likely to commit similar breaches on a national scale. Dioxins have traditionally been a worry, but the major concern now is about pm to -10 particles. Although these are unknown to most people – even those active in the Green Party or environmental movements – they have the potential to create a health crisis.

I first became seriously concerned about pm 10s after reading Bjorn Lomborg’s book The Sceptical Environmentalist. Lomborg is famously critical of claims made by environmentalists and views market-based economic growth as creating an ever-cleaner planet. Yet in his chapter on air pollution, he notes the ill effects of pm 10s. If even a sceptic like him is worried, the rest of us should be terrified.

Pm 10s are tiny microscopic particles produced by incinerators, difficult to monitor because they are so small, and many experts view them as deadly. Their size means they have the potential to get into the human body and do real damage, and we know that incinerators can spread these particles over a 15-mile radius. Several reports note increases in health problems, including genetic defects, among people who live close to incinerators. Incinerators have also been linked to increased infant mortality, heart disease and cancer. The ash left over from incineration is toxic and risks being blown around during disposal.

So incinerators are costly, damage the environment and health and produce far less energy than they promise. But there is a huge incinerator lobby in the UK that has the ear of government and major political parties. Waste has been big business in the UK ever since Thatcher launched her crusade to privatise local authority services in the 1980s. The name badges for delegates at the last Conservative Party conference were stamped with the logo of Sita, one of Britain’s biggest waste companies, which has an interest in incinerators.

In the Morning Star (26 October 2008), Solomon Hughes noted: ‘The company’s name runs all around the lanyards, so Tory delegates’ necks will be “branded” Sita. This is embarrassing for Conservative shadow Cornwall minister Mark Prisk and Conservative candidate for St Austell and Newquay Caroline Righton. Last month, they jointly presented a petition to Gordon Brown against a Cornish waste incinerator being built by Sita.’

And it’s not just the Tories. The t-shirts worn by the stewards at Labour’s Manchester conference were also marked with the Sita logo, and the company paid £30,000 for ‘advice’ to former Labour chief whip Hilary Armstrong. But Sita is not unique. Waste is big business – and there is no profit in no waste. Like virtually all other areas of British policy making, the agenda is shaped largely behind closed doors by corporate interests. Ultimately, capitalism thrives on waste: the more we throw away, and the faster we buy replacements, the better.

More from my incinerator article here.

My biggest worry is the pm 10s, tiny tiny particles that have health ill effects created by incineration.

Its been pointed out to me that green concern with waste reduction is being used by the big waste companies to try to gain support for incineration....I am sure this is true, I would urge all voters in the European Elections to vote Green Party to stop the march of the incinerators.

There is an excellent article here on incineration from Dr. Paul Connett Professor of Chemistry
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY 13617.

If you want to oppose the incinerators have a look at the work of the anti-incinerator network.