Stephen Pessall, founder of TelfordPAIN, with other rally members
Dozens of residents took to the streets to demonstrate their united opposition to a proposed waste incinerator on the eastern edge of Telford.
Farmers, environmentalists and residents got together in the fight against SITA UK’s plans for an energy-from-waste plant at Granville tip. They were joined by Telford MP David Wright who said the issue had sparked one of the biggest ever responses from constituents during his time in Parliament.
SITA UK is seeking permission from Telford & Wrekin Council to build an incinerator at Granville, claiming it will be a clean and safe way of diverting waste from landfill and generating renewable electricity for local businesses.
But objectors fear the incinerator will produce toxic emissions which would harm public health and blight farmland.
Yesterday’s day of action was organised by TelfordPAIN – Telford Protest Against Incinerator Now.
It featured rallies in Newport, Donnington, St Georges and Priorslee, and ended with a family party at the Park House Hotel, Shifnal, where local band Hot Rod 55 premiered their eco-protest song Incinerator Blues.
TelfordPAIN founder Stephen Pessall said: “Our day of action has been a big success in showing that Telford is united against the burner.”
Mr Wright, who met demonstrators outside the Bell and Bails pub, St Georges, said: “I’ve carried out a survey in St Georges and Priorslee and have received 500 letters back, expressing overwhelming opposition to the incinerator.
“It’s the highest response rate I’ve ever received to a non-freepost survey.”
He said the way forward in dealing with Telford’s waste was greater recycling and a mechanical and biological recovery system – in which waste is dried and reduced, producing organic material to condition the soil.
Janet Jones, of Redhill Farm, next to the proposed incinerator, said: “We produce carp, free-range chickens and grain and I fear an incinerator will affect everything we do on the farm.”
Rob Saunders, of Friends of the Earth, said an incinerator would encourage even more waste whereas the key was to boost recycling rates.
He said Telford’s rate was just 35 per cent compared with 53 per cent for South Shropshire.
By Peter Johnson
57 Comments
my name is Steven Pessall and i dont care if they build the incinerator
rather burn stuff than let it rot in the ground for ever and a day
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I doubt an incinerator would increase the amount of rubbish. Since when do people consider what happens to their waste when they are making it? It would however lead to a decrease in the amount to landfill which I would support.
As for the turnout at these protests, does this mean that the other 200,000 or so residents of the greater Telford area aren’t strongly opposed? Will it be the vocal minority who are listened to again?
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Why is it that the Health Protection Agency tells us that incinerators are not harmful to health and yet they’ve failed to examine the rates of illness or or premature deaths at all ages in the electoral wards around any incinerator?
Justin McCracken, of HPA, admitted to me in his letter dated 1 May 2008 that the HPA haven’t carried out the above studies.
The Belgian High Court ordered the closure of Sint Niklaas incinerator in December 2001 after a study of health damage was prepared, Read the report yourself: “Mispelstraat: Living under the smoke of a waste incinerator”
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Dozen’s??? Does this mean 12 people took to the streets in a town (Telford) which has a population of over 100,000???
Enough said really
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nutters - what should we do landfill the stuff instead? Dont tell me dirty nappies, plastic, apple cores and mouldy crusts of bread can be recycled, it cant, you have to do something with it, so why not make electricity?
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Y Mab beat me to it - “dozens”!! Hardly a Countryside Alliance March on the Houses of Parliment is it?
And where did they march to? The Bell and Bails? Nice pub, but never realisted it was a hot bed for radical politican thinkers!
I wonder just how many would have turned up if it wasn’t at a pub?
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Doesn’t David Wright realise that many MBT plants produce pellets of “refuse-dervied fuel” ie RDF that’s then burned in cement works instead of coal?
Why doesn’t he endorse plasma-gasification of waste?
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I must compliment T&W Council Environmental Department who have genuinely done an outstanding job on the recycling of waste collected from our homes and fortunately it does end up in a whole in some other country.
When I attended a SITA presentation a member did say that if the Producer Responsibility Regulations actually worked, there would be no need for incineration and there lies the key. If you do bring in legislation, lets make it work.
I am not convinced, because of lack of available info that any energy from waste will benefit us greatly and I cannot see the amount it will produce will bring prices down. If we are effectively paying for it to run, we should at least know what energy will be produced, how much and how we will benefit.
I still feel there are other viable alternatives to just turn waste from one kind into another.
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I live downwind of the proposed incinerator and am not the least bit perturbed about it. Michael Ryan ~ if all that you can quote is the closure of an incinerator in Belgium 8 years ago, then it appears that your research is a little outdated. Emmissions are much better controlled now. It must be better to burn it than bury it, especially given the constraints on the amount of available landfill. Well said Grey ~ let’s hope the vocal minority do not get listened to.
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I,m Shropsire born & bred but have been on the Isle of Man since 1979. From Hadley before Telford was started. We have SITA here has been in operation for 5 years or so. No dust, or black smoke belching out of a space age chimney. Sellafield is more of aproblem to us.
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“Rob Saunders, of Friends of the Earth, said …Telford’s rate was just 35 per cent compared with 53 per cent for South Shropshire.”
A statistic that could do with a little more explanation, possibly. If you look at the WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) website (www.wrap.org.uk) you’ll see that when it comes to the household recycling rate Telford and South Shropshire aren’t too far apart, at 19% & 21% respectively, but that when considering the performance indicator that Mr Saunders quotes South Shropshire wins out on the total household recycling & composting percentage by virtue of having a composting rate of 31%, more than twice Telford & Wrekin’s of 15%. And why is this?
Could it be that because in rural locations it is much more of a traditional way of doing things to compost waste for use on plots where people grown their own produce, on smallholdings, etc? Admittedly Telford and Wrekin could probably do better, but as a fair proportion of households in Telford and Wrekin don’t have a garden where people could put compost to use it’s not a surprise that South Shropshire fares better. I wonder who Mr Saunders would have chosen to compare Telford and Wrekin to had they been outperforming most of their local ‘rivals’?
As for Michael Ryan’s comments in response to the article, simply suggesting that premature death rates in areas near incinerators will be higher and then sitting back to let the uneducated reader make their own causal link between the two is laughable. Could I suggest another reason for the link that Mr Ryan invites us to suggest exists between incinerator emissions and premature deaths? Could it possibly be that incinerators tend to get built on cheap land, that found in areas where there are higher levels of deprivation and other socio-economic factors that mean that people don’t live as longer as others, such as poor housing, low educational attainment & thus low paid work, leading to poorer diet, lifestyle, reduced access to a decent standard of health care, etc? Could not these factors mean that premature death rates in such areas would be higher when compared to others, whether there was an incinerator nearby or not?
Sorry to rain on your parade Mr Ryan, I admire your passion on this subject but have been somewhat contemptuous of your remarks since you pointed out long ago in Star Mail that you felt there may be a link between a higher incidence of knife crime and deaths from stabbing, shooting etc in a number of London boroughs where there also happened to be incinerators. Could a reason for this be the same levels of deprivation and socio-economic factors that result in premature deaths in such areas, rather than what you invite the reader to think, i.e. that something in incinerator emissions causes the local youths to turn into homicidal gun or knife wielding maniacs?
It’s easy to make a statistic say anything that you want the reader to believe, or to cow people into submission by bombarding them with statistics and ‘facts’ in order to make them think that you, the writer, must clearly know what he/she is talking about. If there is a higher rate of premature deaths in some of these areas, perhaps some data on the causes of death might add weight to your argument. On the other hand, of course, the same data could have the effect of lessening your case, but I’m guessing if that came about you would never admit it.
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Eastcote & East Ruislip ward in the London Borough of Hillingdon is not a poor man’s area by any means and yet that ward has the highest infant death rate in London for the 6-year period 2002-2007 and is one of a cluster of high infant death wards that are close to St Mark’s Hospital incinerator in Northwick Park and also downwind of Hillingdon Hospitalincinerator and Colnbrook incinerator.
The only other cluster of high infant death wards in North London is around Edmonton incinerator while there are such clusters around the S London incinerators at SELCHP, Sidcup, Kings College Hospital etc.
Several London papers have reported my research but FoE have sat on their hands.
When the Sunday Express reported my reearch on 29 April 2007, FoE were asleep on the job.
When The Ecologist reported my research in November 2008, FoE kept quiet.
Here in Shropshire, the infant mortality rates in electoral wards downwind of incinerators are higher than in the upwind wards. It’s the same with Ironbridge power station with very high infant death rates in Ironbridge Gorge, Malinslee, Newport West, Eccleshall, Gnosall & Woodseave etc. according to ONS data for the five-year period 2003-2007.
I’ve tried to interest FoE and Greenpeace in the health issues and they are more interested in resource issues. Aren’t people resources?
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Here’s the first sentence in the conclusion of the 2004 study of infant mortality rates around 63 incinerators in Japan:
“Our study shows a peak-decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined.”
and here’s the full report:
J Epidemiol. 2004 May;14(3):83-93.
Links
Risk of adverse reproductive outcomes associated with proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels in Japan.
Tango T, Fujita T, Tanihata T, Minowa M, Doi Y, Kato N, Kunikane S, Uchiyama I, Tanaka M, Uehata T.
Department of Technology Assessment and Biostatistics, National Institute of Public Health, Wako, Saitama, Japan.
BACKGROUND: Great public concern about health effects of dioxins emitted from municipal solid waste incinerators has increased in Japan. This paper investigates the association of adverse reproductive outcomes with maternal residential proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators. METHODS: The association of adverse reproductive outcomes with mothers living within 10 km from 63 municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels (above 80 ng international toxic equivalents TEQ/m3) in Japan was examined. The numbers of observed cases were compared with the expected numbers calculated from national rates adjusted regionally. Observed/expected ratios were tested for decline in risk or peak-decline in risk with distance up to 10 km. RESULTS: In the study area within 10 km from the 63 municipal solid waste incinerators in 1997-1998, 225,215 live births, 3,387 fetal deaths, and 835 infant deaths were confirmed. None of the reproductive outcomes studied here showed statistically significant excess within 2 km from the incinerators. However, a statistically significant peak-decline in risk with distance from the incinerators up to 10 km was found for infant deaths (p=0.023) and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined (p=0.047), where a “peak” is detected around 1-2 km. CONCLUSION: Our study shows a peak-decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined. However, due to the lack of detailed exposure information to dioxins around the incinerators, the observed trend in risk should be interpreted cautiously and there is a need for further investigation to accumulate good evidence regarding the reproductive health effects of waste incinerator exposure.
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The Express On Sunday: Incinerator fumes link to hundreds of infant deaths
Express on Sunday, The (London, England) - Sunday, April 29, 2007
Author: Lucy Johnston and Martyn Halle
HUNDREDS of baby deaths a year are being linked to pollution coming from public waste incinerators . Researchers have established a significantly higher death rate among children up to one year old when they live under smoke from an incinerator chimney. There is a lower death rate for children who live out of the path of incinerator emissions. The report comes after a detailed analysis of death rates across the country. Dr Dick van Steenis, a retired GP who helped head the study, said: “The incinerators are burning all sorts of material from domestic waste to hazardous chemical and radioactive waste. “The danger comes from the particles released into the atmosphere. They are of a size that can be easily inhaled into the lung where they lodge and cause damage to the body.” The most damaging particle, known as PM 2.5, is particularly harmful to youngsters, he said. “Newborn babies are more likely to succumb to damage from chemical pollutants in these inhaled particles. Around every single incinerator , infant mortality rates, asthma rates and autism rates are sky-high. “That’s if you live under the smoke stream from the chimney. In areas nearby which don’t get the smoke, the death rate is either at the national average or lower.” The data has been collected from the latest official statistics covering the years 2003 to 2005. Enfield in north London has the UK’s largest incinerator at Edmonton. The death rate for babies up to one year old in west of the borough is virtually nil. But in eastern Enfield, which sits downwind of the incinerator and is exposed to smoke from the chimney, the death rate is between 10 and 12 per thousand of population. The national average death rate for babies up to a year is 5.2 per thousand. Dr van Steenis said that he had accounted for other factors that could increase the death rate such as social deprivation. He pointed out, for example, that “leafy middle-class areas” of west London were affected by emissions from a big incinerator at Colnbrook near Slough. He said: “In some parts around this plant infant mortality rates are treble the national average. “We compared those areas with nearby well-to-do wards that didn’t get emissions and they were significantly lower than the national average.” Professor Vyvyan Howard, an expert on environmental pollution from the University of Ulster, said dioxins released in the burning of rubbish had been shown to be cancer causing. And he said that while incinerator filters take out 99 per cent of particles, it is the ultra fine one per cent - the PM 2.5s - that can have chronic effects on health. London Waste, which owns the Edmonton incinerator , said it had not seen the van Steenis report. A spokesman said: “We use a proven technology with a track record of safe operation and it is recognised throughout Europe as a safe and efficient method of energy generation. “There is no consistent evidence that our facilities cause adverse health effects. “We continually monitor particulates such as PM 2.5s and the levels released are lower than the maximum permitted.”
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I think waste will increase as an incinertor which needs to be fed with waste 24 hours a day 7 days a week will remove the impetus to compost, re-use, recycle and to genarally cut down on packaging and into the bargain produce a lot of toxic emissions. Additionally if enough waste is not available locally it will need tobe imported from other areas.
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dont have to burn it if we all recycled more
there are cleaner, cheaper, greener alternatives to this, recycling being the main one
why cant we collect plastics for recycling in shropshire like they do elsewhere?
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Michael,
I’m with Dick James on this one. You bombard us with what you claim is ‘your research’ but which turns out to be simply qoutes from a rag-bag of other sources - either from keen, but ultimately amateur scientists, from partisan eco-groups who would oppose anything that didn’t meet their pseudo-political ends, or lately and perhaps most desperately, the British tabloid press!
Where is the independent (and I mean truly independent and large scale) scientific research into this? To come to a conclusion then seek to prove it whilst ignoring all other possible explanations is simply bad science.
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Well said Dick and Peter
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Ever heard of Professor Owen Lloyd?
He proved that emissions from an incinerator caused excess twinning in cattle and also cancers in the cattle and in humans living within the fallout range. His study was rigorous and included analysis of soils and plants to prove heavy metal content.
Professor Lloyd was told that is he published his findings, his department would be shut down & he’d get sacked and barred from all academic posts in UK.
He’s now a professor in United Arab Emirates.
How would Peter, Gareth & others tell whether or not an incinerator was harming health?
Come on smart-alecs. What data would you examine for a start?
I’ve looked at the infant death rates in electoral wards & found them to be very high around incinerators & also downwind of them.
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beat the credit crunch by burning your rubbish at home, you could even chuck a couple of tatties on it.
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how many successful claims for damages, brought against owners or operators of incinerators have there been in the courts as a result of premature deaths, that Ryan claims are linked?
Answer is I suspect none, as courts would dismiss out of hand Ryans non-science
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Why dont these anti-incinerator folk support the open cast mine by the Wrekin and then we can shove all our rubbish in the hole after?
Everyone’s a winner!
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Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that Mr Pessal has a Neil Kinnock look about him?
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Michael, Do you have proof of your allegations about this professor? The only reference I can find to him on the internet is within a paper by your favourite amateur scientist Dr Dick Van Steenis. - there’s a surprise!
Would you care to tell us on whose behalf the good professor was carrying out his allegedly supressed research? Or for which accredited acadmeic institution? It sounds like so much conspiracy-theory nonsense to me.
I’d like you to point me in the direction of proper research carried out by a proper academic establishment rather than by an enthusiatic amateur in his garden shed, and not funded by interested parties from either side of the argument.
Can you point us in the direction of such research please?
At the moment all you are doing is obsessing about your pet bête-noir, and often posting the most tenuous of links within topics that have absolutely nothing to do with alleged particulate emissions.
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It is unfortunate, but there seems to be a lot of the usual and predictable mis-information on this thread.
#1 and dilatory points made by the anonymous Lucy W, Y Mab and Ohforggodnesssake are just mischievous, and show the pro-incineration camp in a poor light.
JOHN BOY undermines his cause by being abusive and then says, ‘Dont tell me dirty nappies, plastic, apple cores and mouldy crusts of bread can be recycled, it cant.’
All of these points are wrong, JOHN BOY.
Plastic CAN be recycled, and turned into fleeces (for example).
Apple cores and mouldy crusts of bread can be COMPOSTED or turned into nutrients using a WORMERY (try buying one from OriginalOrganics).
And according to a BBC report ‘Recycling firm dreams of nappy days’ (April 22nd 2008), a Canadian recycling company has unveiled plans for a processing plant in Birmingham which RECYCLES NAPPIES.
Knowaste - which already recycles hundreds of thousands of nappies in the US wants to open a site in Birmingham.
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The full text of this letter in BMJ has been deleted within last week:
BMJ 1995;310:398 (11 February)
Letters
Living close to industry
EDITOR,–Ian Harvey describes some of the difficulties of determining whether living close to industry harms people’s health.1 Scottish studies that colleagues and I carried out during the 1970s and 1980s used several techniques for sharpening the focus on this type of epidemiology of small areas.2 3
Firstly, when studying air pollution from local industries, beware overreliance on traditional fixed monitoring sites, which are usually too few and inappropriately located. Concentrations of air pollutants from a fume stack change dramatically within short distances, so that “precise” results from such monitoring sites can lead to misclassification of exposed and non-exposed populations; furthermore, such techniques rarely enable one industry’s local pollution pattern to be distinguished from that of another. Keynes’s dictum about economics–that it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong–is also true in environmental epidemiology, and approximate patterns of pollution (notably of metals) can be obtained by use of low technology . . . [Full text of this article]
but here it is:
BMJ 1995;310:398 (11 February)
Letters
Living close to industry
EDITOR,–Ian Harvey describes some of the difficulties of determining whether living close to industry harms people’s health.1 Scottish studies that colleagues and I carried out during the 1970s and 1980s used several techniques for sharpening the focus on this type of epidemiology of small areas.2 3
Firstly, when studying air pollution from local industries, beware overreliance on traditional fixed monitoring sites, which are usually too few and inappropriately located. Concentrations of air pollutants from a fume stack change dramatically within short distances, so that “precise” results from such monitoring sites can lead to misclassification of exposed and non-exposed populations; furthermore, such techniques rarely enable one industry’s local pollution pattern to be distinguished from that of another. Keynes’s dictum about economics–that it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong–is also true in environmental epidemiology, and approximate patterns of pollution (notably of metals) can be obtained by use of low technology samplers, including soils and moss bags.4 Such samplers are inexpensive, are independent of power supplies, are ignored by vandals, provide a detailed and extensive network of sampling sites where data on pollution are most relevant, can sample for long enough for seasonal variations to be discerned, and can assess past pollution patterns. Low technology samplers indicate the approximate locations of pollution hot spots (and hence the most exposed populations); thereafter, the precise details of toxicological relevance may be obtained from high technology equipment installed where most appropriate.
Next, beware the circular area around a source of pollution. This is much favoured by armchair epidemiologists to define the so called exposed population, but its simple geometry ignores fundamental realities determining exposure to pollution: the directions of winds associated with the pollution; local topography; the height of the fume stack; the consequent extent of the “umbrella effect”; and the pattern gleaned from observations of physicians, environmental health officers, residents, farmers, and veterinarians. Such information permits even the most funds starved epidemiologists to demarcate exposed neighbourhoods reasonably realistically and a priori.5 This pilot epidemiology may persuade local authorities to fund follow up studies.
Thirdly, apply Hill’s criteria for causation, but be aware that the realities on which these guidelines operate may need probing. For example, a factory that has operated for decades may change its processes or raw materials radically, thereby causing an unsuspected release of pollutants with new toxicological potentials.
Finally, public health practitioners should respond constructively to residents’ concerns and to requests for advice or collaboration from environmental health departments. Too often have such opportunities for benefiting the public’s health been missed.
Professor Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Public Health and Occupational Medicine, United Arab Emirates University, PO Box 17666, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Owen L Lloyd
0. Harvey I. How can we determine if living close to industry harms your health? BMJ 1994;309:425-6. (13 August.)
0. Lloyd OL, Smith G, Lloyd MM, Holland Y, Gailey FAY. Raised mortality from lung cancer and high sex ratios of births associated with industrial pollution. Br J Ind Med 1985;42:475-80. [Medline]
0. Lloyd OL, Williams FLR, Gailey FAY. Is the Armadale epidemic over? Air pollution and mortality from lung cancer and other diseases, 1961-82. Br J Ind Med 1985;42:815-23. [Medline]
0. Gailey FAY, Lloyd OL. Spatial and temporal pattems of airborne metal pollution: the value of low technology sampling to an environmental epidemiology study. Sci Total Environ 1993;133:201-19. [Medline]
Lloyd OL, Lloyd MM, Hill TLR, Lawson A. Twinning in human populations and in cattle exposed to air pollution from incinerators. Br J Ind Med 1988;454:556-60.
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Come on Peter, tell us how you’d start to determine whether or not an incinerator was harming health?
Would you check Pub Med archive for “infant mortality, air pollution” and think to yourself “Only 283 peer-reviewed scientific studies. That means that they don’t know.”?
You’re good at dishing out what others should or must do and yet you’re strangely silent on hpw this issue could be resolved in a rational & scientific manner.
If you are so bright, or you know someone who has all the answers, maybe you or they should be prepared to argue against Dr van Steenis in a public forum. Are you up for it Peter? Veolia and Sita aren’t. And neither are WRG as they are still smarting at Dr van Steenis’ appearance at the Hull incinerattor public inquiry when Dr van Steenis blitzed Professor Jim Bridges.
Let me guess Peter. Are you anything to do with the incinerator industry perchance?
Why don’t you paste your comments onto an e-mail to Shropshire Star letters page about Prof Owen and send him a copy to UAE. I’m sure he’ll be glad to answer it & tell all.
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large version
The Exploration of the Possible Relationship Between Deaths, Births and Air Pollution in Scottish Towns
Book Series The GeoJournal Library
ISSN 0924-5499
Volume Volume 24
Book The Added Value of Geographical Information Systems in Public and Environmental Health
Publisher Springer Netherlands
DOI 10.1007/978-0-585-31560-7
Copyright 1994
ISBN 978-0-7923-1887-3 (Print) 978-0-585-31560-7 (Online)
Part Part IV
DOI 10.1007/978-0-585-31560-7_11
Pages 167-180
Subject Collection Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
SpringerLink Date Friday, July 27, 2007
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The GeoJournal Library
The Added Value of Geographical Information Systems in Public and Environmental Health
10.1007/978-0-585-31560-7_11
Marion J. C. De Lepper, Henk J. Scholten and Richard M. Stern
Owen L. Lloyd12
(12) Department of Community and Family Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lek Yuen Health Centre, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong
Abstract
Large-scale geographical patterns of diseases can be seen in most atlases of mortality or morbidity. These patterns reflect ill-defined regional differences of environments composed of intermingled and complex socioeconomic factors. Analysis of these broad patterns, however, may show individual communities that stand out as exceptions. These exceptions provide opportunities for more focused epidemiological and environmental studies to explore the possible environmental causes of these epidemiological abnormalities. In Atlas of mortality in Scotland from 1987, exceptional rates of various diseases were found in several towns. For the investigation of the high rate of lung cancer in one town and for the replication studies of other towns, the communities were subdivided into small areas for the combined epidemiological and environmental investigations and the results were subjected to geographical analysis. The detailed scale of these geographical frameworks suggests some possible mechanisms of environmental toxicity. These studies also demonstrated that two types of data resource might have substantial value for environmental epidemiology when geographical analysis by small area is required. Firstly, to interpret epidemiological studies related to environmental air quality in a community, detailed patterns of airborne pollution should be known. These patterns should be based on measurements of pollutants in samples collected simultaneously at many sampling sites; e.g., low-technology samplers, such as mosses, lichens and soils, collect metallic pollutants in the ambient air. Secondly, for demonstrating the effects of some toxic environments with minimal delay, obstetric data might perform a useful screening function, a view supported by some of our investigations in Scotland.
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In #24 Peter says he wants to be pointed ‘in the direction of proper research carried out by a proper academic establishment’.
I have spotted one for you, Peter.
In #13 (perhaps you missed it) Michael Ryan mentions research carried out on the effects of incinerators in Japan by Tango T, Fujita T, Tanihata T, Minowa M, Doi Y, Kato N, Kunikane S, Uchiyama I, Tanaka M, Uehata T.
This paper -entitled ‘Risk of adverse reproductive outcomes associated with proximity to municipal solid waste incinerators with high dioxin emission levels in Japan’- was published in the Journal of Epidemiology in May 2004 and I think the ‘83-93′ bit is the page reference.
The authors of this epidemiological study come from the National Institute of Public Health (Saitama), Kyoto University, Okayama University and Seitoku University
To me the institutions that the above come from sound like ‘proper academic establishments’.
As far as I can see this is NOT research carried out ‘by an enthusiatic amateur in his garden shed’.
Nor, as far as I can see, is it ‘funded by interested parties from either side of the argument.’
Peter, would you not agree that Michael Ryan has every right to highlight this important research and that he is carrying out a valuable public service in doing so?
If I lived within close proximity of a proposed incinerator (which I don’t) then I can assure you that I would be grateful to Mr Ryan for highlighting academic research like this.
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Huw,
You’re hardly less than partisan yourself are you?
I note your reference to research in Japan relating to high dioxin emissions. Where is there any suggestion that the proposed incinerator will produce high levels of dioxins? Or is that just more scaremongering?
Michael - you have once again regurgitated a lot of stuuf from the web and presented it in a virtually unreadable format - and your paranoia really is getting the better of you - I have nothing whatsoever to do with the incinerator industry, nor have I ever had. Tell you what - just give me a link to a single page that isn’t a letter from a zealot, or a posting to pub med claiming numerous ’studies’, or which seeks to confuse the evidence by making reference to the sort of emissions produced by heavy industry, rather than a domestic waste incinerator. Just one, genuinely independent report is all I ask. Then I can read it and make my own mind up without having to wade through all your propaganda.
As for debating with Dr Van Steenis - it would be like debating with a religious zealot - there would be little point - as he and yourself are clearly so determined to dismiss any evidence or alternative factor that contradicts the conclusion you have come to prior to studying any evidence.
BTW - You still haven’t answered the question about the credence of your allegations about professor Owen’s research, nor indicated the academic organisation he was working for when his report was allegedly ’suppressed’…
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There is something about environmental issues that brings the copy and pasters out!
Doe anyone know what Al Gores’ view is on all this, or is he too busy riding around in his new Audi since he re-kindled his love affair with carbon fuels?
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Huw
I agree that Michael has every right to highlight research from a number of sources to further his arguement. I also have a right to my point of view too. I dont think that the suicide of five people in a place like Gnosall is as a result of emissions from Ironbridge power station (Mr Ryan does). From what I can gather the emissions that Mr Ryan is talking about come from a wide range of sources including smoking, vehicle exhausts and log and coal fires in homes. Do you not think that I am entitled to hold the view that the case is not clear cut as yet ?.
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Michael Ryan, you’d be more effective getting through to people without the essays. I can’t help but skim straight past your contributions because they’re way too long - I just haven’t got the time to read all that. If you could summarise it, or just give us the links so the people who want to know more can find it, it would be much appreciated. Please don’t keep stealing the debate.
By the way, I don’t mind the idea of an incinerator - it’s a similar principle of a bonfire in your back garden to get rid of your own household waste…
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AS the ordinary person on the street here (and one who lives very close indeed to the proposed incinerator) I welcome debate and any published research on this subject as I am not qualified to understand what the effects are. What I do have the right to do though is to object to this developnment if there is any chance that it might affect the health of my family. No-one appears to be able to PROVE either way if this is the case and on that basis I say no thank you very much. We have enough problems in this area with traffic pollution and the council’s intention to totally gridlock the roads in Harlescott, Heath Farm and Heathgates - I think we have had our share of the pollution in this town. Lets get some composting schemes and plastic collection instead and do something positive
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Burn It, The smoke will only blow towards Donnington & Newport!!!!!!
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Peter, you are right to say that I am partisan.
I am happy to identify myself as a member of a political party, which advocates sustainable policies.
However, your consistent contempt for sustainable policies in these threads reveals you as partisan, as well.
Moreover, worryingly for your credibility, your –at first sight plausible- demand for independent scientific research is not consistent.
In this debate from 2007 ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/04/25/climate-criticism-unfounded/ ) you dismissed the scientific consensus on climate change (see Naomi Oreskes, Science magazine, December 3rd 2004).
I don’t think the cause of the incinerator is greatly helped by the revelation that its most plausible-sounding advocate denies an issue, which most of the world’s scientists regard as the biggest issue facing mankind.
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Professor Richard Weisler of University of North Carolina found clustering of suicides and early cancers around two separate sources of industrial PM2.5s - the second cluster appeared after an incinerator started at a paper mill.
The Gnosall suicides, which were six in a 12-month period, are part of a much larger cluster around and downwind of Ironbridge power station.
Dr Dick van Steenis and I met Telford’s coroner in June 2005 and that’s when Dr van Steenis correctly predicted that the suicides would be mostly clustered in electoral wards with high infant death rates - ie the wards with highest exposure to industrial PM2.5s.
There is no effective debate here in Shropshire on the health effects of industial PM2.5 air pollution because what’s needed is a large public meeting at which Dr van Steenis can blitz any opposition. He’s a medically-qualified doctor and has the facts at his fingertips as anyone who has heard him speak in public will know to be true.
I suggest that he’s invited to speak at Newport and see if Veolia or Sita will be able to put up an expert to speak against him.
If Townie hasn’t the time to read these blogs, why is he/she bothering? Nothing else to do?
Veolia have been awarded a major contract for plasma gasification of waste by Dow Corning, in Midland, Michigan. They could easily use the same safe technology here in UK.
The emissions from the stack will blow much further than Donnington & Newport. How high is the stack? The adverse health effects are measurabe for distance of seven miles per hundred foot of stack height.
Ironbridge power station’s stack is 670 feet, so you can see why the infant death rates & suicide rates extend as far as Brocton, Staffs.
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Michael: Was it Cardiff or Swansea that had a cluster of suicides that made the news last year? yet they get all that lovely fresh sea air?
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Michael - you still haven’t answered my questions, nor risen to the challenge of providing a single independent accredited piece of research to back your claims.
Dr Van Steenis may have been an excellent GP and is clearly very keen to prove a point, but none of the ‘research’ you have offered is indicative of anything but a very small risk. You have presented no evidence to prove that either infant deaths or suicides are linked to PM2 emissions - you mention an apparent correlation in certain wards, but completely dismiss out of hand any other factors (e.g. economic well-being, smoking, use of drugs/alcohol) which might also be common factors - bad science!
I wonder how any risk factor would stand up against, say the risk of being run over, or the risk of dying from catching measles, due to the lack of MMR take up? - incidentally a consequence in itself of bad science and hysteria.
I look back to the period in which myself and my siblings were kids, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s - much of it before the onset of smokeless fuel legislation or legislation concerning lead in fuel - we all survived, despite much higher levels of pollution, and much greater levels of risk. We are now so utterly risk averse as a society that we are hindering humanity’s abilbity to make progress - I think that should concern us all far more whether or not we burn our rubbish locally.
And Huw, I’m happy to declare myself as a member of no political party - I never have joined one.
As for partisanship in the climate change debate, I see so much evidence that pressure groups and zealots with their own agendas concerning personal freedoms to travel or to live certain types of lifestyle have hijacked scientific opinion, and who instantly dismiss any cyclical explanations of global warming offered, that I fear there is no balance to be found.
I’m not partisan - just seeking a balanced view - something which the eco-lobby seems determined I shouldn’t get.
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Lucy W what do you think of the coincidence that people like you who support the incinerator plan also deny anthropogenic climate change (http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/09/23/fears-raised-over-speeding/ #134)?
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Peter, you say we are becoming ‘utterly risk averse as a society that we are hindering humanity’s abilbity to make progress’.
You rightly insist that we should ignore ‘bad science’.
That is why I am asking you -again!- why -if you are making the above argument in good faith- you choose to ignore the scientific consensus on climate change.
The Royal Society, Britain’s foremost scientific body, argues forcefully on its website that ‘climate change is real’.
The Royal Society does not ‘dismiss any cyclical explanations of global warming offered’.
While confirming that there have been warming and cooling cycles in the past, it deals cogently with arguments put about by denialists like you with its ‘Facts and fictions about climate change’ pdf document, which I recommend you read if you are genuinely interested in basing your views on good science instead of bad science.
The Royal Society says ‘Possible consequences of climate change include rising temperatures, changing sea levels, and impacts on global weather. These changes could have serious impacts on the world’s organisms and on the lives of millions of people, especially those living in areas vulnerable to extreme natural conditions such as flooding and drought.’
I am basing my partisan view on this science.
If we base our views on the discredited ‘bad climate science’ put about in a very coordinated way by the likes of you, then, in my view, this could ‘hinder humanity’s abilbity to make progress’.
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Peter, in #39 you said that Michael Ryan has not provided ‘a single independent accredited piece of research to back [his] claims’.
I pointed out to you that the ‘independent accredited piece of research’ Michael Ryan cited in #13 had some relevant points to make about dioxins, as recently as 2004.
Would you not agree that dioxins, even in tiny quantities, are toxic and carcinogenic?
Would you also not agree that the public need reassurances from Veolia that the emissions of the incinerators they are installing in the UK are as tightly regulated as their website says they are in France?
Does Peter think that emissions regulations were introduced as a result of pressure from companies like Veolia or as a result of pressure from the public?
And if Peter lived in Japan, where incinerators have high dioxin emission levels, according to the research (#13), would he be as relaxed about their emissions as he is in this debate?
My hunch is that if you lived there, you would be as partisan as you are in this and the climate debate.
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Huw: skipping back to #25 - can you really recyle dirty nappies? isn’t that why thet are called disposable rather than recycleable? And just who is going to put their kids in “recycled nappies” ?
Michael:Re#27, I’m probably not as bright as Peter but it looks like Peter might be busy the night Dr van Steenis is available, so can I have go at arguing with Dr Van Steenis in public?
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Those concerned about the impact of disposable nappies can reduce waste and save around £500 on the cost of nappies for one baby by using reusable real cotton nappies
Just Google the Shropshire Real Nappy Network for advice.
Now what about a response to that strange coincidence I spotted, Lucy W?
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Huw: Thats not recycling nappies thats just washing them. I once heard that the enegry and pollution from heating water and deteregent was more than manufacturing a disposable nappy.
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I suggest you get in touch with the Canadian company, Knowaste, which recycles nappies.
As for your washing/throwing away, I think the waste implications are obvious to all.
Disposable nappies put major strains on our waste system. Re-usables don’t.
In October 2008, the UK Environment Agency and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs brought out a study called “An updated lifecycle assessment study for disposable and reusable nappies”.
The message in this was basically: reusable nappies can cause significantly less (up to 40%) damage to the environment than disposable ones, as long as people don’t wash them too hot, avoid tumble drying and reuse nappies on other children.
Now, Lucy W. that coincidence…
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Well nappies has never been a consideration I have had to undertake. The problem with the environment is there are too many people in the world. I’ve done my bit by not bring any children into the world so I feel have done more to save the environment than most.
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How do you square the following with your claim to be doing more than most to save the environment?
a) Spreading mis-information about climate change in the blogosphere from behind a pseudonym
b) making highly personal attacks on active citizens, who are taking responsibility for their local environment
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Because I live in a caravan, burn waste wood I collect mainly from fly-tipping. Use a miniscule amount of electric and gas.
By not living in a house I have saved a huge ampunt of CO2 emmission. As I am sure you are well aware, concrete creates its own weight in CO2 in production. And the cast iron stove I use is made from 100% recyclable material and 100% recyclable upon disposal - that why environmentalists love cast iron. I also reduce my food miles by growing all my own veg, brewing my own cider and wine, and raising chicken.
Is that enough for you?
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Avoiding the question again…?
You talk about carbon, Lucy W, but your past contributions confirm that you are not in the slightest bit interested in carbon emissions ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/09/23/fears-raised-over-speeding/ #134 )?
Britain’s foremost scientific institution, the Royal Society, wrote to ExxonMobil on 4th September 2006 to ask why it gave $2.9m to 39 groups that, like you, “misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence” ( see http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2006/09/19/LettertoNick.pdf ).
Peter, if you are still around, you might want to comment on the incontrovertible fact that the Royal Society regards the mis-information that ExxonMobil puts out about climate change as ‘bad science’.
How do you reconcile that with your comments about ‘bad science’ (#39 paragraph 3)?
The journalist, George Monbiot, has referred to the think tanks, PR agencies and media that promote this mis-information as the ‘denial industry’.
Lucy W, what do you think of the coincidence that incineration-fan, Peter, is also part of the shady, anonymous climate change denial industry ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/04/25/climate-criticism-unfounded/ ), whose influence the Royal Society was seeking to expose to the public?
Full story (’Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial’, Guardian, 20 September 2006).
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Huw: I’m not bothered because I’m doing my bit, why should I cycle, ride and walk everywhere while A Gore swans about in an Audi A6 diesel?
Saw 6 O’clock news about the ice cap and BBC clearly stated that the scientific world is undecided if man is the cause of climate change - they are still doing reasearch down there. Are the BBC also your so called “mis-informers”?
You might have made your mind up, but I’ll wait to see what the scientist have to say.
As for bad science - didn’t I Hugh Court Judge rule that Al Gore’s film “An Inconvienient Truth” had nine gross scientific errors?
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does Michael Ryan have anything better to do than just to copy and paste other peoples false information and then put it down as his own, Its either put your rubbish in the ground and let it rot, or you can burn it and get something useful out of it, has anyone been to the horsehay golf course, it backs onto a landfill, and that landfill is getting bigger and then there going to have to find else where for the rubbish, which means rubbish trucks have to further to get rid of the waste, and council tax will go up, an incinerator is a good idea, it will burn the waste in one spot. turn into energy (gas and electric), (gas-methane).
oh and Lucy W, did you also hear that the person said we aren’t going to be affected in our life time, it will take centuries (100’s of years) for the ice caps to melt and do damage.
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Mr J, thanks for adding evidence to the theory I have been advancing.
Peter asked Michael Ryan in #39 to provide ‘a single independent accredited piece of research to back [his] claims’.
I responded (#29) that the Japanese study, which Michael Ryan cited in #13, was an independent accredited piece of research which suggested to the non-scientist that incinerators were, at least in Japan in 2004, associated with dioxin contamination.
Could Mr J, whose denial of anthropogenic climate change is weakening rather than strengthening the pro-incineration case, explain how Michael Ryan, citing an epidemiological study produced by academics from the National Institute of Public Health (Saitama), Kyoto University, Okayama University and Seitoku University, is promoting ‘other peoples false information’(#52).
It would be great if, unlike Peter, you could stick around so that we can test this idea out in this public forum.
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Yes I did hear that it will take centuries, if indeed it is ever going to happen. In fact this was a key point that the Hight Court objected to in Al Gore’s “alarmist” film suggesting it was imminent, hence it could not be distributed to schools in is current form.
And belive it or not, it was a teacher who raised the objection which led to the high court ruling!
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For information on Lucy W’s mis-leading claims, I recommend this article from the Observer (14th October 2007) ‘Revealed: the man behind court attack on Gore film -Fuel and mining magnate backed UK challenge to An Inconvenient Truth’.
It would be great if you could comment on the coincidence that anthropogenic climate change denial and the pro-incineration camp are so linked on this thread, Lucy W.
People want information that they can trust, and the link between the above must be quite embarrassing for Veolia.
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Huw: Please clarify what is misleading rather then making generalising swipes at my comments - it really does not further debate.
PS Have you seen Al Gore endorsing the Audi A6?
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OK, pleased to oblige, Lucy W. Apologies for the delay.
The teacher, who, you claimed, raised the objection, which led to the court ruling, is a Conservative councillor from Hampshire, called Derek Tipp, who is described on the New Party’s website as having been a science teacher in the 1970s and 1980s.
The New Party, which funded the court case is, according to the Electoral Commission, nearly entirely funded by Cloburn Quarry Limited, Lanarkshire.
Cloburn Quarry Limited’s owner, Robert Durward, is also chairman of the New Party, and is one of the founders of the Scientific Alliance, an organisation which is spreading mis-information about climate change (sounds familiar).
I felt that your claim that Tipp was a teacher was misleading, Lucy, because he retired over 20 years ago.
Shropshire readers, concerned about incinerators and the abuse being hurled at protesters on this thread, might also note the more than coincidental link between anthropogenic climate change denial with promotion of incineration, at least on these Shropshire Star threads.
Exxon Mobil’s orchestrated campaign to question and cast doubt on the scientific consensus about climate change is a good case study in seeing how some corporations try to undermine our democracy.
Protest movements like Telford PAIN are the lifeblood of our democracy.
And it appears to me this particular campaign group has the support of the public.
( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/12/03/mps-survey-reveals-79-against-burner/ )
So where is the abuse coming from, Lucy W?
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