Newcastle Metropolis Council are a key associate on this mission: in the event that they withdraw, it’s going to now not be viable. In the course of the ‘Byker incinerator scandal’, when the council was prosecuted for its dealing with of poisonous ash from an area incinerator, they vowed they’d by no means once more burn waste within the metropolis. As a substitute, they now plan to ship 1000’s of tonnes of garbage to be burnt on Teesside. Regardless of our coalition’s efforts to have interaction Newcastle Metropolis Council with our considerations, their response has been disappointing. We’re now letting them know publicly that well being employees within the North East say “no!” to the Redcar incinerator.
Expensive Councillor Marion Williams (Cupboard Member for a Related, Clear Metropolis) and Newcastle Metropolis Council,
We, the undersigned, are a bunch of well being professionals calling on you to honour your commitments to discount of well being inequalities and local weather motion. We ask that you simply withdraw your involvement with the brand new waste incinerator proposed for Grangetown, Redcar, and make investments as an alternative in enhancing recycling.
As you might be conscious, Newcastle is considered one of seven native councils planning to pay a waste firm to construct and run a big waste incinerator in Redcar for the following 29 years. The proposed ‘Tees Valley Vitality Restoration Facility’ would burn as much as 512,000 tonnes of waste per 12 months from throughout the North East, together with garbage from hundreds of thousands of Newcastle residents [ref].
Burning waste poses dangers to human well being. Incinerators launch pollution together with particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and dioxins. The World Well being Organisation doesn’t recognise any protected stage for dioxin publicity or particulate matter [ref, ref], and it’s more and more recognised that nitrogen dioxide is related to hostile well being results even at ranges beneath the UK’s present authorized limits [ref, ref]. Robust proof tells us that air air pollution prices lives – by growing respiratory circumstances, heart problems, stroke, and lung most cancers, in addition to rising associations with dementia, low start weight, and Sort 2 diabetes [ref].
Not solely does air air pollution price lives, but it surely does so unequally. Waste incinerators within the UK are 3 times extra more likely to be in-built low-income areas [ref]. These figures aren’t an accident; they’re the results of planning processes which might be systemically classist. Grangetown, the positioning of the incinerator, has among the many highest loss of life charges from respiratory illness, and lowest common wholesome life expectancy in England [ref]. Neighbouring Dormanstown is already the second most polluted space in the entire of the North East [ref]. This incinerator would sit straight upwind of those communities – together with colleges, playgrounds, locations of worship, GP practices, and a respiratory clinic [ref]. It might solely serve to deepen well being inequalities.
In addition to harming air high quality, waste incinerators launch excessive ranges of greenhouse gases, together with CO2 and methane. Certainly, many incinerators have a better carbon depth than standard use of fossil fuels [ref]. The local weather disaster is the most important well being risk of the twenty first century, and its results are skilled disproportionately by these on the sharp finish of inequality [ref]. Newcastle Metropolis Council has declared a local weather emergency: but pushing forward with this mission is incompatible along with your dedication to realize Web Zero by 2030 [ref].
Lastly, constructing extra waste incinerators within the North East is just pointless. The area is dealing with overcapacity, with extra incinerators than feedstock [ref]. As Cllr Williams’ personal damning 2023 report warned, this implies native authorities enhance the burning of recyclable waste to keep away from monetary penalties [ref]. We all know that for councils throughout England with above-average incineration charges, excessive incineration is correlated with low recycling [ref]. The North East already has a number of the highest incineration charges and lowest recycling charges within the nation. Legally binding authorities targets state that by 2035, recycling charges should attain 65% (at the moment 34% within the North East), and by 2042, waste to incineration or landfill have to be halved [ref]. This can’t be achieved by constructing extra incinerators.
As well being professionals, we can’t stand by and permit this new incinerator to go forward with out elevating the alarm on the well being and environmental impacts, which can have an effect on the populations that we serve in Teesside and the North East. A few of us stay within the neighborhood of the proposed incinerator. Many people work at James Prepare dinner College Hospital and/or at Redcar Well being Centre. We’ve got all dedicated to work to guard and promote the well being of people and communities.
Your actions will change the way forward for this mission. If Newcastle Metropolis Council have been to withdraw from the deliberate incinerator scheme, it will now not be viable.
We subsequently name on you to:
- Withdraw your involvement from the Tees Valley Vitality Restoration Facility by ending your assist for the procurement course of.
- Spend money on recycling, alongside waste discount and re-use, as a part of a match for objective waste administration system – creating inexperienced jobs and transferring us in direction of the legally binding goal of 65%+ recycling.
Yours sincerely,
Signatures to come back