Do you remember the days when the City Councillors took the time, by means of smoke and mirrors, to weave the illusion of doing the people's bidding? Now however, they are so arrogant that they don't even bother with that thin veneer of illusion, they just ride roughshod over the will of the people in an attempt to appease big business. Today they see themselves as managing our city and its assets to suit the corporate world, the people are a bit of an inconvenience. What does the health of the people matter if there is money to be made for their corporate masters.
25 Years of Pollution and Congestion for Southside Residents
This from a friend and comrade, C L:
It is now known
that Glasgow City Council has already signed a 25 year contract with
a company called Viridor to deal the City’s refuse, even before
planning permission has been granted for the plant. They plan to
build a recycling and gasification (yes a big incinerator to you and
me) facility at Polmadie; but don’t worry, the planning authority
is Glasgow City Council! At a time when other countries such as
Sweden are moving away from incineration to deal with their rubbish,
it seems the City Council is determined to commit us to having this
toxic monstrosity on our doorstep for the next quarter of a century
or more. Local people are understandably angry about this and have
many valid objections to this scheme including the following:
As the client and
planning authority Glasgow City Council has a clear conflict of
interest and must not decide the outcome of the planning application.
The contract guarantees a minimum amount of waste that will be
provided for the plant. This in itself will make recycling less
attractive as it reduces the amount of waste for burning. Recycling
is not only less wasteful of natural resources but will create many
times more jobs locally than burning the rubbish will. If the
Council can’t fulfil this commitment to provide enough waste, it
will be liable for penalties or will have to bring in refuse from
other areas increasing pollution and congestion.
Local residents are very
concerned about the pollution from the plant including highly toxic
nitrous oxide (NOx) and dioxins resulting from combustion at the site
as well as disturbance and traffic congestion from its 24 hour
operation . Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of
extremely low concentrations of these chemicals. There are many
schools including Holyrood, the largest secondary in Scotland, in the
surrounding area.
This part of Glasgow
already is an area of social deprivation, poor health and low life
expectancy. It is also adjacent to the motorway network. To
introduce another source of pollution and traffic will only serve to
compound these factors and reduce further social and health
inequalities.
There has been no proper
consultation by the company with the local population as required by
law. Only a small proportion of households have received information
from Viridor.
A number of well attended
public meetings have been held and a campaign group has formed. At
present the effort is concentrating on written objections to the
planning application and lobbying councillors. Whilst that is
useful, I'm sure you all, like me, have previous experience with so called elected
councillors who ignore the people that they claim to represent. If
we really intend to stop this plant being built we must get ready to
take direct action to stop it. We the people have the power, not
these self-serving politicians and it is about time we showed them
who decides these important matters!
For more information
search Facebook for Glasgow Alternatives to Incineration or email
glasgowgain@gmail.com
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