Waste Wood Warning
The Breathe Clean Air Group of Greater Manchester has given a warning to DEFRA not to allow waste wood to be burnt.
Responding to the DEFRA consultation paper “Wood waste landfill restrictions inEngland” the Group has said that the consultation could turn out to be a “Biomass Burners’ Charter” which will ignore health impacts and lead to massive suffering and premature death.
Chairman of the group Pete Kilvert said “burning waste wood and biomass is dangerous. If DEFRA ignores the many research papers on this issue it could be creating the next epidemic, like asbestos and DDT. If they get it wrong, the Minister who signs this Policy Document could be condemning millions of people to suffer and go to an early grave”.
Burning wood produces fine particulate matter (PM1s) and burning waste wood produces heavy metals such as arsenic and lead, volatile organic compounds and dioxins. These have implications for respiratory illness, heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
“The consultation paper only looks at economic benefits and ignores health and environmental factors” added Mr Kilvert. “Burning wood produces fifty percent more carbon dioxide that burning coal. Storing waste wood will lead to clouds of wood dust particles that will cause respiratory disease and possibly cancer. DEFRA has to look at the overall effects of its wood waste strategy”.
The Breathe Clean Air Group is campaigning to stop the controversial Barton Renewable Energy Plant in Davyhulme, Greater Manchester. A Public Inquiry will be held in November, where a recommendation will be sent to Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, for a final decision.
There is an elevated concern amongst local residents tar the area cannot tolerate the range or volume of pollution from an industrial incinerator without there being a noticeable impact on health. This concern is based on a credible body of scientific evidence. The local vicinity is already polluted to an extent that a serious need now exists to address these pollution levels.
I do understand that if planning permission is given they will have to do all the necessary safety checks / studies but had we known about this prior to 16th October we could have included a lot more points on Contaminated Land etc ,
Will the “clean up of contaminated land” proceed in the same way that it was done in Rotherham?
A “clean up” there that lead to acknowledged birth defects, attributable to that clean up procedure.