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Viridor incinerator breaks its toxic VOC permit for 40th time

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MARK GALE reports on how the Environment Agency’s ‘strict limits’ on polluting emissions are not so strict after all

Something stinks: Viridor has broken its pollution permit 40 times in 42 months

The latest emission data for the polluting incinerator on Beddington Lane has just been released and yet again, operators Viridor have breached their Environment Agency-set limits.

The reports that used to be published fortnightly have become less reliably regular since a change of personnel at the facility earlier this year, making it less straightforward to keep a check on which part of their permit Viridor has broken most recently.

But the data made available this week shows that on September 15, the levels of volatile organic compounds, or “VOCs”, exceeded the “strict limits” by more than 10per cent.

For Viridor, the limits don’t seem to be too “strict” as this is the 40th time the Beddington incinerator has gone over those limits since the data started being publicly shared 42 months ago.

The high VOC releases are usually associated with the smell that is released by the incinerator. By definition, the gasses are unstable and when released in large amounts they can induce undesirable effects to those who have asthma or other chronic health problems. Health effects range from the relatively minor, such as itchy eyes, to headaches, fatigue, coughing, nausea through to serious conditions, like cancer.

Viridor operates the incinerator at Beddington under a £1billion, 25-year contract for the South London Waste Partnership, which comprises four boroughs: Kingston, Merton, Sutton and Croydon.

Ill wind: how pollution from the Viridor incinerator blew towards Croydon on the day of the latest emissions breach

While Viridor’s admittance of the breaches is a step in the right direction, perhaps a more responsible procedure would be to publish the current status of the emissions, live, so those in the more vulnerable positions such as infants and young children, older adults, and people with certain health conditions, can take some simple precautions to reduce their exposure to the pollution by staying indoors and closing windows.

On the day of Viridor’s latest breach of their permit conditions, the wind was blowing towards Croydon, in the direction of Harris Invictus Academy, Old Palace School and Wandle Park. Tens of thousands of people will have unwittingly taken in lungfuls of the toxic, polluted air, thanks to Viridor.

The excuse given by the polluter was that the crane that picks up the waste from their bunker had an issue, stopping processing…

Last week, the Environment Agency published EPR/GP3305LN/V002, the “Notice of variation and consolidation” for the incinerator after a permit review. It lists the status log of Viridor’s Beddington incinerator permit with details of each variation and change listed since the initial application was made 10 years ago. Viridor, despite their at best patchy record for complying with their permit requirements, has an outstanding application to burn more waste at Beddington, which the Environment Agency is due to consult on in the coming months.

Inside Croydon will, of course, bring news of the consultation once it has been announced.

There’s a running total of the breaches by Viridor’s Beddington incinerator at http://www.merton.tv/incinerator-breaches/, which gives the date, emission type and link to a copy of the relevant page from the full 15-page emissions report that can be found at https://www.beddingtonerf.info/emissions-archive.html


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