Rugby In Plume!
Waste and Cement: a n unlikely combination? Until you think of using cement
kilns as high temperature incinerators of waste fuels such as paints, inks and
dyes, that is. A number of cement plants across the country have been burning
liquid wastes as a supplementary fuel, the most notorious being the plant in
Clitheroe, Lancashire. The huge and recently expanded cement works at Rugby have
just announced that they will burn waste fuels on a trail basis. This has caused
much local concern and a public meeting was held in September. Tom Helberg of
Coventry FOE adressed a packed hall of over 200 people including local MP Andy
King, the Environment Agency, Rugby Cement and a campaigner from Wiltshire who
is forcing a Judicial Review on the management of trials in the West Country.
Current public laundering of the Environment Agency didn't do their case much
good and Tom reminded Andy King that Tony Blair himself had broken a promise
to his Sedgefield constituency back in 1994 over a cement kiln burning waste
fuels. As Tom Helberg sai d, 'The trials may go ahead but they will be the most
closely observed yet, and if there is an unexplained excess of mercury thallium
or any other nasties then the EA will have a lot of hard decisions to make.'
Mark Hammond, Rugby FOE
Tom Helberg, Coventry FOE