An Incinerator By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul

Photo by Ole Poulson

Viridor have finally got their approval for a new super-incinerator in Dunbar, east of Edinburgh.

Having been rejected by East Lothian Council last year on environmental grounds, it has now been approved by the Scottish Government...on environmental grounds!

Naturally, Viridor are greenwashing the entire project - aided and abetted by the BBC who seem to reprint their press release without looking much into the details. In fact, in the BBC report you won't read the word "incinerator", you'll only see the name that Viridor gives it: "a waste-to-energy plant".

Incinerators create a fifteen-mile fallout zone, causing a 480% increase in cancer rates and shortening lifespans in the area by 20 years.

If that's not bad enough (and it would appear it's not), the beast will need feeding. Once it's going, Viridor has an incentive not to recycle, and in fact to work against and lobby against recycling. Edinburgh's main landfill operator will be wanting Edinburgh to increase the amount of waste it produces.

And Edinburgh will be able to claim that it sends less and less waste to landfill.

Which will be, well, rubbish.