6 February 1997 Edition
Belfast incinerator planned
A proposal to establish a giant incinerator on the old Docklands site of the Belfast West coal-fired power station will add to the city's air pollution problems and act as a disincentive to an integrated waste recycling policy, according to Friends of the Earth.
Dr Robin Curry, the Six Counties FoE campaigner, is vociferously opposed to the ``waste-to-energy'' incinerator - which would be operated by the privatised electricity board NIGEN - because, he says, ``it would lock Greater Belfast into waste-to-energy for the next 25 years'' before anyone knows about it.
``We want to generate a debate about these issues,'' he says, stressing that ``99.9 per cent of the population is unaware that a waste strategy report is being written'' - which should consider alternative forms of waste management, ``like recycling, re-use, reduction, composting and anaerobic digestion''.
``The public must be allowed to make decisions affecting their lives,'' he says, adding that there is no mechanism for local democracy on environmental policy.
Dr Curry is also concerned about the poor quality of Belfast's air and its worsening asthma problem. The official figures from the Eastern Health Board show asthma affecting between 10 and 15 per cent of children and up to 10 per cent of adults. But Greens in the city, say these figures are imprecise because of inadequate reporting by GPs who are not obliged to provide this information to the health boards.
Although levels of smoke and sulphur dioxide (which are caused by domestic fires and solid fuel burning) have fallen in Belfast in recent years sulphur dioxide levels are, according the city council, the major cause of the poor air quality. Levels of nitrogen oxides (which are caused by motor vehicles) are within EC limits but they are increasing. An incinerator burning up to 200,000 tonnes of domestic waste would turn the Belfast air into a toxic soup and increase the amount of deadly chemicals - many of which can cause cancer and affect the reproductive and immune systems.
Dr Robin Curry, the Six Counties FoE campaigner, is vociferously opposed to the ``waste-to-energy'' incinerator - which would be operated by the privatised electricity board NIGEN - because, he says, ``it would lock Greater Belfast into waste-to-energy for the next 25 years'' before anyone knows about it.
``We want to generate a debate about these issues,'' he says, stressing that ``99.9 per cent of the population is unaware that a waste strategy report is being written'' - which should consider alternative forms of waste management, ``like recycling, re-use, reduction, composting and anaerobic digestion''.
``The public must be allowed to make decisions affecting their lives,'' he says, adding that there is no mechanism for local democracy on environmental policy.
Dr Curry is also concerned about the poor quality of Belfast's air and its worsening asthma problem. The official figures from the Eastern Health Board show asthma affecting between 10 and 15 per cent of children and up to 10 per cent of adults. But Greens in the city, say these figures are imprecise because of inadequate reporting by GPs who are not obliged to provide this information to the health boards.
Although levels of smoke and sulphur dioxide (which are caused by domestic fires and solid fuel burning) have fallen in Belfast in recent years sulphur dioxide levels are, according the city council, the major cause of the poor air quality. Levels of nitrogen oxides (which are caused by motor vehicles) are within EC limits but they are increasing. An incinerator burning up to 200,000 tonnes of domestic waste would turn the Belfast air into a toxic soup and increase the amount of deadly chemicals - many of which can cause cancer and affect the reproductive and immune systems.