Basingstoke, UK. 25 September 2003. From around the UK and around the world, messages of support have been arriving for the Basingstoke Burner Action Campaign. Over 100 environmental organisations and sustainable waste management advocates from 25 countries have written directly to Buckingham Palace appealing to Princess Anne the Princess Royal to stay away from the inauguration of the deceptively named Integra North, New Recovery Centre at Chineham, an incineration plant, on 26 September 2003.

Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University, New York State, a leading expert on waste management for 19 years who has lectured on the subject in 48 countries, comments: “ I am absolutely appalled that Princess Anne is planning to open a municipal waste incinerator in the UK. These monsters have no place in any country, which has expressed the need for a shift towards a sustainable society. Even if you made such an operation safe, you never make it sensible. It simply does not make sense to destroy resources we should be sharing with the future. There is far more energy saved by recycling and reusing than from burning. This is a 19th century invention; it has no place in the 21st century. Please encourage Princess Anne to dissociate herself from this failure of imagination and vision.”

From the Philippines, Von Hernandez, winner of the 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize (dubbed the Nobel Prize for the Environment) and Co-Coordinator of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), writes: “Princess Anne should use the moral and ethical ascendancy her position represents to promote real and lasting solutions to our planet’s waste problems, instead of allowing it to be used by incinerator pushers to perpetuate a dirty practice which has no place in a sustainable future.”

From Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, Bobby Peek, Director of the environmental justice NGO groundWork, writes “It is sad that the UK, who should be at the lead in environmental protection, is allowing such a development to occur. The Princess should speak to the community people before committing her name to such a project opening.”

In the UK Matt Pumfrey, Director of Zero Waste Associates (a consultancy which is advising several local authorities on setting and achieving zero waste targets) said: “As the awareness in sustainability and the environment increases throughout the world, it is a real backward step that someone of the stature of the Princess Royal should be supporting an outdated waste management concept that is clearly unsustainable and still has so many health and environmental questions hanging over it.”

The Senior Toxics Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, Mark Strutt, said “ Hampshire County Council have one of the worst waste management plans in the country. In the face of huge public opposition they have pressed ahead with ill-conceived plans to build three polluting incinerators. It seems they are now trying to rub peoples’ noses in it by inviting Princess Anne to open the plant in Chineham. This plant will spread dioxins and other pollutants on surrounding farmland as well as on local villages and Basingstoke itself. I hope Princess Anne decides not to attend the unwelcome opening of this incinerator.”

Other UK community pressure groups, set up to resist incinerator proposals and persuade local authorities to adopt more modern methods, are equally outraged.

London Against Incineration says they are appalled that the Princess Royal is even considering any link with any incinerator. Spokesman Colin Newman said, “ The incinerating of our waste is dangerous and wasteful. Princess Anne – who is supposed to care about our children – should realise they are the ones at the most risk, as the chemicals that are emitted from an incinerator affect them directly and cause the most harm.”

John Auric, Waste Campaigner for Portsmouth Friends of the Earth who fought strongly against the incinerator now being built there, says “With the Chineham incinerator, the boys behind the bike sheds have created yet another multi-million pound dinosaur which will surely be recycled long before the end of its 25 year life.”

Elleanor Scott, Waste and Toxics Campaigner for Canterbury Friends of the Earth, writes, “ It is most regrettable that Her Royal Highness has agreed to open such a polluting, wasteful and outdated facility. This incinerator should be closed down and the whole idea filed under ‘big mistake’. We had hoped that Her Royal Highness would make a stand for sustainability and sanity in modern waste handling. Her appearance here today at this opening is very disappointing for us all.”

From Liverpool, Ralph Ryder, Coordinator of Communities Against Toxics (CATS) writes, “CATS is a community based organisation working to increase public and political awareness of the dangers to the developing foetus and growing children from the impact of chemicals being released by incinerators. We are extremely disappointed to hear that Her Royal Highness Princess Anne as the Patron of Save the Children Fund is going to participate in the opening of one such facility, i.e. the Basingstoke incinerator this coming Friday.”

Waste Campaigner Ricky Gershon from Aylesbury Vale Friends of the Earth in Buckinghamshire said, “Incinerators produce a whole range of noxious cancer causing chemicals. Here in Aylesbury Vale we fought against a planning application to build the largest UK incinerator with 105 metre tall chimneys. Fortunately for the local communities it was rejected due to massive public protest and strong arguments. The Princess Royal is involved with many children’s charities. It is children who are the most vulnerable to chemical pollutants. To be opening this incinerator is a complete antithesis.”

Barry Robinson of community group Hull Against Incineration comments “Why has Princess Anne been allowed to be used by the Basingstoke incinerator operators to give an air of legality to this monstrous poisoning machine? I do not normally have a lot of time for Royalty, but my heart goes out to this innocent victim of the ‘system’. All concerned should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”

From Derby, Dorothy Skrytek and Chris Clark of local anti-incinerator group SWERVE THE SWERF write “ Future generations should not grow up polluted by dioxin from the new breed on incinerators. I thought Princess Anne was trying to save the children?”

Neil Pitcairn from Redhill in Surrey, Acting Coordinator for the umbrella group Zero Waste Chartists, said “Friday will be a sad day for Hampshire and Basingstoke in particular. It marks the failure of Hampshire Waste Services and Project Integra to develop a sustainable waste policy suitable for the 21st century. They have poured millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into building a white elephant at Chineham. If and when all three incinerators are built in Hampshire, waste will have to be imported into the county to keep them all going; otherwise Hampshire will never reach the 60 and 70% recycling targets now being set by other counties, and which some local authorities abroad are already achieving without incineration.”

He added, “Many people, including councillors, do not realise that waste does not magically disappear when it is burnt. It is a basic law of physics that matter does not vanish. When waste is burnt in the Chineham incinerator, around one third will come out again as ash, much of it toxic and requiring special landfill. The other two thirds will go up the chimney to be scattered on the heads of the people of North Hampshire and Surrey. Valuable recyclable materials are destroyed in the process.”

Mr. Pitcairn concluded, “ It is a complete fallacy for Hampshire Waste to say that incineration is necessary to reduce what is sent to landfill. Cheaper, more flexible, more sustainable and less polluting techniques are now available for recovering value from and treating what is known as residual waste. Other waste authorities like Lancashire are moving in that direction. It is a great shame that Hampshire seems determined to adopt obsolete and expensive technology. The Chineham incinerator is an unnecessary anachronism. If Princess Anne does come, let us hope that she puts her hand on the STOP button and keeps it there”

Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator of Essex Friends of the Earth and also a Zero Waste Chartist, has carefully compared the waste plans and associated costs of Hampshire and Essex, and she is highly critical of Project Integra. “The costs of powerful French incinerator company Onyx’s Project Integra, with its major centralised waste facilities, were in 2001 50% more than what all the Essex districts spent on waste treatment that year. The best Essex area recycles 59%. In 2002 Essex districts averaged 24% recycling and rising, compared to Hampshire’s struggling 22% and pleading that they could not reach statutory targets.”

Mrs. Whitney adds “Last October Essex County Council employed Graham Tombs, former Chief Executive of Onyx’s Project Integra, as our Head of Waste. Essex people were told that proposed major facilities on the identified incinerator sites would cost council taxpayers 60% more than the present systems of kerbside recycling collections. Would Hampshire like Tombs back?”

ENDS

Further information: Email Neil Pitcairn or call him at (Tel. 0794-9066702)

Notes for Editors:
1) Zero Waste Chartists is an informal alliance of community and environmental groups and sustainable waste specialists from across the United Kingdom. It receives no government or industry funding, but has the moral support of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.
One of the key objectives of the Zero Waste Chartists is to promote the Zero Waste Charter, a ten point plan for sustainable waste management which was launched at a Parliamentary lobby in June 2002, and which has been adopted by several local authorities. The Charter bans the thermal treatment (incineration) of mixed waste.

2) Appeals to the Princess Royal not to open the Chineham incinerator have been made directly to Buckingham Palace Press Office from the following countries: Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, USA. Details are available on request.