Help SID needs this week

A Public Meeting is being organised by Wincham Parish Council to formulate a defence strategy for our communities. To advertise this we need additional volunteers who live in Pickmere, Great Budworth, Marston, Antrobus and Stretton to deliver leaflets/posters/petitions.
We are also looking for a planning consultant and a highways expert.
Email SID.CW9@gmail.com or phone Linda on 07773 913009
Please read the links on this site and spread the word to your friends, families and neighbours.

A look at the companies and process involved.

Say NO to yet another incinerator in Cheshire!

Runcorn - planning approved - capacity 850,000 tonnes pa
Ince Marsh - planning approved - capacity 600,000 tonnes pa
Cheshires household waste is only 200,000 tonnes pa and still falling
SO WHY BURN AT WINCHAM?

Gasification, RRS, Energos - a look behind the smoke and mirrors of a £850 million contract

This is an incinerator in disguise. Gasification is classed as incineration in the European Union's Waste Incineration Directive.  Gasification incinerators, like mass burn incinerators, generate highly toxic gaseous, liquid and solid releases, including acid gases, dioxins and furans, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, particulates, cadmium, mercury, lead and hydrogen sulphide.

No technology can make anything actually disappear, although the volume of waste appears to be greatly reduced by burning. Mass can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed. The gas, smoke, liquid and solid wastes that leave a plant have the same mass as the solid materials entering the plant. In this case the 200,000 tonnes entering will approximately come out as 10,000 tonnes of recyclables, 10,000 tonnes of toxic fly ash, 36,000 tonnes of bottom ash, and 144,000 tonnes, apart from some liquid waste, will come out of the chimney to be  dispersed around us.

RRS sustainable? The major partner behind RRS is United Utilities, the water company, who have been fined 3 times this year so far by the Environment Agency for pollution, one time being the maximum fine possible, £20,000. Each year United Utilities feature in the list of Britain's biggest polluters. They have absolutely no track record in burning waste so if they can't keep water clean after years of practice how can we put the safety of the air we breathe in their hands?

How "proven" is Energos? Energos went bankrupt in 2003 after building 5 plants in Norway and 1 in Germany.  Do we really want to invest £850 million of tax payers money given this record for not being financially sustainable? A UK company called Ener-G bought Energos. The history of Ener-G involves being the parent company to Contract Heat and Power who operated the Byker Incinerator responsible for one of the most serious dioxin contamination events in the UK.  Eggs, poultry and other produce from council allotments were officially deemed not safe to eat. The only Energos plant  in UK is on the Isle of Wight.  It finally started processing waste last November after many delays. Numerous requests for emission details of this plant have been denied, though it's capacity is only 30,000 tonnes a year so not comparable to the Wincham plan.

Low emission figures?  Figures are often presented in relation to a Norwegian plant. If you add together the total capacity of ALL the Energos plants in Norway it comes to 182,000 tonnes pa. Significantly less than the 200,000 tonnes they propose to burn at just the one in Wincham. They have absolutely no experience of burning on this massive scale. The average capacity of a plant in Norway is 36,000 tonnes pa so the amount of toxic emissions is inevitably only a fraction of the toxic fallout expected from Wincham. Additionally in Norway the government minimises pollution using strong regulations, thorough monitoring and tough enforcement unlike here where serial polluters like United Utilities are allowed to continue to operate.

Who to believe? It is extremely difficult to find truly independent Environmental consultants who are not linked financially to the big business of waste. They seem to do work for both incinerator companies and local governments who look to experts to help them access planning applications.  Even DEFRA use consultants with strong links to the waste industry.

Dr van Steenis, a retired GP who has been researching industrial pollution for over 10 years, states that with the proposed chimney height of 180 feet the fallout could cover an area of up to 12 miles. That could include the towns of Warrington, Knutsford, Wilmslow, Altrincham, and Macclesfield and all the villages in between there and Northwich. His research has shown a direct relation between the number of children using inhalers in a school and its proximity to a source of pollution, plus increases in heart attack and cancer rates. He also casts doubt on the ability of the Environment Agency to police the polluters especially as they only regulate for particulates above a certain size.

Prof Paul Connett, a chemist and world renowned toxicologist is also alarmed by the unregulated nano particles emitted by gasification plants. Particularly dioxins as they accumulate in fat. This also means that animals grazing within the fallout zone concentrate the dioxin load they eat into the fat products we eat from them. So just one litre of cow's milk gives the same dose of dioxin as breathing air next to the cows for a whole eight months!

Sustainable/renewable? Then why do the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace etc vehemently oppose this approach!

Articulated lorries will be thundering 7 days a week along the A559, despite it being marked a hazardous high collision route. This will affect those of us who live in Stretton, Antrobus, Great Budworth, Marston and Lostock. All of these HGVs will turn onto Wincham Lane, entering the plant site just 300m from the Black Greyhound. This will destroy any sense of village life and combined with health fears will impact house prices.

A serial polluter responsible for handling toxic waste in a field it has absolutely no experience in.  Using technology of a company who went bankrupt but now owned by a company linked to arguably the worst incident of dioxin contamination in this country ... can these people be trusted with the health of our communities?

Please urge your local Councillors and MPs to oppose this and keep informed about how to object when RRS apply for planning permission in mid October. If you wish to help our action group either join "Wincham Post" on Facebook, phone Linda on 07773 913009 or email SID.CW9@gmail.com

SID says Welcome

SID is a group of concerned citizens saying no to a proposed gasification plant in our community.
More soon on how you can help SID.