D-day looms for controversial West Lancs incinerator its firm says NHS 'cannot cope without'
A crunch meeting over controversial plans for a huge medical waste incinerator in West Lancashire will take place next week.
Nine MPs including the former West Lancs MP Rosie Cooper and Sefton Central MP Bill Esterson have voiced concern, along with Bickerstaffe Parish Council, Simonswood Parish Council, Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and a 3,400-strong Facebook campaign group called ‘Stop the Simonswood Incinerator.’
“It’s supposed to burn 24 hours a day as well - and the constant uncertainty is really affecting people’s mental health in the locality as well. You’ve got all the agricultural land that grows food that they distribute to local supermarkets and farmers’ markets and local people eat as well, and it’s in the prevailing wind as well.
She continued: "Any claim of economic value due to the creation of 12 jobs is severely outweighed by the potential loss of hundreds of farming jobs, should the surrounding areas prime graded agricultural land become polluted by this plant. Probably one of the reasons local farmers are also unhappy with these proposals and they will be supporting our demonstration outside County Hall in Preston at 9am on Wednesday 7th December.
Meanwhile, long haul transport of such material by road was harmful to the environment, he pointed out, increasing the risks of transporting hazardous material, and ‘medical waste should be treated as close as possible to where it is produced.’ The proposed facility was the ‘closest medical waste treatment facility to all health care providers between the Mersey and the Ribble,’ he added at a meeting.
According to the WHO, they ‘travel long distances in the air, up to hundreds of kilometres, and are ‘very persistent,’ with an ‘environmental half life…on surface soil ‘of ‘9 to 15 years,’ and an ‘environmental half life…on subsurface soil’ of ‘25 to 100 years.
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