ACTIVISTS SQUAT NEWHAVEN INCINERATOR SITE IN PROTEST

22.07.2008
‘Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now!’ pro­tes­tors demon­strate their fury now that con­struc­tion on the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial incin­er­a­tor plant has begun.

Activists have tak­en over the site of the pro­posed new incin­er­a­tor plant in Newhaven. They entered the premis­es under the cov­er of dark­ness last night in an organ­ised attempt at non-vio­lent direct action, after resis­tance through demo­c­ra­t­ic means failed them. Sev­er­al pro­tes­tors formed a bar­ri­cade by super­glue-ing them­selves to the road in an attempt to pre­vent vehi­cle access, whilst on the site itself, oth­er mem­bers of the group ‘locked-on’ to machin­ery in order to halt fur­ther activ­i­ty. They claim to be exer­cis­ing their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest non-vio­lent­ly in a last-ditch attempt to pro­mote their con­cerns about the con­se­quences of incin­er­a­tors on pub­lic health and safe­ty.

Amidst a storm of con­tro­ver­sy and fierce oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents con­cerned about pol­lu­tion and health risks, con­struc­tion of the incin­er­a­tor by Veo­lia (Onyx) began ear­ly in June this year despite the fact that plan­ning per­mis­sion had not been offi­cial­ly approved and a judi­cial review of the process was still incom­plete. Angry at what they saw as a direct attack on the health of the pub­lic and a lack of trans­paren­cy through­out the plan­ning process, local Newhaven cam­paign group Dove2000 fought to keep the issue in the pub­lic eye and gen­er­at­ed 15,000 writ­ten objec­tions to the scheme. It claimed that, falling way short of pro­vid­ing a nec­es­sary solu­tion to waste man­age­ment, the plant instead would be respon­si­ble for the inevitable con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the local area, the release of high­ly dan­ger­ous tox­ins into the atmos­phere and the dis­as­trous con­se­quences of tox­ic ash dis­pos­al.

The dev­as­tat­ing health impli­ca­tions for the envi­ron­ment and those liv­ing or work­ing with­in the (10–15 mile radius) fall­out zone of the incin­er­a­tor plant have been well doc­u­ment­ed by groups like Dove2000, and accord­ing to Dr. Neil Cat­man (for­mer incin­er­a­tor inspec­tor and inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised expert on tox­ic waste incin­er­a­tion),

‘in licens­ing these incin­er­a­tion oper­a­tions, the gov­ern­ment is cre­at­ing zones of sacrifice.…I’m not just talk­ing about peo­ple get­ting sick. I’ve seen them die. If the wind would blow the smoke towards the school on a Mon­day you’d see the chil­dren being at home sick on Tues­day and Wednes­day. The schools near the incin­er­a­tors had the high­est absen­tee rates in the dis­trict. I met a lot of these chil­dren. I’ve seen them die of leukaemia, brain can­cer and a host of oth­er dis­or­ders’.

It is claimed* that incin­er­a­tors emit some of the most tox­ic and bioac­cu­mu­la­tive air pol­lu­tants includ­ing acidic gas­es and fine dust par­ti­cles which pen­e­trate deep into the lungs caus­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease and asth­ma; diox­ins which sup­press the immune sys­tem, cause can­cer, and pose a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem for preg­nant or breast­feed­ing moth­ers as they pass through to babies, read­i­ly reduc­ing the rate of male births, caus­ing hor­mon­al dis­rup­tion, learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and behav­iour­al prob­lems. Also emit­ted are nanopar­ti­cles and 2.5 micron par­ti­cles which are known car­cino­gens able to migrate around the body, and a vari­ety of dan­ger­ous heavy met­als which affect the kid­ney and lungs, cause nerve and brain dam­age and adverse­ly affect the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem.
* (www.dove2000.org.uk). The deci­sion to use incin­er­a­tors for burn­ing radioac­tive waste from nuclear pow­er sta­tions is also being con­sid­ered.

By last year alone the cost of the project had soared to £145.7 mil­lion, with Brighton and Hove City Coun­cil and East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil hav­ing col­lec­tive­ly invest­ed at least £2 mil­lion in legal fees to bring the project beyond the plan­ning stage. There are a fur­ther 100–168 incin­er­a­tors planned for use in the UK, though it appears that the Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! net­work of pro­tes­tors are deter­mined to assert their belief that this mon­ey could be more advan­ta­geous­ly spent on recy­cling ini­tia­tives to com­bat waste man­age­ment prob­lems more sus­tain­ably with­out cre­at­ing fur­ther envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems for present and future gen­er­a­tions.

The activists from Stop Incin­er­a­tion Now! con­tin­ue to occu­py the site deter­mined to bring the dis­cus­sion to the nation­al forum.

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If you would like more infor­ma­tion about this top­ic, or to sched­ule an inter­view with Francesca Corvi­no, please call her­self on 07828178710 or email Francesca at fmcveigh@yahoo.com.