Edmonton incinerator expansion 'fundamentally unjust', say residents

Georgia Elliott-Smith lives near the Edmonton EcoPark waste incinerator in north London. It sits in one of the poorest areas in the country, where 65% of the residents are from ethnic minority backgrounds and air pollution already breaches legal limits.

The waste-to-energy incinerator is run by the North London Waste Authority (NLWA), serves seven London local authorities, and is planning to expand to increase its capacity by 200,000 tonnes.

“When you walk around the neighbourhood around this incinerator, it’s already a very industrial area,” Elliott-Smith, of the group Stop the Edmonton Incinerator, said. “There’s waste handling areas, depots, you can drive up and see the open doors of where the waste trucks go in – and all the bushes are full of plastic bags blowing around.”

Elliott-Smith pointed out the contradiction between the decision to expand the Edmonton facility and the government’s rejection of an incinerator in a leafy part of Cambridgeshire last month.

“An incinerator was rejected … because it wasn’t in keeping with the local neighbourhood, because they’ve got a lot of ancient buildings in that area. Yet … in Edmonton, where there’s a lack of historic buildings and leafy neighbourhoods, apparently [an incinerator] is in keeping with … where we live,” she said.

As well as the noise, dirt and pollution, Elliott-Smith said the use of incineration by the local authorities – Camden, Barnet, Enfield, Islington, Haringey, Hackney and Waltham Forest – meant recycling rates were low, at 30%.

“Lots of people do not have access to recycling in my area. There are local authority flats with no access to recycling, and my son’s primary school has to pay for separate recycling. As a result, everything goes into mixed bins that go straight to the incinerator.”

She believes the expansion is part of a “progressive creep” of one pollutant after another, which create a significant burden on the residents. “We know that the World Health Organization says there is no safe limit for particulates,” she said.

“Would you buy a house next to an incinerator? Would you be happy to breathe what comes out of an incinerator? Because if you’re not, then turn around and tell me that the risk is negligible.”

The NLWA admits that waste from other areas will be brought to Edmonton – an urban, heavily populated and deprived part of the UK – to be incinerated. “It makes absolutely no sense. And we think that it’s fundamentally unjust,” said Elliott-Smith.

The campaign against the incinerator also highlights the impact on climate change of CO₂ emissions from the incinerator and the fact that companies pay no tax for incineration.

The Labour MP for Edmonton, Kate Osamor, wants an immediate pause and review of the expansion of the site, saying it will produce more than 700,000 tonnes of CO₂ every year, and emit particulate matter that can damage the lungs of children.

A report by anti-incinerator campaign group UKWIN has stated that the UK’s 42 municipal waste incinerators released a combined total of nearly 11m tonnes of CO₂ in 2017. The report said analysis of the composition of the waste revealed that around half of waste in the residual waste stream sent to energy from waste facilities was recyclable.

A spokesperson for the NLWA said the expanded facility would be a world-class sustainable waste hub for north London’s two million residents. “The new Edmonton energy Energy Recovery Facility will not result in a deterioration in air quality. It will be fitted with a higher level of emission controls than most other energy-from-waste plants in the UK.

“[It] will be the first in the UK to operate using selective catalytic reduction to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions to well below the stringent requirements of the emission limits set by the European Union.

“The contribution of the facility to local residents’ exposure to air pollutants is extremely small. Public Health England is clear that modern, well-run and -regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health.”