Brent Cross Campaigners Lobby MPs inside House of Commons as Experts Warn of Incineration Dangers

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ENVIRONMENTAL groups opposing the Brent Cross incinerator took their fight to the House of Commons on Tuesday of last week.

Together with invited MPs, they heard leading waste experts spell out the dangers of incinerators, like at Brent Cross, and the arguments for a “zero waste” alternative. However, Mike Freer, local MP for Finchley and Golders Green, failed to attend.

The Brent Cross Cricklewood Coalition and members from local Friends of the Earth groups in Brent, Barnet and Enfield were invited to the seminar:

“Zero Waste – the Cost Effective and Sustainable Alternative to Incineration”. 

The meeting, organised by Gloucestershire against Incinerators, part of the 'UK Without Incineration Network', was attended by anti-incinerator groups from across the UK, as well as members of Parliament.

Keynote speaker Paul Connett, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Chemistry from St Lawrence University, New York State, had previously visited the Brent Cross site (and also recently addressed the United Nations!).

Professor Connett said:

"The Brent Cross Cricklewood developers need to radically rethink their 'energy from domestic waste' plans. Putting a gasifying-incinerator, emitting unregulated and toxic nano-particles, into a built-up area near schools and homes is madness. Gasification is an unproven technology for domestic waste. This has caused at least one evacuation of local homes in Germany, after which trials were stopped.

"It beggars belief that the developers continue to claim they are not planning an 'incinerator'.

"Instead of burning our domestic waste, we need to move towards a 'zero waste system', where rubbish is considered a resource to recycle.

“Incineration and gasification detract from recycling, since they don’t work without burning good recyclable materials. They also emit more greenhouse gases than when the organic component is treated by digestion."

(Provided by Brent Cross Coalition)