David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Guardian

The Environment Agency admitted yesterday to MPs that it had no idea how dangerous Britain's new generation of incinerators
will be to public health.

Paul Leinster, director of environment protection at the agency, told the Commons environment sub-committee investigating
waste strategy that the evaluation of dangers of air pollution to public health "were at an early stage".

The admission came after pressure from Hilary Benn, Labour  MP for Leeds Central, and Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP for
Reigate. It comes as the Treasury confirmed to MPs that at least eight new in cinerators will be built as part of new schemes
approved under the government's private finance initiative.

The agency told MPs that a private consultancy, Entech, employed by them had made a major error on the number of the
number of deaths and hospital admissions that would be caused by emissions from incinerators, and figures of 88 deaths and
168 hospital admissions every year were not accurate. No new figures are available at the moment.

Mr Leinster told Mr Blunt: "We are really at only an early stage at finding out how public health will be affected by the building of incinerators."

Earlier Lord Cranbrook, the chairman of Entrust, defended the private regulatory body which monitors £350mof environmental
grants, which had been at the centre of an investigation by the Guardian earlier this year.

The body checks the probity of the cash which is donated by waste companies in lieu of paying 20% of the new landfill tax.
Lord Cranbrook said the Guardian's allegations that Entrust was presiding over a flawed initiative dominated by the waste industry and to the benefit of some local councils were "unfounded".

He said that the paper's investigation had made the body "sharpen up its procedures - but it also proved that its system
worked". He said that the Guardian had not uncovered anything that breached regulations.

Jonathan Theobald
Wednesday January 16, 2002
The Guardian

The prospect of hundreds of thousands of tons of rubbish being burnt in giant incinerators near people's homes has inflamed communities around Britain and led to massive demonstrations and embarrassment to councils. In Guildford the council was forced on to the backfoot and astonished by the grassroots opposition to its plans to build three incinerators. Some 42,000 residents wrote to object and the council eventually allowed only one.

This week in Wrexham, a petition of 13,000 names collected in just a few days was handed to a Welsh MEP to try to stop the council building a massive plant. And in Newcastle upon Tyne, residents who are part of the Ban waste group have come up with an alternative plan to incineration following the scandal of the city council's disposal of toxic waste from an incinerator.

There are up to 50 incineration plans being opposed at present, yet nowhere is it more controversial than in Essex. County hall in Chelmsford has been the scene of major demonstrations, and one version of the county's waste plan provoked 15,000 individuals to object.

With government policy threatening to land some 165 massive incinerators in Britain's towns and countryside and a history of lax pollution controls, Essex Tories took advantage of the growing opposition to incinerators at last year's local elections. They warned voters: "If you want an incinerator, vote Labour. If you don't, vote Conservative." They won by a landslide.

Yet, just one month later, the new Conservative administration startled some of its own supporters and reversed its policy, ratifying the incineration policy. Six possible sites were named.

Now three residents who share a passion for recycling rather than burning rubbish are taking Essex council to court. Last week, their lawyers lodged papers in the high court, arguing that councillors who decided against a no-incineration policy were wrongly advised by council officers.

Cllr Ron Williams, cabinet member responsible for waste, denied that the council was at fault. He said: "Essex county council operates in a legal and statutory framework. The council has taken account of all material factors, though controversial, and reached a proper and democratic decision. This legal challenge will be defended thoroughly."

The stakes are high. With Essex households chucking out 650,000 tonnes a year of food, plastic, cans, furniture, lawn mower clippings and other rubbish, disposal is a huge operation. Incinerating all of it could cost something like £30m a year at current rates.

Waste companies are now rubbing their hands at the prospect of long term, build-and-operate private finance (PFI) contracts, which may be backed by government loans and subsidies.

But the stakes are also high for the objectors, who face costs of more than £50,000 if they lose and can ill afford it.

Two of the objectors are retired - Paula Whitney, a grandmother and former junior school teacher; and Neville Jessop, who used to build weapon systems for Marconi, and now chairs Sandon parish council, one of the sites threatened. The third, Graham Pooley, a Liberal Democrat member of Chelmsford borough council, is a management consultant.

They make a formidable team. Councillors who have met Whitney, who is a long time voluntary member of Colchester and north-east Essex Friends of the Earth, credit her with making waste a major issue in Essex. Peter Thompson, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Colchester, said she has been "the driving force" behind the setting-up of an 11-strong consortium of district councils that is putting money into schemes that reduce greenhouse gases by composting garden waste and recycling paper, tins and plastic.

"Colleagues rate her as a pain, but then they say thank God for her. She's always coming up with valuable information, organising seminars, and lobbying. She never gives up. But council officers hate her because she has the information to challenge their advice and she knows far more than councillors."

Whitney accuses Tory Essex county councillors of an "abuse of the democratic process", and complains that council officers have been covertly determined to force incineration into the waste plan. She cites environment minister Michael Meacher. Last month he told parliament there was no legal requirement for waste disposal authorities to include incineration in their plans.

She says the three are risking savings and retirement plans because the Essex waste plan is crucial, and they want to alert campaigners elsewhere.

"Once incineration is in the plan and the sites are identified then you're doomed," she says. "When the planning application comes in objections won't get a hearing, no matter how strong they are."

And once incinerators are built, existing recycling initiatives are also likely to be doomed while others may not get off the ground. Incinerators need a constant supply of material. Paper and plastic bottles, the foundations of any recycling scheme, are equally essential to keeping incinerators burning.

The irony is that Essex boasts award-winning recycling schemes, and some communities have achieved nearly 60% recycling in some places. The government's own target of 33% of waste to be recycled by 2015 is feeble by comparison.

For Mark Strutt, waste campaigner with Greenpeace, the legal challenge is part of a fight for the future shape of industry. "We want producers to take responsibility for making the materials they use recyclable," he says. "That way consumers pay for disposal when they buy a product rather than everyone paying for it with both their health and their taxes."

The high court challenge comes at a critical time. "Most councils are still producing their waste plans," says Strutt. "They had better watch out. This action is just a symptom of the hostility to incinerators being expressed throughout the country."