Independence for Scotland will be pointless if we destroy our country with incinerators, fracking, deregulation and government acting in the interests of billionaires and big firms who only want short term profits at everyone else's expense

Unfortunately I didn't get enough votes to be elected ( I got 246 first preference votes and 353 votes - about 6% of those cast , including 2nd and 3rd and 4th preferences before I was eliminated). Not bad on 3 weeks campaigning and a budget of £600. (I was standing as a candidate to be a councillor in the Clydesdale West ward of South Lanarkshire Council).

I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me and campaigned for me and everyone who took the time to talk to me while I was canvassing. I will pass on all the issues you raised to the four candidates who were elected Councillors for the ward - Eileen Logan (Labour) , Lynsey Hamilton (Labour), David Shearer (SNP) and Pat Lee (SNP).

I want to thank retiring SNP Councillor Ian Gray for leading opposition to the incinerator on the planning committee and all the other councillors who voted against it, plus the AGADI organisers and volunteers and objectors and the Lanarkshire Green Party who also continue to campaign hard against it.

Though I was against Conservative councillor Alex Allison's vote in favour of the incinerator and have little time for his party or it's policies, residents in Crossford told me he worked hard for them on other issues, before losing his seat in this ward in the recent election.

I'd also like to congratulate Independent candidate Ed Archer, who was elected a councillor in neighbouring Clydesdale North ward, centred on Lanark; and who is also opposed to the incinerator and to the wind farm at Cartland.

I will be among many people launching campaigns to demand to know why the SNP Scottish Government, led by Alec Salmond, are not using the huge powers they have over council decisions, through control of around 80% of councils' budgets, to get Dovesdale and other wasteful, expensive, toxic, incinerators closed down and replaced with recycling and anaerobic digestion plants - and ditto on stopping fracking and on opening old railway stations (including in Law, where many residents asked for this).

The Scottish Government have demanded a Council Tax freeze from local councils in return for granting them funding (unwisely in my view) and could use the same kind of pressure to get Dovesdale and other Incinerators closed.

They have stepped in to over-rule local council planning decisions on Donald Trump's white elephant golf course (built over an SSSI full of endangered species and also including attempts to force people out of their homes by bully-boy tactics).

Residents in Kilncadzow tell me the Scottish Government also granted appeals to allow wind farms to be built at Kilncadzow and Cartland within 500 metres of peoples' houses, after the local council for once listened to residents and refused planning applications in each case. (Like the residents i'm in favour of turbines sited correctly - but not that close to houses.)

So Salmond and the SNP Scottish Government will intervene to help billionaires and big firms do things that are wrong and harmful, but not to cut funding to South Lanarkshire Council until it closes a toxic, over-priced incinerator? If so what's the difference between them and the other big party leaders?

I love my country and it's people. Alec Salmond and the other big party leaders say they love them too (whether they define them as Scotland or Britain). If you love your country and it's people why would you expose them to over-priced, deadly, wasteful incinerators ; to fracking which will poison our fresh water supplies (an increasingly valuable commodity worldwide with shortages growing in much of the worldwide) and our air and people ; and why would you over-rule local residents and councillors to let arrogant, incompetent billionaires like Trump get their way?

If you really love your country Alec, prove it. Close down the incinerators. Stop the fracking. Open the old railway stations. Regulate the banks. Listen to the people, not to big firms and billionaires who only want short term profit for themselves.

I'll also campaign for independence for Scotland when the referendum comes - i'm all for it to keep us out of Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe more Falklands and Iran wars and financial crises caused by deregulation in which ordinary people die or suffer for the profits of arms and oil firms and banks, and the careers of politicians; plus getting rid of tax havens that impoverish the majority to avoid the wealthiest and big firms paying their share.

But independence will change nothing if we become an independent Scotland destroyed for it's people, because it's run for big business and billionaires' short term profits at the expense of suffering for the vast majority. That would be no better than being part of a UK which is being destroyed in the same way.

Independents, Greens and socialists may not have been able to beat the big parties yet, but by god, if you big party leaders are in office and keep behaving like you are now we'll point up your hypocrisy constantly enough in one campaign after another (at elections and between them) that you'll have to change to more decent policies or else risk losing to one of the other big parties- and then do the same to whichever big party is in next until we get decent policies from them or else win ourselves and bring decent policies in ourselves.

I'll leave the last word to Dougie Maclean.

Incinerators recycle nothing, cause cancers and birth defects, lose more energy than they produce and waste valuable resources

The Scotgen company claim their planned incinerator at Dovesdale farm in South Lanarkshire will create “green energy” by “recycling” waste (1) – (2). This is part of a UK and worldwide attempt at rebranding incinerators. In fact incinerators recycle nothing, produce less energy than will be required to replace the products they incinerate instead of recycling – and emit many toxins which cause cancers (especially in children) and birth defects in babies.

They incinerate plastics in household waste. Plastics are petroleum products – i.e made from oil  - a finite resource which while run out (and become hugely expensive long before then). So it’s madness to burn them rather than recycle what we won’t be able to replace in the long run. Any energy generated is much less than that required to produce new plastic containers to replace those incinerated – a net energy loss  (3) – (4).

Incinerating plastics also releases carcinogenic toxins such as dioxins, heavy metal particulates and nitrogen oxide for at least 14 miles on the wind. These can be inhaled, causing cancers , especially in children - and birth defects in babies; and can contaminate farmland and water, going into the food chain. Scotgen also incinerate industrial toxic waste, which is even more hazardous. While some of the emissions are caught by filters in incinerator chimney stacks or flues, significant amounts are not – and these are the biggest hazard (5) – (12).

One of many babies born with birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, thought to be linked to depleted uranium shells, white phosphorus and other chemical weapons employed by Coalition Forces there in the assaults on the city in 2004. Toxins emitted by incinerators can cause similar deformities in babies

Scotgen made the same claims it’s making for Dovesdale for their existing plant at Dumfries which has never generated a single watt of electricity over a year after it opened;  and exceeded it’s emissions limits (including on dioxins and nitrogen oxide) at least 52 times in it’s first 7 months (13) – (15).

The ‘waste to energy’ claims are just a rebranding of incinerators to make them sound green. In fact they are a dangerous, expensive, short-sighted, quick fix for the landfill problem; which may lead to many deaths. Any short term savings compared to recycling are massively offset by the long term costs in overall energy loss to the country, destruction of plastics which won’t be able to be replaced when oil runs out – and will become increasingly expensive long before it runs out entirely – and in illnesses and deaths caused.

Experts on incineration and waste management like Dr Dick Van Steenis, Dr. Paul Connett, Greenpeace and the US Environmental Protection Agency say superior alternatives exist – recycling, legal limits on the amount and type of materials used in making products and packaging; and making producers of products pay for recycling them and their packaging; plus anaerobic digestion of organic waste (16) – (23).

Dr. Dick Van Steenis - an expert on air pollution's effects on health, one of many to condemn incinerators as unsafe and unnecessary

Recycling would also reduce CO2 emissions massively compared to incineration, reducing the climate change problem posed by incinerators (24) – (25). Existing incinerator projects also show taxpayers’ money spent on incinerators is taken out of councils’ recycling budget.

Any politician or company telling you incineration is a better solution for the landfill (or waste managagement) problem than recycling is selling you a short-term quick fix, on the calculation that they’ll have retired by the time all the longer term costs have to be paid; and that they can attribute cancers, birth defects and other illnesses to other or unknown causes.

South Lanarkshire Council’s planning committee ignored around 20,000 objections against Scotgen’s planned Dovesdale Incinerator to approve it by 14 votes to 9. Every Labour councillor on the committee voted for the incinerator. Every SNP councillor on it voted against. (See below for list of councillors voting for and against, their party affiliations and links to contact details for them).

SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) still has to grant Scotgen a licence to run the plant before Scotgen can begin operations. If you want to find out more about the Incinerator and the campaign against it see the Action Group against Dovesdale Incinerator’s website here. There’s a facebook group against the incinerator here

Councillors voting for the incinerator

Jackie Burns (Labour);Pam Clearie (Labour); James Docherty (Labour) ; Edward Mcavoy (Labour) ;Alex Mcinnes (Labour)  Dennis Mckenna (Labour) ;  Mary Mcneil (Labour) ; Graham Scott (Labour) ; Hamish Stewart (Conservative) ; Chris Thompson (Labour) ; Jim Handibode (Labour) ; Hugh Dunsmuir (Labour) ;  Eileen Baxendale (Liberal Democrat) ;  Alex Allison (Conservative)

Councillors voting against the incinerator

Archie Buchanan (SNP) against. Tommy Gilligan (Independent – no party) against.   Ian Gray (SNP) against. Bill Holman (SNP) against. Jim Wardhaugh (SNP) ; Archie Manson (SNP) ; Claire Mcoll (SNP) ; Lesley Mcdonald (SNP)

Councillors on the planning committee but not present on the day of the vote

Patrick Ross-Taylor (Conservative)   Gerry Convery (Labour)

Source notes

 (1) = Carluke Gazette 10 Feb 2011 ‘No peace at Dovesdale’

(2) = Hamilton Advertiser 29 Jul 2010 ‘Scotgen state case for ‘green energy’ waste plant at Dovesdale Farm’,http://www.hamiltonadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/lanark-and-carluke-news/2010/07/29/scotgen-state-case-for-green-energy-waste-plant-at-dovesdale-farm-51525-26948218/

(3) = Friends of the Earth September 2007 ‘ Up in Smoke – Why FoE opposes Incineration’,http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/up_in_smoke.pdf (see pages 6 - 7 under sub-heading ‘Recycling saves energy’)

(4) = Friends of the Earth October 2009 ‘Gone to waste – the valuable resources that European Countries bury and burn’, http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/gone_to_waste.pdf

(5) = Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Post Note 149 December 2000 ‘Incineration of Household Waste’, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn149.pdf (see especially ‘Pollutants from incineration’ pages 1 – 2 )

(6) =  Allsop et al (2001) ‘Incineration and Human Health’, Greenpeace Research Laboratories & University of Essex, 2001, http://www.cank.org.uk/GreenpeaceHealthReport401.pdf

(7) = Greenpeace background on incineration 30 Nov 2004, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/incineration/the-problem/

(8) = Michela et al (2004) ‘Health effects of exposure to-waste incinerator emissions: a review of epidemiological studies’, http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16117736

(9) = British Medical Journal 22 Jun 2009 ‘Long term exposure to air pollution decreases life expectancy, UK report finds’, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/jun22_2/b2532

(10) = World Health Organisation 2006 ‘Principles for evaluating health risks in children associated with exposure to chemicals’ http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2006/924157237X_eng.pdf (says in summary (pages 1 -4)  that children are at increased risk from chemicals produced by “unsafe waste disposal”(page 3) at certain stages in their development – and on page 18 that it has been shown that “air pollutants”, “heavy metals” and “POPs” (persistant organic pollutants – which include dioxins) have been shown to lead to an increased incidence of diseases in children.)

(11) = Health Protection Scotland (2009) ‘Incineration of Waste and Reported Human Health Effects’,http://www.documents.hps.scot.nhs.uk/environmental/incineration-and-health/incineration-of-waste-and-reported-human-health-effects.pdf

(12) = Evening Times 28 Jul 2010 ‘Waste incinerator company in emission safety breaches’,http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/waste-incinerator-company-in-emission-safety-breaches-1.1044212 ; ‘The firm wants to spend £50 million on an incinerator that would burn household and industrial waste …It would also handle “hazardous” materials’

(13) = http://www.scotgenltd.co.uk/

(14) =  Hamilton Advertiser 14 Oct 2010 ‘Scotgen facility at Dumfries still to produce electricity – more than a year after opening’ http://www.hamiltonadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/hamilton-news/2010/10/14/scotgen-facility-at-dumfries-still-to-produce-electricity-more-than-a-year-after-opening-51525-27465423/

(15) = Evening Times 28 Jul 2010 ‘Waste incinerator company in emission safety breaches’,http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/waste-incinerator-company-in-emission-safety-breaches-1.1044212 ; article says emission breaches included above acceptable levels of nitrogen oxide

(16) = ‘Zero Waste : A Key Move towards an industrial society’ by Paul Connett PhD,http://www.americanhealthstudies.org/zerowaste.pdf

(17) = Yorkshire Post 13 Oct 2010 ‘Incinerator rapped as 19th century’,http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/incinerator_rapped_as_19th_century_1_2596265

(18) = This is Gloucestershire 19 May 2010 ‘Professor Paul Connett wades into the Gloucestershire incinerator debate’, http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/news/Big-Issue-Professor-Paul-Connett-incineration/article-2173050-detail/article.html

(19) = Greenpeace (2001) ‘How to comply with the landfill directive without incineration’,http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/4478.pdf

(20) = Greenpeace ‘Getting to Zero Waste’, http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/4383.pdf

(21) = US Environmental Protection Agency 2009 ‘Opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through materials and land management practices’, http://www.epa.gov/oswer/docs/ghg_land_and_materials_management.pdf

(22) = Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives ‘Solutions’, http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?list=type&type=68

(23) = ' Incinerator Deaths ' by Dr. Dick Van Steenis, http://www.countrydoctor.co.uk/precis/precis%20-%20Incinerator%20deaths%20and%20morbidity.htm

(24) = See (3) above

(25) = See (4) above

Incinerators are most definitely toxic, recycle nothing and waste energy and resources

Some of the people organising and backing the Action Group against the planned waste incinerator at Dovesdale. Scotgen executives claim that to call incinerators toxic is not "reasoned debate". The facts from existing incinerators show otherwise. They also waste energy and resources by incinerating plastics and other materials which could be recycled with far lower emissions of CO2 and without spreading toxic chemicals.

The incinerator which the Scotgen company has applied for planning permission for at Dovesdale farm near Stonehouse is one of many planned by the SNP Scottish Executive and mostly Labour and Lib Dem controlled local councils.

They have been presented by the companies building them, the Scottish Executive, local councils and Westminster governments as a way to reduce landfill of rubbish, as “recycling” and as providing “green energy”.

This is either a mistaken view or a dishonest claim.

Lloyd Brotherton of Scotgen quoted in the Evening Times, claims it’s not “reasoned debate” to describe incinerators as “toxic”. So how should we describe incinerators which emit dioxins, heavy metal particles, acid gases and other toxins which cause cancers,  breathing problems and deaths, especially among children? (1) – (6) Mr Brotherton claims calling something which emits toxins toxic is not “reasoned debate”. What’s his reasoning here?

He claims incinerators “recycle” waste into “low carbon power”. Incinerators don’t recycle anything. They incinerate it, creating a mixture of toxins spread as gases and particles on the wind and toxic ash which must be put into landfill, where it can pollute groundwater and soil (1) – (6).

Toxins from the Dovesdale incinerator could be blown anywhere from Motherwell and Wishaw to Carluke and Stonehouse or anywhere else within around a 14 mile radius from the incinerator if it’s built, depending on which way the wind is blowing at the time.

The amount of energy produced by incinerating plastics and other waste is a fraction of the amount required to manufacture new plastics to replace those incinerated, a massive net loss of energy (7) – (8).

Plastics are made using oil, which is a finite resource – i,.e it will run out one day. It’s madness to incinerate plastics we could recycle. What’s more recycling reduces CO2 emissions massively compared to incineration (7) – (8).

Incinerators also emit more CO2 than gas powered power stations per unit of energy provided (9).

The alternatives to both landfill and incineration are simple; recycle more; regulate packaging; and make producers pay for the safe disposal of products, giving them a profit motive to find recyclable or less toxic alternatives (10) – (13).

Labour MSP Karen Gillon has rightly come out against the incinerator, though MPs whose constituents might be affected have so far failed to take any position on it.

If you want to find out more about the campaign against the Dovesdale incinerator and how to object to the planning application and/or write to your elected representatives about it you can go to the Action Group’s website.

If you want more information about incinerators and alternatives to them in general see links on the Action Group’s website and the footnoted links at the bottom of this post.

Any councillor not voting against the application for the planning incinerator may find their coat’s on a shaky nail in next year’s council elections in Scotland.

The Evening Times photo gives the impression of a handful of people opposing the incinerator. In fact at public meetings in villages and towns organised by the Action Group against Dovesdale Incinerator over a hundred people from each village or town regularly turn out - and thousands of letters and emails are being sent to councillors in objection to the planned incinerator

(1) = Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Post Note 149 December 2000 ‘Incineration of Household Waste’, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn149.pdf (see especially ‘Pollutants from incineration’ pages 1 – 2 )

(2) =  Allsop et al (2001) ‘Incineration and Human Health’, Greenpeace Research Laboratories & University of Essex, 2001, http://www.cank.org.uk/GreenpeaceHealthReport401.pdf

(3) = Greenpeace background on incineration 30 Nov 2004, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/incineration/the-problem/

(4) = Michela et al (2004) ‘Health effects of exposure to-waste incinerator emissions: a review of epidemiological studies’, http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16117736

(5) = British Medical Journal 22 Jun 2009 ‘Long term exposure to air pollution decreases life expectancy, UK report finds’, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/jun22_2/b2532

(6) = World Health Organisation 2006 ‘Principles for evaluating health risks in children associated with exposure to chemicals’ http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2006/924157237X_eng.pdf (says in summary (pages 1 -4)  that children are at increased risk from chemicals produced by “unsafe waste disposal”(page 3) at certain stages in their development – and on page 18 that it has been shown that “air pollutants”, “heavy metals” and “POPs” (persistant organic pollutants – which include dioxins) have been shown to lead to an increased incidence of diseases in children.)

(7) = Friends of the Earth September 2007 ‘ Up in Smoke – Why FoE opposes Incineration’,http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/up_in_smoke.pdf (see pages 6 - 7 under sub-heading ‘Recycling saves energy’)

(8) = Friends of the Earth October 2009 ‘Gone to waste – the valuable resources that European Countries bury and burn’, http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/gone_to_waste.pdf

(9) = Friends of the Earth 03 May 2006 ‘'Green' incineration claims misleading’,http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/green_incineration_claims_02052006.html

(10) = Greenpeace (2001) ‘How to comply with the landfill directive without incineration’,http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/4478.pdf

(11) = Greenpeace ‘Getting to Zero Waste’, http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/4383.pdf

(12) = US Environmental Protection Agency 2009 ‘Opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through materials and land management practices’, http://www.epa.gov/oswer/docs/ghg_land_and_materials_management.pdf

(13) = Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives ‘Solutions’, http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?list=type&type=68

Incinerators and cancers are a poor substitute for regulating materials and packaging

Carluke and Clydesdale residents and councillors are right to be concerned about the plans for a waste incinerator near Blackwood (‘Fears that incinerator could pollute Clydesdale’, Carluke Gazette 22^nd June 2010). The positive gloss usually put on waste incinerators by governments and companies is that they are burning waste to produce “green energy” and “recycling waste” , but incinerators create CO2 emissions and climate change, particularly from hydrocarbon or oil based plastics (1).

The other pollution created by waste incineration is even worse. Dioxins produced by the incineration of plastics and other materials are carcinogens (i.e cause cancer). Particulates and acid gases can cause or worsen breathing problems. Both can be spread over large areas by the wind as ash or gas polluting air, water and land and ingested by humans either directly, by breathing them in, or from drinking water or eating food polluted by them. Ash may also contain toxic heavy metals (2) – (6).

While the amounts of these pollutants have been reduced in newer incinerators there is no guarantee that they have been reduced to a safe level and there is no consensus among scientists about what level of exposure to carcinogens such as dioxins is safe. The level of pollutants created would also surely be affected by what kind of waste was being incinerated (2) – (6).

We certainly have a worldwide problem in how to deal with rubbish, but the best solution would be start with strict government regulation of the types and amounts of packaging allowed for different products, especially food and drink packaging, which accounts for the majority of household waste.

This would minimise the amount of rubbish which would have to go to landfill, incinerators or to be recycled and could help ensure that packaging in future would not be made of materials which would create dioxins or other toxic pollutants when recycled.

The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives suggests producers should be made to pay for the disposal of their products and packaging, to give them a profit motive to use less toxic and more easily recyclable materials (7).

Sources

(1) = Friends of the Earth 2006 ‘Dirty Truths : Incineration and climate change’,

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/dirty_truths.pdf

(2) = Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology Post Note 149 December 2000 ‘Incineration of Household Waste’, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn149.pdf (see especially ‘Pollutants from incineration’ pages 1 – 2 )

(3) = Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 1995, Volume 52, Issue 6 ‘Dioxin concentrations in the blood of workers at municipal waste incinerators’, http://oem.bmj.com/content/52/6/385.abstract

(4) = National Research Council of the National Academies (Washington D.C, US) News Release 11 July 2006 ‘EPA ASSESSMENT OF DIOXIN UNDERSTATES UNCERTAINTY ABOUT HEALTH RISKS AND

MAY OVERSTATE HUMAN CANCER RISK’, http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11688

(5) = National Research Council of the National Academies (Washington D.C, US) 2001 ‘Health Risks from Dioxin and Related Compounds’, http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/nas2006.pdf

(6) = Greenpeace background on incineration 30 Nov 2004, http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/incineration/the-problem/

(7) = Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives – Extended Producer Responsibility,http://www.no-burn.org/article.php?list=type&type=93