Recycling company doesn’t care about the health of sick children

RECYCLING COMPANY DOESN’T CARE ABOUT THE HEALTH OF SICK CHILDREN

[CWMFELINFACH, CAERPHILLY, MARCH 20TH 2018] PEOPLE WITH BREATHING PROBLEMS SHOULD JUST WAIT FOR CLEANER LORRIES TO BE DEVELOPED, THE COMPANY BUILDING A CONTROVERSIAL WASTE HEATING AND PROCESSING FACILITY IN THE SIRHOWY VALLEY HAS CLAIMED. In a recent news report [1] in the South Wales Argus about the Flatman family, the company appeared to concede that it would add to the Valley’s existing high levels of dangerous nitrogen dioxide but held out the hope that technology might offer future solutions.

Families with children with breathing difficulties are planning to move away as are local employers. “We can’t risk our child having a fatal asthma attack today while we wait for some new clean technology that may never arrive,” said a concerned mother.

The families’ concerns have intensified since the Argus asked Hazrem to comment on the earlier story. A spokesman told the newspaper “The main cause of nitrogen dioxide within the area is from existing traffic emissions, and these will reduce as vehicles are replaced and emission standards improve”.

The facility will require hundreds of additional HGVs each day to bring waste to the facility when it starts operating, probably in 2019. More lorries will take away pellets. All will add to the existing traffic emissions.

Shocked residents discovered that Caerphilly County Borough Council had not even received responses from Public Health Wales and their Environmental Health Officer before recommending planning be granted.

“This is, at best, horrendous incompetence,” said Jan Jones (retired Councillor). “In a poor community such as the Lower Sirhowy Valley which is in the 6th bottom percentile for health in Wales, how can professional planners ignore this issue?”

Hazrem Environmental Ltd. were granted planning permission for a recycling facility by Caerphilly County Borough Council in 2015. After applying for a permit to heat waste to create a fuel called RDF, to Natural Resources Wales, they were initially denied the permit citing concerns by the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Public Health Wales and considerable protest by the community, local councillors, the local AMs and Chris Evans, MP.

The community is worried that the facility itself will also add to the already high levels of Nitrogen Dioxide. Hazrem will be responsible for monitoring its own emissions, not a government body or a body funded by the Welsh Assembly Government such as Natural Resources Wales.

The community is planning to carefully monitor the traffic as current heavy goods vehicles already damage their parked cars as they navigate the narrow access road B4251 that goes to Nine Mile Point. Gill Woolley,

67 of Wattsville, said: “I have lived here almost 49 years we have seen a number of fatalities on this road. “I don’t want my grandchildren to be the next ones.”

The community is also planning to monitor the air pollution generated by the facility using specialist monitoring equipment because they have no faith in the self-monitoring provided for in the permit granted by Natural Resources Wales.

Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales is looking into a pattern of permit decisions made by Natural Resources Wales, in particular the Barry Biomass plant and the Hazrem waste treatment facility.

The community hopes intervention by the Commissioner and the Minister for Environment, Hannah Blythyn AM will step in and realise that while the waste treatment facility is a good idea, the Lower Sirhowy Valley with its high valley walls and temperature inversion that traps pollution under the lid, is the wrong place for the facility.

Hyderus is a specialised consultancy in public health communications and policy which works on some of the most exciting and important issues of the 21st century._