Thursday 6 August 2015

Burn, baby, burn - waste plant inferno

I've not talked about waste plants for a while, however I feel that the major fire at Recycleforce highlighted a number of issues on which I need to comment.

Firstly, the importance of retaining, or indeed increasing, the level of fire cover for Corby and its villages.

Secondly, with the increasing number of waste plants - recycling facilities, call them what you will - planned for Corby, this could become a regular occurrence.  There are reports on the news with frightening regularity of waste plants somewhere in the country catching fire, due to the nature of the business and the items being stored and processed.

Thirdly, and very worryingly, is do we know exactly what's being processed in these various facilities and what toxins can been released into the air if they do catch fire?

I know it's sensible to keep your doors and windows shut when such an event occurs, but unless your house is hermetically sealed, how do you ensure that these particles don't get in there?

What about the people living close to this and the other planned waste plants?  There's the Travellers' Site at Dunlop Close and the Settled Middle Age Travellers just up Gretton Brook Road, all the new housing at Priors Hall, not to mention all the houses off Rockingham Road in Corby itself and the nearby villages.

There's been a campaign about the plants planned for Corby for about three years.  We've just been informed that the approved plans for an anaerobic digester and a pyrolysis plant at Shelton Road are now being amended for another gasification plant.

What will it take for Northamptonshire County Council to start listening to the people of Corby?

We don't want these.  We don't more lorries bringing who knows what waste from the rest of the UK to be processed on our doorsteps.  We certainly don't want to live downwind of them, and we have major concerns about their safety given the number of fires.

Councillors, please ask yourselves and answer honestly, would you live next to these, or have your children go to school next to them?  I somehow doubt it...

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