The local councils of Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Kingston have joined together to create the “South London Waste Plan”. The public face of this plan is the need to move away from landfill and comply with
mandated targets by 2020, however the ongoing public consultation indicates the intention to build and operate an incineration facility in Beddington to burn waste.
In a truly Orwellian use of language, this is being described as “renewable energy from waste management”. It does not need to be the 5th November to remember that bonfires pollute the air and damage our health, yet our local councils plan to burn more than effigies of the unfortunate Guido Fawkes. Consider the fact that the United Kingdom remains the only country in Europe to permit the incineration of radioactive medical waste and combine this with market forces and it does not take a master’s degree in business to imagine where vast quantities of hazardous waste will be sent for disposal.

The public consultation appears to be fundamentally and deliberately flawed. There are countless discrepancies between the short publicly distributed leaflets and the much longer documents available online and sometimes only on specific request. Anyone familiar with Douglas Adams will get the picture; as the Vogons would say, “All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years”.

It is important that local residents demand straight answers from their council and insist that plans to
endanger the health of citizens by burning waste and thereby releasing dioxins, other carcinogens and
innumerable toxins in the name of private profit be brought into the crucible of public debate.
Croydon and Sutton’s shameful recycling rate adds fuel to the imminent fire and although alternatives exist, the cheap and dirty solution offers the greatest profit.

The Green Party believes that people come before profit and that our waste management policy should not be responsible for a murderous plume spreading across our boroughs.

The Croydon and Sutton Green Party prepared an extensive outline response to the questions posed by the consultation. Click here to download the PDF.