They're calling it Toxic Town. It's only small, but in a country facing a rash of giant new waste incinerators, it is very likely the shape of things to come.
It is a camp, a tented protest camp in the Greenham Common tradition, set up on the site of a big new municipal rubbish incinerator near Swansea. With its campfire, its dog, its guitar and its painted notices proclaiming "POISON FACTORY" and "NO DIOXIN DEATH", it is yet another sign of how opposition to incineration is joining roads as a prime target for Britain's eco-warriors.
Burning enormous amounts of household waste is going to become more widespread, as European Union restrictions on sending rubbish to dumps are phased in. And it is likely to become more controversial, as communities, such as that at Crymlyn Burrows near Swansea, wake up to the fact that big incinerators are planned for their backyards.
Opponents of incineration say that by-products of the burning, especially the complex chemicals known as dioxins, are potentially cancer-causing and will always be present in waste gases; defenders say there is no proof that dioxins and other substances are carcinogenic and that they are present only in minute amounts. Residents (and especially parents) near incinerator sites understandably embrace the precautionary principle. At present, only 15 large refuse incinerators operate in Britain. Yet a survey done earlier this year by the pressure group Greenpeace, says that at least 70 more are in the pipeline, either under construction, awaiting construction with planning permission, awaiting planning permission, or with a promise of government funding.
The reason for this incineration explosion is an EU law that will force councils to slash the amount of rubbish they send to dumps, technically known as landfills. The Landfill Directive will squeeze the 80 per cent of British household refuse currently being dumped in holes in the ground to 35 per cent by the year 2020.
But the waste mountain is already immense (28 million tons produced annually) and rapidly growing. Waste planners are aghast at the prospect and the Government's waste strategy, published last year, offers two principal ways forward: increase recycling, and increase incineration. As Britain's recycling rate is one of the lowest in Europe, recycling alone will certainly not solve the problem, and more incinerators will be needed. But how many?
The Government let the cat out of the bag when it published the draft of its waste strategy in 1999 and put a number on the incinerators that might be required: up to 130 with a capacity of 200,000 tons annually, it said, or up to 94 with a capacity of 250,000 tons. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth latched on to these totals and, although ministers are now more vague about numbers, the issue is in the open, and starting to cause friction.
"Local people do not want these things," said Blake Lee-Harwood, an incineration campaigner for Greenpeace, whose activists last year occupied and closed down Britain's biggest incinerator at Edmonton, north London, and were then cleared by a jury of criminal damage. "Incinerators threaten people's health and their environment. They are everybody's nightmare neighbour."
The situation at Crymlyn Burrows on the edge of Swansea docks is archetypal: a small community in an area long-blighted by polluting heavy industry suddenly finds itself destined to be under the smokestack of a big incinerator emitting, residents fear, a whole new generation of pollutants. They are outraged that their community should have been chosen, anxious for the future, and angry at what they feel is less than straight dealing by Neath-Port Talbot council, which is the developer of the plant in conjunction with a Portuguese firm. It is currently under construction.
The council stresses it is not just a "mass burn" incinerator, burning everything shipped in through the gates, but a multi-purpose facility that will recycle and make compost out of more than half the waste.
It remains the case, however, that when it is operating at full capacity, the plant will incinerate almost 70,000 tons of waste a year (with the burning used to generate electricity). Yet in the council's brochure for the plant, the word "incinerator" is nowhere used: it is referred to as a "materials recovery and energy centre".
Furthermore, in the artist's impression of the plant, the 40-metre smokestack, the feature that signifies "incinerator" at once to even the most casual viewer, is not visible. It has been left out, so that the plant does not look like an incinerator.
Asked by The Independent why this was so, Frank Sawyers, the chief executive of Neath-Port Talbot council, said: "It's an artist's impression." Pressed on why there was no chimney, he said: "I don't disagree with you that it's not there." Pressed on why it was missing, he said: "I don't know."
Later, the council's director of technical services, Will Watson, contacted The Independent on the basis that Mr Sawyers had given the paper "a wrong steer" and insisted that the stack was visible on the drawing, pointing to a short thick brown line, set at an angle and almost merged into the background, which he said represented the chimney.
Mr Watson said the health implications from the incinerator's waste gases were "very very minimal, even microscopic", but the council entirely understood the health concerns of local people, and was doing all it could to reassure them, including setting up independent monitoring of the plant's emissions and establishing a liaison committee on which local residents were represented.
But that is not enough for the residents, who want nothing short of a halt to construction and the scrapping of the incinerator. "The whole community is against it," said Mike Ryan, the chairman of a local action group which now has thousands of supporters. "We fear for our health and the health of our children in particular."
The tents of the Toxic Town camp appeared a month ago, pitched by the side of the busy Swansea to Neath dual carriageway, to lend support to Mr Ryan and his fellow campaigners (who are delighted). A small patch of alternative lifestyle, it was the idea of Vince Rees, 36, a local poet and singer- songwriter who has been joined by sundry denizens of Swan-sea's alternative scene. "I'm looking for clean air for the children of the next generations," he said. "This incinerator will be here for at least 20 years and what's going to happen to the kids in that time?"
While he spoke passing drivers hooted their horns in support and gave the thumbs-up sign. In publicity terms, the camp has been a big success and has considerably raised the profile of the incinerator campaign locally.
And as Britain grapples with the awkward choices of its future waste disposal strategy, it is unlikely to be the last.