City’s waste plant IS safe

Council rejects Greenpeace protests that incinerator is a health risk
by Sarah Crabtree, Sheffield Star 11/6/01

SHEFFIELD Council has defended its controversial Bernard Road incinerator in the wake of Greenpeace protest last month.

Council chief executive Bob Kerslake told The Star the waste plant was safe and “not a threat to health”.

Mr Kerslake said: “The council wants to put across the issues as we see them about the incinerator, and the continuing issue of waste management for the council.

“Incinertors do produce emissions, but they are very tightly monitored by the Government. Incinerators are substantially less a source of pollution than unregulated bonfires, traffic and cars.”

He added he wanted to address resident's fears and protestors claims, raised when Greenpeace campaigners scaled the waste plant tower last month. Mr Kerslake said the incinerator, to be taken over by private waste management company Onyx in August, boasted a stringent safety record. Its output was just one tenth of the authorised legal limits on dioxins and, contrary to some fears, it had not stored or burnt low-level radioactive waste since 1996.

The plant’s much publicised breaches, he said, had occurred in 1999 while the incinerator was being upgraded to meet tighter emissions levels, and in 2000 the breaches halved.

“Sheffield’s incinerator does not have more problems than most,” Mr Kerslake said. “Where breaches do occur they usually last for an hour or less.”

Sheffield produces almost a million tons of rubbish every year. In line with government advice, 60 percent of that rubbish is incinerated.

Sheffield is about to embark on a long-term strategy of improved recycling in the next few months.

Mr Kerslake added: “We operate the incinerator to tight regulations, and will be improving its performance as part of our plans for the future.

“I think the incinerator is safe, and it is not a threat to people’s health. If it was the Environment Agency would have stepped in to close it down. The focus of our efforts should be on the wider issues of air pollution, the main source of which is traffic, not the Bernard Road incinerator.”

The Star Opinion

Recycling rubbish made even easier

There is no point having environment watchdogs and barking yourself. That is one rule the public must hold on to during the current row over the safety - or otherwise - of Sheffield’s Bernard Road incinerator.

Greenpeace, in a highly publicised operation last month, occupied the site and stopped work while they claimed that emissions from the plant threatened a health risk.

City Council chief executive Bob Kerslake has defended the plant’s health record, pointing out that much of the criticism of the plant lies in the past with the incinerator - dogged by operational problems in its earlier days - has substantially cleaned up its act.

Between these two opposite view points, we find a bemused and increasingly concerned public, who are urged take comfort (sic) from the fact that the Environment Agency has not closed down the plant.

However, much of the solution rests with the public. And increased opportunity for all of us to recycle our rubbish - as announced today - should not only be welcomed but acted upon.