Incinerator Survey Fatally Flawed

Public Health England (formerly the Health Protection Agency) has engaged Imperial College in London to undertake a survey of ill health, disease and infant mortality around Waste Incinerators. The preliminary results are expected in March.

It has come to the notice of the Breathe Clean Air Group that the survey has not included all incinerators, but only includes those with the best operational records. Further, that people living near incinerators and incinerator operational staff have not be asked to give blood samples or hair samples. Analysing personal samples is a recognised way of establishing if local populations are contaminated with heavy metals and dioxins.

“This is a scandal,” said Pete Kilvert, Chairman of the Breathe Clean Air Group. “How can this be an independent survey, when Health Protection England has laid down the rules which will give a result that the Government wants.”

The Breathe Clean Air Group has been campaigning for over three years to stop the controversial Barton Renewable Energy Plant in Davyhulme, Greater Manchester. The proposed plant is actually a waste incinerator, similar to the incinerators in the Health Protection England survey which, claims the protest group, will contaminate the local neighbourhood with heavy metals, nitrogen dioxide, organic chemicals such as dioxin and masses of tiny Particulate Matter.

“The Government sees waste as a resource which can be burnt to generate electricity” adds Pete Kilvert, “but they refuse to accept that burning waste, including wood, produces masses of air pollution which has serious health impacts for people living nearby. The National Office of Statistics data has shown that living near an incinerator produces greater infant mortality. Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution as their tiny lungs are developing, and they breathe in deeply when they exercise. The Government should come clean and stop the incineration of waste to give our children a good start in life.”