SHOULD REGULATORS PASS KILLING & MAIMING IN CAMBS??

  Should you reside or work within 22 miles of Barrington , which includes Cambridge , Saffron Walden, Royston & numerous villages, please read on.  An outline planning application by the cement company is before the council. It involves erection of a cement works burning many types of hazardous waste known as a co-incinerator. Incineration of waste causes a shortening of lifespan of up to 12 years often in the prime of life by increasing a range of diseases especially cancers. A 20 year university led study in Belgium detailed diseases and deaths caused during  years 1 to 5, 6 to 10 and 11 to 20, ending up with a 480% rise in cancer incidence. A cement plant is allowed some 5 times the level of emissions of an incinerator and is allowed unlimited emissions out of its bypass unlimited times per year. The high chimney will spread the damage 22 miles.  Because of low oxygen levels in cement plants, there will be more heating rather than burning of waste, creating incompletely burned compounds and vaporising heavy metals making the particulates even more lethal when you inhale them into your lungs.  A fuel data sheet reveals that one brand of waste mix used in UK cement plant contains over 20 times the heavy metals than coal but the numbers of PM2.5 particles with them would be nearer 50000 times higher in the air you breathe using a coal & waste mix as fuel. Your health can be put at risk for 2 days just from an hour’s exposure if the wind blows the PM2.5s your way.  Readers should be aware that further interaction between gasses and ultrafine particles in the air from not just the proposed plant but other industry such as the existing cement works and delivery vehicles will form new added secondary PM2.5 particulates effectively trebling the proposed plant’s effects on health.  

  When coal is burned, particulates emitted average PM5, which do not get into the lungs as only PM2.5 and smaller gets into your breathing tubes. When oily and other waste is burned with coal, the particle size gets much smaller to PM2, hence particulates reach into the bottom of your lungs, the soluble fraction going into the bloodstream and entering your cells, while the insoluble fraction is partly dealt with by macrophages and T-lymphocytes with the remainder walled off in the lungs causing COPD. When in the cells, mutations will occur due to heavy metals and PAHs and dioxins. Unless you have adequate selenium in your blood to neutralise the metals, the mutations lead to birth defects and cancers. In USA even12 year olds had 20% loss of lung function from PM2.5 induced COPD.  Particulates emitted by the Barrington cement works using say 30% waste in 2002, were measured averaging PM2.2 –a very bad size to inhale.  The proposed new plant will be bigger, hence worse risk.  All existing plant really should be fitted with stack-top PM2.5 German factory sealed PM2.5 beta monitors with real-time data  to internet, operator, PCT, EA & council. There are stack top dioxin monitors available. Dioxins can form up the chimney or in the bypass.  Cement quality can also suffer by using waste.

  The UK , unlike USA , refuses to measure what goes into your lungs namely PM2.5s to enable companies to maximise profit. The IPPC law was downgraded by Prescott in 2000 to more or less “anything will do” status. Councils only measure irrelevant PM10s down to PM4s. The Environment Agency & councils have been told not to bother much with air pollution. The Environment Agency truthfully state that they know nothing about health. Far worse, the Health Protection Agency follows on from the Guy’s Hospital unit director who said “Air pollution does not exist”. So without knowledge of toxicology or possessing adequate data they only heed government “spin” and “reviews” and “diktat”, while admitting they really know nothing. The PCT Public Health directors in the UK are also totally ignorant of the subject, so pressurised by conflicts of interest or political “spin”, they are exposed as not having learnt the subject or checked data on their own computers or checked studies done worldwide. It is up to you, the reader, to challenge the PCT public health directors whom the GMC say must know the subject and be up to date and listen to public and colleagues. The Environment Agency cannot finally authorise any application unless council and PCT public health director have both passed it.

 It is up to you to challenge councillors to refuse the application on the grounds of being the wrong technology to handle waste and not best available tecnique.  The OKOPOL EC report of 1999 revealed how cement works can reduce emissions to incinerator levels but this is ignored in the UK . For every £1 spent on abatement there is a saving of £6 in the NHS and £4 in social security costs. In USA where the USEPA set PM2.5 limits in 1997 and prosecuted oil, power & steel companies in 2000/2001 the savings to the US taxpayer on just hospital savings and days off work savings totalled $193 billion by mid 2003. In the UK the opposite happened so the NHS has almost collapsed and productivity is plummeting, with chronic sick pay soaring. The total NHS cost of this virtually unregulated industrial air pollution is nearing £34 billion pa. It must also be understood that there will be cumulative impacts in the body and synergistic effects for example cadmium & lead in the body will multiply the effects of mercury by 50 times – which will facilitate development of ADHD and autism processes.

  The only safe way of handling waste is plasma-gasification which runs on electricity, produces vitrified gravel, hydrogen & electricity –all for sale- and has almost zero emissions at a nett cost of about £21 per ton compared with incinerators £63 per ton plus another £63 of health damage per ton plus huge volumes of toxic ash for disposal. Who has the morals to protect the public??

The range of illnesses caused by inhaling PM2.5 particulates from waste burning include----

Birth defects—terminations, live defects, miscarriages.

Premature deaths of babies, infants and adults

T-lymphocyte diversion to lungs with depletion causes SIDS, cot deaths, autism, MS, GBS

Attention deficit and other behaviour problems.

Lower IQ & educational achievement down 2 years, worse GCSE grades

Asthma, COPD, viral & bacterial respiratory & other infections (especially boys)

Coronary heart disease, heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, strokes, SADS.

Diabetes type 2, sometimes type 1 ---note trebling under current government

Multiple chemical sensitivity with allergies & arthritis

ME, CFS, Hypothyroidism with low T3 level (adding to obesity)

Endometriosis and other hormone disruption.

Clinical depression & suicides, apathy, which increases the obesity problem.

CANCERS—nonHodgkins lymphoma, brain, breast, colon, lung, prostate, kidney, liver etc

Breast cancer for example can be caused by faulty genes (2%), HRT (5%) radiation, OP pesticides/herbicides, and from chimneys—cadmium, dioxins (& similar), & PAHs

The Chief Medical Officer wrote to doctors in January 2006 about the recent trebling of gastroschisis birth defects, caused by dioxin exposure, proving that using hazardous waste fuel mixes even in alleged “state of the art” incinerators etc. is callous unsafe government policy.

Analysis of 9 health parameters in Telford by ward in 2005 revealed massive increases in illnesses and standardised mortality rates in 7 polluted wards compared with 24 less polluted wards.

An incinerator built in Colnbrook in 1990 caused Slough SMR to worsen from 88 to 121 by 2001 meaning 11 years lopped off lifespan. Will you now work for Cambridge ’s health??

335 references are available to those interested and peer-reviewed reports in medical journals. Those with internet can check www.ukhr.org and www.countrydoctor.co.uk (under pollution at bottom of main page) for more details. Local contacts are below. It is up to you to act or you will have the consequences imposed on you. The regulators normally just follow government diktat.

--Compiled by Dr. Dick van Steenis MBBS who has reports in 4 peer-reviewed medical journals.

17 Feb. 2006 :                  

GLOSSARY                           

PM = Particulates measured in microns          PCT = Primary Care Trust

COPD = Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease                           

EA = Environment Agency                         IPPC = Integrated Pollution & Prevention Control

GMC = General Medical Council                 USEPA = USA Environmental Protection Agency

PAH = Poly-Aromatic Hydrocarbons          ADHD = Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

 (20/2/06)

Ed:  Two weeks after the enquiry, after facing Dr van Steenis and his evidence, the Applicant withdrew his application.

(24/4/06)