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December 30th, 2011:

Community Campaign Stops Proposed Incinerator In Western Australia

http://www.no-burn.org/img/original/SECTION_BANNERS_-_europe.jpg

http://www.no-burn.org/community-wins-campaign-to-stop-incinerator-proposal-in-western-australia

Community Campaign Stops Proposed Incinerator In Western Australia

http://www.no-burn.org/img/pic/2009_Dannish%20incinerator_03.jpg

Australia – The Alliance for a Clean Environment (ACE) is celebrating their win in convincing the WA Government that it should not approve incinerator technologies for the Eastern Region of Perth, Western Australia.

The East Metropolitan Regional Council (EMRC) had submitted four potential incinerator technologies to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of their proposed Resource Recovery Facility. The EMRC have now withdrawn them from the assessment process.

“This is a real success story. This regional council has been promoting incineration for 11 years, one of the longest community engagement processes I have ever been involved in!” exclaimed ACE Coordinator and Spokesperson Jane Bremmer. “Although the fight is not over yet as Kwinana and Canning Vale are also considering incineration technologies, we are confident that the EPA will also reject other proposals in WA, as it has done in the eastern region, based on the convincing, common sense arguments we have provided to them,” she added.

“We couldn’t have done it without the expertise and support of Dr. Paul Connett, an internationallyrecognised waste expert who was kindly funded to come to WA by the National Toxics Network (NTN). We are all proud participants of the International POPs Elimination Network working towards a toxic free future.”

“This was a strong grassroots campaign and just goes to show that people power is still alive and well in Australia,” Stated Jane Bremmer.

For more information, visit www.ace-wa.org, or contact Jane Bremmer at 0432 041 397.

Statements

GAIA’s comments on Jiangsu Kunshan incinerator

GAIA’s comments on the CDM-backed incinerator in Jiangsu Kunshan, China

Friends of Nature’s comments on West Qinhuangdao incinerator

Friends of Nature’s comments on the CDM-backed incinerator in West Qinhuangdao, China

GAIA Comment on Chengdu Jiujiang CDM Project

GAIA’s comments on the CDM-backed incinerator in Chengdu Jiujiang, China

Wuhu Ecology Center comments on Linjiang Erqi CDM Incinerator

GDA 2011: BCAG Holds Walk against Davyhulme Incinerator in UK

Protest walk against Davyhulme Incinerator was organized by the Breathe Clean Air Group (BCAG, UK). The activity is also part of the “2011 Global Day of Action Against Waste and Incineration.”

BCAG plan to march through Urmston
Messenger Newspapers
September 9th, 2011

URMSTON’S Breathe Clean Air Group is planning a protest march on October 1 to coincide with a global day of action against waste and incineration.

Kastela residents protest harmul waste incineration
Croation Times

The city government officials of the southern Dalmatian town Kastel Sucurac, environmental activists and some residents have protested against the permission given to cement company Cemex to burn allegedly harmful wooden railway sleepers in their town.

THREAT OF JUDICIAL REVIEW FOR SHEK KWU CHAU SUPER-INCINERATOR

30 DECEMBER 2011 : Formal notice was today issued that the Government will face a judicial review of its proposal to build a mass-burn super-incinerator on Shek Kwu Chau island if endorsed by the Advisory Council on Environment (ACE) at its committee meeting today without further and fuller investigation of issues raised by objectors to the project.

The notice, sent today by email to Secretary for Environment Edward Yau and ACE chairman Professor Lam Kwan-Sing, and copied to the Chief Executive office, references correspondence sent by objectors to the Environment Protection Bureau and ACE over the last month identifying substantive and procedural defects in the decision making process to date and then states:

‘The EPD response and/or lack thereof [to the objector correspondence to date] is unsatisfactory and under all the circumstances manifestly unreasonable.’

The notice continues:

‘Please therefore treat this email as formal notice that if ACE issues an endorsement of EPD’s proposal as it now stands without further and fuller investigation of the alternative technologies and locations described in the objector correspondence, I and other like-minded persons intend to apply for judicial review of that decision and of any consequential final decisions of Government in relation to this project.

Such application must be initiated within 3 months of the relevant decision(s) and will in this instance be accompanied by consequential applications for suspension of the project pending the outcome of the judicial review, together with any other remedies or reliefs.’

The notice was authored by retired Hong Kong solicitor Tom Hope, whose ‘High Tide’ restaurant on Cheung Sha beach will be directly impacted by the proposed project.

Elaborating on what appears in the notice, Mr Hope said: ‘Substantive defects in the Government proposal include its declaration to ACE that the technology proposed for the super incinerator is the ‘best available’ when it is clear from the objector correspondence that this is not so.  There are also procedural defects such as the failure to consult the Hong Kong public on a sufficiently broad and informed basis.’

Mr Hope added:  ‘When I practised in Hong Kong as a partner in the international law firm Linklaters, I oversaw judicial review of HK Government decision-making which went to a court trial  lasting several weeks.  In the present circumstances, I have every reason to be confident of success should it prove necessary to maintain an action for judicial review.’

For press enquiries,  contact Tom Hope on 65710962 or by email tom.hope@notsoloud.net.

To EPD c/o Edward Yau, Anissa Wong and Elvis Au

To Aecom c/o Echo Leong

To all ACE members c/o chairman + secretariat

cc. HK Chief Executive office

EPD PROPOSAL FOR MASS BURN INCINERATOR IWMF AT SHEK KWU CHAU

I write with reference to the coming meeting of ACE on 30 December (today) at which I understand EPD’s proposal for the referenced project will be reviewed by ACE who will then be asked by EPD to issue a formal endorsement.

I also make reference to correspondence from myself and others objecting to this proposal filed with EPD, Aecom and ACE arising out of  EPD’s presentation on 5 December to ACE’s sub-committee (‘the objector correspondence’) pointing out substantive and procedural defects in the decision making process to date.

The EPD response and/or lack thereof is unsatisfactory and under all the circumstances manifestly unreasonable.

Please therefore treat this email as formal notice that if ACE issues an endorsement of EPD’s proposal as it now stands without further and fuller investigation of the alternative technologies and locations described in the objector correspondence, I and other like-minded persons intend to apply for judicial review of that decision and of any consequential final decisions of Government in relation to this project.

Such application must be initiated within 3 months of the relevant decision(s) and will in this instance be accompanied by consequential applications for suspension of the project pending the outcome of the judicial review, together with any other remedies or reliefs.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Hope

Download PDF : 111230_ACE_EPD_Hope_Incinerator Press Release

Inquiry is ordered into incinerators and health hazards they may pose

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2011/06/inquiry-is-ordered-into-incinerators-and-health-hazards-they-may-pose/

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Inquiry is ordered into incinerators and health hazards they may pose

by Mark Metcalf, Tribune Magazine

June 8th, 2011

A team from Imperial College, London, has been commissioned to carry out the inquiry by the Health Protection Agency after fears were raised about the health risks of incinerators, particularly for young children.

Dozens of incinerators have been built around the country as Britain struggles to cope with its mounting refuse problems. But campaigners have become concerned that the price is being paid with poor health among babies and infants in the localities where such amenities are sited.

One such activist is Michael Ryan, who lives in Shrewsbury, and who lost his only daughter at 14 weeks – and then suffered further personal tragedies when his teenage son and his mother both died, too. All lived downwind of an incinerator.

Mr Ryan began a painstaking piece of research into the subject of health – and deaths – of people living in close proximity to incinerators. The results from London are startling. In 12 of the capital’s 625 wards, there were no infant deaths between 2002 and 2008. But Southwark, which has two incinerators close by, had the highest rate with 7.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in that period.

Critics say it’s not microscopic particles from incinerators that kill babies and young children, but poverty. And while it is true that some people living close to incinerators are at the lower end of the social scale, Mr Ryan’s research reveals that death rates in more affluent middle class areas are higher if there is an incinerator nearby.

Affluent Chingford Green ward in Waltham Forest has the second highest average number of child deaths in London. It happens to be close to Britain’s largest incinerator.

“If it’s all about poverty, then how come the levels of infant mortality in countryside areas, where wages have always been below average, aren’t high?” asks Mr Ryan.

Now, to cries of “at last” from Mr Ryan, HPA head Justin McCracken has said that following discussions with Professor Paul Elliott, head of the Small Area Health Statistics Unit at Imperial College, it has been “concluded that an epidemiological study of birth outcomes around municipal waste incinerators would produce reliable results. Work is now progressing in developing a detailed proposal for what will be a complex study.”

In 2004, a study in Japan found a “peak decline in risk with distance from the municipal solid waste incinerators for infant deaths and infant deaths with all congenital malformations combined”.