Greenpeace today welcomed the news that waste company Onyx UK has agreed to close down Sheffield's Bernard Road incinerator. Greenpeace volunteers occupied the plant for three days in May after a new report identified it as the worst in Britain. Onyx is due to take over the running of waste management services from Sheffield City Council.
Greenpeace toxics campaigner Miranda Holmes said:
"This is a great day for the people of Sheffield. Greenpeace volunteers shut down this incinerator because it has an appalling criminal record and has been bombarding people and the environment with toxic chemicals for far too long. We are pleased that Onyx has recognised that this repeated illegal pollution of Sheffield is unacceptable."
"What Sheffield needs now is not a new incinerator, as suggested by Onyx, but a modern clean recycling and composting scheme that will not only create jobs but avoid the risks to people's health and environment from burning rubbish. Our research shows that no incinerator, including those run by Onyx, can stay within legal pollution limits and that all incinerators give off a cocktail of chemicals that can cause cancers, heart disease and breathing problems."
The Greenpeace report Incineration: Criminal Damage, shows that the Bernard Road plant has exceeded legal pollution limits 156 times in the past two years and discharges tonnes of toxic chemicals on to the people of Sheffield. The incinerator has been the centre of controversy for many years with constant technical problems and a prosecution by the Environment Agency in 1999 for persistent pollution offences.
There have been a number of independent health studies carried out on people living near or working in incinerators. One study concluded that children living near 70 British incinerators were twice as likely to die from cancer while another study on incinerator workers in Sweden, showed increases in deaths from lung cancer, cancer of the oesophagus and heart disease. A recent study in May in the medical journal the Lancet showed that toxic fumes from incinerators could be having alarming effects on the sexual development of children
Holmes added,
"Sheffield is now at a pivotal point, whether to build another toxic factory for burning rubbish or join the 21st century when dealing with waste and embrace clean technology for recycling, composting and reducing its rubbish."
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Contact:
Greenpeace Press Office on 020 7865 8255
