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Did you know, you have already been consulted on the proposal to build a 250,000 tonne per year Waste Incinerator 'on your door step'?
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Apparently it has been well advertised gaining significant public support (just 27 people across all Cambridgeshire!)
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Your District Councillor and County Councillor have known about this for months, describing it as a "Waste Recovery Facility".
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Was it a coincidence, the Public Consultation happened during the Christmas Holiday period?
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Did you know, Oxides of Nitrogen are measured continually but other pollutants including Arsenic, Cadmium, Mercury, Chromium and Dioxins are only checked for up to 8 hours twice per year?
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Did you know it would be the company's own contractor doing the emission checking, then submitting their test results to the Environment Agency? The company being Amey (recently in the news for pollution at their existing Waterbeach facility).
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Did you know the Environment Agency accepts 'Modern Incinerators' can produce Dioxins many time over the permitted limit for months at a time, while deemed to be operating as "Normal"?
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If you didn't know about the incinerator, it's now time to ask questions. Ask your councillor to arrange a public meeting where those for and against the incinerator have equal time to fairly make their case.
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Tell your Parish Councillor, District Councillor, County Councillor and MP if you were not aware of the 'well publicised' public consultation for the incinerator.
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Did you know that there are already enough waste incinerators built, or approved to be built, to handle all of the UK's waste that can't be recycled.
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Do you want your rubbish to be burnt or would you rather more be invested in better recycling?
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Did you know our recycling rates are getting worse not better in Cambridgeshire. East Cambs managed 52.4% 2016/17, a drop of 4% since 2015/16. South Cambs managed 46.1% 2016/17, dropping a massive 11.4% since 2015/16. Compare this to Powys in Wales who achieved 65.2% 2016/17.
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Did you know that Amey Cespa plans to import municipal waste to burn from 12+ counties, and reserve 1/3 of the incinerator capacity for geographically unrestricted commercial waste contracts, meaning Cambridge will become a UK centre for burning rubbish.
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Did you know the planned building will have a chimney that is 80 meters tall!
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Amey Cespa still have not submitted clear figures on the increase on HGV lorry movements. There will be more lorries bringing waste from other areas to feed the incinerator and making their return journeys. There will be additional lorries taking the toxic ash away to hazardous waste plants, and making their return journeys. This will all contribute to an increase in air pollution, traffic congestion and noise.
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Did you know about the problems with monitoring the toxins that come out of the incinerator:
At present, monitoring only measures particles that are 10 microns in diameter or smaller, known as PM10s. But they don't look for anything smaller than PM2.5s which are a quarter of the size, and if they do, they only go by the weight of particles that are released, and not the number. But measuring weight is useless. The PM2.5 particles are much more dangerous as they can slip past the human body's defences and be absorbed through the skin or respiratory system. Billions of these dangerous tiny particles that don't weigh very much can be released but are not covered by any monitoring.
The toxins that come out of the incinerator chimney (stack) include arsenic, mercury, cadmium and dioxins and they can accumulate in our environment over time.
Head here to see what small but meaningful things you can do to help, and here if you want to email councillors your thoughts (template letters for inspiration)
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