Jean Lambert, the Green Party’s MEP for London, is to visit Beddington, the site of the proposed waste incinerator, to meet concerned residents and give her support to the Stop the South London Incinerator Campaign.

Green MEP Jean Lambert: to visit Beddington on Friday

With growing evidence of markedly increased infant mortality rates in areas of London which have had waste incinerators pumping out their fumes over a prolonged period, local campaigners are determined to do their utmost to prevent Sutton Council from going ahead with contractors Viridor to build the incinerator on the boundary with Croydon.

Tomorrow afternoon, local residents and their children will be coming from Beddington and from other parts of Sutton and Croydon to meet Lambert and tell her their concerns about the proposed incinerator. They will be gathering near Beddington Park primary, off Beddington Lane, from 3.45pm.

The Stop the South London Incinerator Campaign was founded five years ago to promote a sensible approach to dealing with our waste.

“We are opposed to incineration for a number of reasons,” Gordon Ross, a group spokesman, said.

“Recycling rates are increasing year by year, and there is less waste that needs to be landfilled. Now, 48 per cent of domestic waste gets recycled in Croydon already , and this could easily be increased. Recycling rates of 90 per cent and more are achievable. There is no need to build a very expensive incinerator in a built up area of Sutton.

“The gasses, particles and dioxins from an incinerator are damaging to human health and the environment. The area is already an Air Quality Management Area because it fails European air quality standards regularly, having an incinerator sited here would make a bad situation worse,” Ross said.

“The proposed incinerator would burn 300,000 tonnes of waste brought from Sutton, Croydon, Kingston and Merton, and further afield, putting huge numbers of lorries on to the roads. These roads are already very busy and congested. Putting hundreds of extra lorries per day onto the roads would cause traffic queues and gridlock.

“It would be better to have several smaller waste handing and recycling sites spread across the four boroughs to deal with the waste locally, rather than bringing it all by lorry to one site in Beddington.”

The Stop the Incinerator Campaign has drafted a 40-page objection to submit to the planners in Sutton, who will decide on this planning application.

The website and online petition: http://www.stoptheincinerator.co.uk/

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