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Environment Agency makes incinerator ‘site of high interest’

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Poisoned air: the incinerator at Beddington has broken the terms of its permit 40 times in 42 months

The Environment Agency has agreed to a request from UKWIN – United Kingdom Without Incineration Network – to declare the Beddington incinerator as a “Site of High Public Interest”.

As a result, the EA has agreed to run a second six-week round of consultation if they plan to agree to the increase in waste to be burnt at the plant.

Viridor, who operate the incinerator, has applied for a permit variation to allow them to burn even more rubbish at the plant – as much as 382,286 tonnes per year.

The Environment Agency says, “If, following the first consultation process, we reach the decision to issue the permit variation, we will then enter into a second phase of consultation called ‘Minded to issue’ consultation.

“Should this be required, the consultation process will follow the same pattern and timescale as the initial consultation.”

That initial consultation is open now and runs until December 23, and environment campaigners are urging as many people as possible to complete the Environment Agency consultation.

The latest permit variation would mean another 10per cent increase in burning at the incinerator, which also means 10per cent more emissions, 10per cent more HGV traffic along the Purley Way to and from the plant, and probably 10per cent more breaches of the permit.

By September this year, Viridor’s Beddington incinerator had broken the terms of its existing permit 40 times in 42 months.

Many of those permit breaches have been for volatile organic compounds, or “VOCs”. 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.

When Viridor originally turned up in south London selling the idea of their wonderful incinerator to the local councils, including Croydon and Sutton, they were talking about burning 275,000 tonnes of waste. For that, they gave the Sutton’s LibDems’ chosen charity, Holy Trinity in Wallington, a pound for every tonne to be burnt: £275,000 was donated.

Turns out, Viridor short-changed the gullible local politicians.

During the planning process, Viridor brazenly upped the amount they were going to burn, to 302,500 tonnes.

A couple of years ago, the permit was increased to 347,422 and now the permit-breaching, environment-damaging, profit-hungry multi-national wants to increase it yet again to 382,286 tonnes. That’s a 39per cent increase from the initial proposal. And there’s nothing to stop them coming back for more in the future, either.

The consultation is quick and easy to complete.

The three main points to mention are:

Read more: Viridor incinerator fined for multiple pollution permit breaches
Read more: ‘People will die’: Dombey accused of Viridor ‘Faustian pact’
Read more: Viridor incinerator given 20 warnings in just 15 months
Read more: Viridor breaking rules over incinerator’s pollution reports


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