Sometimes I am left astonished at the stupidity of people:
Families are fighting back against a proposed incinerator they fear will harm schoolchildren, vulnerable people and wildlife with chemicals it produces.
Just over a year after a landfill site left Newton Aycliffe, County Durham smelling like rotten eggs, residents say they face another threat to their picturesque village.
Plans submitted by Fornax Environmental Solutions were approved in 2021 but swiftly thrown out by the council which was concerned about the incinerator’s impact on air quality.
There were also fears about burning up to 9,800 tonnes of clinical and hazardous waste a year at a business park long dedicated to attracting companies offering high-paid jobs, including Hitachi and Fujitsu.
Now, months later, the project is back on track after a planning inspector approved the firm’s appeal.
A 10,000-tonne incinerator, which lies within a mile of a nursery, a primary school and a sixth form college, is being built and will be up and running next year.
But locals are making a last ditch attempt to stop plans, with a social media campaign gathering pace ahead of a consultation with the Environment Agency.
I was going to say “as any fule kno”, but clearly not any fule does: landfills give off methane (that “rotten egg” smell). Over Here in Stupid America (as Britishlanders are so fond of calling us), we’ve not only known about this forever but we also harness that effect to good use.
I can’t remember where exactly, but I recall that at one such huge landfill in California, methane emissions are captured and burned, said burning used as fuel to power giant generators which then supply electricity to not one but two fair-sized nearby towns. I remember seeing a similar operation at a landfill outside Chicago, where a tiny flame burned at a chimney, the sole consequence of generating electricity from that source. (That landfill, by the way, had been constructed so efficiently that not only were there no seagulls flying around — an infallible sign of a trash dump — but there was a very nice 18-hole golf course situated atop it.)
Had the local government of Newton Ayrcliff just installed a similar operation after opening the old landfill, they could have supplied electricity to the village at a massively-reduced cost to the homeowners — as is the case in California. Then none of the resultant fuss would have ensued.
I wonder if the village’s new incinerator will incorporate such a feature, but I doubt it.
But that’s not the point of this post. This is.
In the midst of all the apprehension of the locals about this new incinerator, the attitude of the operators thereof doesn’t seem to inspire much confidence:
‘We do not believe it is appropriate to comment on the environmental permit application at this time other than to say that we have provided all the required documentation to the regulator in advance of their detailed technical review.
‘Public and environmental safety is our number one priority and the new facility in Newton Aycliffe has already undergone extensive scrutiny and was approved by the planning Inspector following an enquiry in 2022.
‘During this process residents concerns were carefully considered and addressed by the governments planning inspector. The facility has been designed and built to meet and indeed exceed all UK and EU strict rules on air emissions, odour control, and habitat protection.
‘The fears concerning the impact that this facility will have on air quality and future employment uses are unfounded as clearly stated in the planning inspectors report.’
When a statement contains an obvious lie — “Public and environmental safety is our number one priority” my aching ass; your number one priority is to burn waste material — my nose starts to twitch.
So they’ve provided sufficient “proof” to a bunch of bureaucrats who may or may not be sufficiently qualified to assess risk in matters of this nature — my guess is that they aren’t — and therefore the thing will go ahead as planned.
What strikes me in all of this is that the people complaining about the new incinerator haven’t a clue about the facts of the matter — their opposition is driven by the history of the old dump, so they may be making a fuss about nothing. The owners of the incinerator have obviously made no attempt to educate them on the facts, hence the public apprehension.
Knowing the nature of companies like this (and forgive me for being cynical), it wouldn’t surprise me at all that Fornax has deliberately worked in secret so that the facts can’t be revealed until the incinerator is up and running and the whole business is a fait accompli.
You see, I don’t know the facts either; all I have is an abiding suspicion of corporate bastardy, which arises whenever a company operates in secrecy. Like these guys are doing.
All they had to do, prior to any action, was to blanket the communities with information about their plans so that any reservations could be met with refutation and negotiation. That they didn’t do this makes my nose twitch even more.
Please forgive my suspicion and cynicism.
