Dr. Dick Van Steenis Caerphilly talk on danger from Incinerators

Dr. Dick Van Steenis has agreed to give a talk on nano-particle emissions from waste incinerators to members of the public and others…..venue Caerphilly Council Chamber, Tredomen, Ystrad Mynach, Wednesday 19th January, 5.0pm till 8.0pm……..everyone welcome to attend.


Dr. Dick van Steenis, a retired GP and well known campaigner on the dangers to human health from the emissions of EFW Waste Incinerators has agreed to give a presentation to members of the public and others on the serious hazards to human health posed by the emission of "nano-particles" which are freely emitted by Electric from Waste (EFW) Incinerators such as the type being proposed to be installed and used by Caerphilly County Borough Council in their partnership arrangement with Project Gwyrdd INCINERATOR for the disposal of residual waste.
The presentation followed by questions and answers has been arranged for Wednesday the 19th January 2011 in the Council Chamber at Tredomen from 5.0pm until 8.0pm.
NOTE
Statements by the Health Protection Agency to Michael Ryan, Environment Agency and in Hansard 30 November 2009 by the Dept. of Health all agree NO RESEARCH has been carried out around incinerators in particular comparing health data and PM2.5 & PM1 data upwind with downwind. The HPA have issued false unsubstantiated claims which are simply fairy stories concocted by incinerator company lobbyists Enviros & others not based on any measurements. The Environment Agency hence authorise incinerator emissions as high as 30ug/m3 namely 120 times that of 2 incinerators in Finland & 2 in Sweden. The EA wrote 2010 that the UK bag filters allow 90% of PM1s and 35% of PM2.5s through, hence the needless deaths & illnesses on a grand scale.

Mapping by electoral ward of NHS PCT & ONS data proves new & old UK incinerators kill & maim very large numbers. Measurements in Mexico City & Sweden prove this. Emissions in Sweden revealed the incinerator PM2.5s comprised 33% of total, well over double traffic namely 300 times higher
than claimed by a UK substandard technology application. The UK incinerators areillegal under the EC November 2008 directive. The HPA are telling lies and should be prosecuted.

How many more incinerators can they fit in Wales?

The WAG Sustainability Committee meets today 
The Environment Agency says "Our view: there should be a clearer process in place for the siting of major infrastructure such as energy, so that environmental and climate change outcomes are maximised. For example, we are aware that the Regional Waste Groups have tried to facilitate a more strategic approach through developing the Regional Waste Plans but this was carried out in isolation of other critical infrastructure needs. This means that opportunities for energy from waste and combined heat and power have potentially been missed."

How many more incinerators can they fit in Wales?
Viridor type incinerators are NOT energy from waste 

It starves recycling industries of raw materials and prevents a cheaper, greener business model from succeeding.

The welsh assembly gov and local councils under pressure to reduce landfill are
opting for incineration of waste under the pretext that they can make electricity from the process! 

This is Waste incineration disguised as 'renewable energy'!!

We know the electricity from one of these large incinerators is pretty small, 20 or 30MW, compared with normal power stations (several 100MW up to Aberthaw’s 1450MW) and produces toxic ash and air pollution.They set no requirement on energy efficiency, despite Welsh strategy on 60% minimum. 

Can WAG justify, a guarantee of £9 million per year to this waste incineration project while 

telling us they are GREEN? 
Can  Jane Davidson justify an INCREASE incineration to 30%!!!  

Various mechanical and bio-treatments (MBT) are roughly half the cost of incinerators, but WAG’s officials were so set on incineration that they approved the £9 million/year despite adopted policy to minimise waste disposal by landfill and incineration.

Prosiect Gwyrdd is NOT  Green! The partnership is not to "recycle and compost" but to dispose of the "residuals" by unwanted incinerators at huge cost.  

Shift away from EfW incinerators

Four planned energy from waste (EfW) incinerators are to be reviewed pending decisions on whether they will go ahead at all, pointing towards a shift away from incineration as a method of waste treatment. Spiralling costs and a dramatic reduction in residual waste arisings have put a question mark over the plans to build EfW facilities in Hull, Coventry and Leeds.

The planning committee of Bristol City Council has made a decision to block an application for a 350,000 tonne a year energy-from-waste (EfW) facility proposed by Viridor.

Targets 

False to say no policy change from Wise About Waste, which said minimise disposal to landfill and incineration. This plan says reduce landfill to 5% and expand incineration up to a level of 30% - it's dishonest of WAG to pretend no policy change. 

Targets set by the Welsh Assembly Government which is to recycle 52% of our waste by 2012-2013 - just not ambitious enough to claim they are pursuing a carbon lite sustainable policy!

Putting off 70% recycling till 2025 means going slow on recycling, when some countries (Falmand/Berlgium) and municipalities have already reached this level

FOE Cymru proposed 70% by 2015 and 80% by 2020 are very feasible.

WAG claims that "a minimum level of 70 per cent recycling would be the most cost effective and deliverable level", but 'deliverable' means the dodgy deal with fractious Local Authorities in December 2008.  Over 80% recycling would be cost effective and the best way of reducing greenhouse gases

Cardiff AGAINST THE INCINERATOR

Protest at the Protest at the evironment Agency Offices 29 Newport Road
Cardiff City Centre Thursday 12 August 12 Noon-2pm Bring Banners,
Placards and Friends Environment Agency Offices 29 Newport Road Cardiff City Centre
Thursday 12 August 12 Noon-2pm Bring Banners, Placards and Friends

Viridor Waste Management plan to build a rubbish incinerator in the heart of Cardiff. The
Environment Agency can stop it with the stroke of a pen. But the EA side with big
business more than they side with the needs of the average person. We need to stand
together and demand the Environment Agency to do their job!

Areas of Cardiff already have dangerously poor air quality. The Stephenson Court area,
just a few feet from the Environment Agency's offices, is about to be declared an "Air Quality
Management Area" due to hazardous concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
The Environment Agency admit they've simply missed this in building their report on the
incinerator. The operation of Viridor's incinerator would worsen an already-poor environmental
situation. If the Environment Agency is missing so many obvious ways an incinerator would be
bad for public health in Cardiff, we have a duty to our fellow residents to take our message
straight to the Environment Agency, and to build a campaign and say No to the Cardiff
Incinerator!
Dangerous air quality
Cancer-causing chemicals
Incinerators cause cancer. Independent scientific evidence is overwhelming, with
dozens of studies from around the world showing again and again a clear link between
living near an incinerator and a higher risk of liver cancer, stomach cancer and lymphoma, it
is reckless to build a rubbish incinerator anywhere near a residential area.

But the Environmental Agency aren't listening to independent scientists. Instead, they're
trusting Viridor's own reports and outdated, cherry-picked government summaries.
Viridor Waste Management plan to build a rubbish incinerator in the heart of Cardiff. The
Environment Agency can stop it with the stroke of a pen. But the EA side with big
business more than they side with the needs of the average person. We need to stand
together and demand the Environment Agency to do their job!
 
Splott Incinerator


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A Brief History of the Splott Incinerator

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Can't TRUST Viridor

Viridor Denies Falsified Incinerator Records

Viridor, new to incinerators, are applying to build a large incinerator in Cardiff Bay

The authoritative ENDS (Environmental Data Services) Report for April 2009 reports allegations of malpractice and environmental failures at the Raikes Lane incinerator in Bolton plant by a former employee.

Patrick Sudlow served seven years as a process controller with Greater Manchester Waste, the former council waste company that ran the incinerator and was recently taken over by Viridor.

He told ENDS that he experienced routine falsification of pollution-monitoring records and logbook data, illicit effluent discharges to sewer and engineering problems which have endangered the health of operators. The malpractices, he said, were never spotted by the Environment Agency.

Mr Sudlow had an engineering background running high-pressure steam boilers in the Royal Navy, but said he was appalled by the incinerator’s poor mechanical condition, improper maintenance and the covering up of the plant’s poor performance. He said he “left because of the plant’s continued breaches of the Environment Protection Act, the site licence and other legislation."

One of his most serious allegations is that the plant’s continuous emissions monitoring system was regularly turned off during start-up and shutdown, and when the plant was operating abnormally. This means no accurate record of emissions would be made at these times and the flue gas treatment system was also not in use.

Normally abatement and emissions monitoring would be required at all times when waste was on the incinerator’s grate, but Mr Sudlow said there was an established procedure for turning off the monitoring and abatement system to make it appear the plant was shut down when it was still burning waste.

Mr Sudlow also alleged the management rewrote the incinerator logbooks which he said were bound in a plastic comb binder, allowing pages to be replaced at will. Changes were made to make it appear all waste was burnt off before shutdown, he said, when in fact it had not been. The aim, he said, was to obtain maximum throughput of waste and to ensure the logbook agreed with emissions-monitoring data. An example of rewritten log-book pages is available.

Viridor is aware of the plant’s alleged problems. Mr Sudlow said he contacted them in the past but there was no response. Yet Viridor told ENDS that Mr Sudlow failed to bring these issues to the management’s attention either informally or using established grievance procedures.

Effluent was supposed to be recycled in the process or tankered off-site for disposal, but Mr Sudlow alleged the liquid (likely to be high in dissolved metals) had been discharged to sewer at night.

Viridor deny that processed water has been discharged to sewer and that the grate performs badly. Refractory wall failures have occurred on a very small number of occasions, Viridor said, but the failures were immediately repaired. But Mr Sudlow describes regular breaches of the refractory wall and rock wool padding being used to plug the holes.

The Environment Agency said it was investigating Mr Sudlow’s claims. In a statement to ENDS it said: "All significant emissions to air are continuously monitored and reported… monthly. We also carry out regular inspections including unannounced spot checks."

As Viridor have only recently taken over running of the plant, one might expect them to promise to investigate and, if necessary, tighten up management procedures. Just dismissing the reports as from a “disgruntled former employee" indicates they intent to remain in denial.

Cost of Hazardous waste!

"An Environment Agency spokesman explained zinc oxide has been reclassified as ecotoxic, so if bottom ash contains zinc oxide, it is now hazardous. It has been added to a list of other substances that render bottom ash hazardous.
If bottom ash is not hazardous it can be sold as an aggregate. If it is hazardous it must be disposed of at a specialist site. Fees to dispose of hazardous waste are higher. In addition taxes rise from from £2.50 per tonne for material HM Revenue and Customs considers inert to £40 per tonne for material it considers hazardous."
http://beaconsfield.buckinghamshireadvertiser.co.uk/2009/04/county-council-says-brains-wro.html

Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Incinerators: Hazardous Substances

All Written Answers on 23 Mar 2009 « Previous answer Next answer »

Andrew Smith (Oxford East, Labour) | Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether incinerator operators are required to test incinerator bottom ash for H14 ecotoxicity; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Kennedy (Minister of State (Farming and the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Liverpool, Wavertree, Labour) | Hansard source

holding answer 18 March 2009

Incinerator operators are required to test and assess their bottom ash for all hazards including H14.

Environment Agency - Classification of Incinerator Bottom Ash

Group fears waste made non toxic will cost taxpayer

Buckinghamshire Advertiser - ‎Apr 23, 2009‎

The Environment Agency is considering declaring incinerator ash as a hazardous material. If the ash is ruled as toxic, the cost of running the incinerator ...