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Parents urged to make their voices heard on the incinerator issue

PROTEST CONTINUES: Children with homemade masks joined anti-incinerator protestors in Perth's High Street last year.

Letter published by the Perthshire Advertiser, 7 June 2011 (also scroll down to see our response, published in the PA on 10 June)

Dear Editor, - I am writing to express my concerns that there appears to still be a chance that the grossly unpopular application by Grundon for an incinerator on the Shore Road site may still be successful.

Children 

As a parent of a child who lives in Perth with his mother and as an ex long time member of the Perth community with many friends and family living in Perth, my primary concern is for the potential health impact of living in the vicinity of this proposed development.

I demand that local authority figures who have up to now dealt with this matter in such an incompetent manner publish information that can be understood by Joe Public and not a load of technical jargon littered with abbreviations and baffling scientific waffle designed to disguise what is actually being presented.

I want to get back to basics about how much waste is going to be going through Perth on a daily basis?

How many extra HGVs full of this waste will add their exhaust and noise pollution to an already busy traffic system?

Has anyone looked at the impact on the roads and who will be meeting the repair bills?
That's just for starters, then we get to the building itself.

What is going to be the product of all this burning of waste?

How much ash will it produce to settle over Perth?

What poisons are going to be spewed out of this now proposed lower chimney?

I would like to see a map of Perth with an illustration of how far the various products coming from this chimney will travel on a still day, in a light breeze and in a strong wind.

If there is just a tiny chance that an even slightly harmful product will travel as far the nearest occupied area then there should be no more need for argument about whether this thing should be allowed in Perth, the obvious answer is no.

I'm sure most of this information has been made available, but what I am talking about is a feature in a paper such as your own, read by local people who may be affected by the building of this incinerator which presents everything in an article without covering anything up and says for example whether there are any poisonous gases going to be coming out of this chimney, how far they will go and what can be the effects on a person's health as a result of exposure.

I'm sure even the most lethargic of parents will be stunned into action if they can see a plan of Perth with their house smack bang in the middle of a cloud of harmful gases and an explanation of what the potential health hazards to their children are.

I understand from recent articles in your paper that there is an increased urgency for objections of any kind to be voiced so I would urge parents especially, but anyone who doesn't want this potential health hazard forced upon the people of Perthshire to make their objections known.

It didn't take me long to write this, it must surely be worth a few minutes of anybody's time to make their voice heard and try to stop this from happening.

D Hampton,
Formerly of Perth.
By email.

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GAINS response, published in the letters page of the Perthshire Advertiser on 10 June 2011

Check out Airdrie map for pollution

Dear Editor, - Mr D Hampton asks to see a map of Perth showing how far the various products from the chimney of the proposed incinerator at Shore Road will travel (PA, June 7). So far neither the company nor the council have provided such a map.

However an application for a similar incinerator in Airdrie provides several maps indicating the spread of pollutants. For example a map shows the probable spread of nitrogen dioxide at eplanning.northlan.gov.uk. [click here]

The potential harm from nitrogen dioxide was one of the main reasons why the Planning Inspector (the English equivalent of the Scottish Planning Reporter) rejected an appeal against the refusal of planning consent for a gasification incinerator in Derby in November last year.

The Inspector also referred to the emission of eight times the legal limit of dioxins at the new gasification incinerator on the Isle of Wight.

Lastly, I would like to update you on my correspondence with local MSPs Roseanna Cunningham and John Swinney (PA, May 27). On May 22 I asked them for their views on the proposed incinerators at Shore Road and Binn Farm, bearing in mind that San Francisco and Lancashire County Council have rejected all forms of waste incineration in favour of intensive measures to reduce, reuse and recycle. So far I have not received a reply.

Michael Gallagher,
Green Alternatives to Incineration in Scotland,
33 Precinct Street,
Coupar Angus, PHI 3 9DG.