Burn, Baby, Burn

Photo by Ole Poulson

Isn't it nice to have a government that tramples all over democracy?

No, I'm not talking about the newly-elected one in Westminster with it's 55% proposals, I'm talking about the Scottish one.

They've just ignored the local council in Invergordon and approved an incinerator there.

Despite Highland Council discussing it for eight hours and looking at it from every angle, before finally rejecting it, the Scottish Government have decided that they know better. This does not bode well for other plans for incinerators around the country.

So just what is wrong with incinerators? They provide power don't they, which is cleaner than coal?

Well, yes, but they also provide toxic pollutants with a 15 mile fallout zone. This is from an article in The Ecologist that I quoted back in 2007:

A new waste incinerator could create a 15-mile 'fallout zone' that would shorten people's lives by up to 12 years, according to a world authority. Dr Dick van Steenis, a retired GP and toxicology expert, has spent many years researching the damage to public health caused by incinerators.

Studying the proposed 'energy from waste' incinerator for Newhaven, Sussex, van Steenis has warned that, if built, its emissions will cause cancer rates to soar - causing a 480 per cent rise in cases within 20 years. It will also lead to 'sky-high' rates of infant mortality, asthma and autism, and heart attacks among the thousands of people living in a 15-mile radius of the plant.

As well as that, they also reduce the incentive for reuse and recycling programmes. If the council can make money from the incinerator, then feeding it more and more of our household rubbish is a must.

And here's another thing - the new Westminster government wants to implement the Calman Commission recommendations, one of which was to give the Scottish Government control over Landfill Tax. This gives the central government an incentive NOT to recycle and to encourage more waste, and therefore more tax. Councils will then do the quickest and cheapest thing to divert waste from the landfill sites - and that will be an incinerator.