What a load of rubbish!
9:34pm Monday 21st April 2008
Would you want to live next to a landfill site?
I had the unpleasant experience of seeing Arpley landfill today-the largest in the UK I believe. From a distance it was a blot on an otherwise lovely view with several enormous vehicles crawling all over the surface like scavenging insects. I had no idea it was so large.
I fully appreciate that we have an urgent waste problem but strongly feel that sticking it all in the ground is not the solution.
The planet is rapidly running out of resources, yet the quick-fix solution to our waste mountain is not to sort it all out and rescue what we can for re-use or recycling (and create a glut of new jobs on the way), but to dump it -what a complete waste of waste!
I wonder how many years it will be before we are compelled to mine these landfills for all the valuable aluminium we put there.
Will our children's children wonder at our stupidity?
Another problem is the kinds of waste being dumped. Some landfills are licensed to take hazardous waste, but in 2002 The Lancet documented a study that showed babies born within 3km of such a landfill are 40% more likely to be born with chromosomal abnormalities such as Down's syndrome.
Potentially toxic chemicals can also leak into soil and groundwater and pose obvious hazards should they be on our drinking water supplies.
Biodegradable waste also poses problems -if we put food waste, garden waste and paper into landfill, it becomes so compressed and in the absence of air (oxygen specifically) different bacteria break it down- anaerobically. This produces methane gas, which apart from being smelly and explosive also contributes to global warming, much more aggressively than carbon dioxide. This gas can remain in landfills for several hundreds of years - what if we have another earthquake? Other problems include increased numbers of vermin, noise, litter and traffic.
Isn't it time to drastically reduce our waste production, sensibly sort out and re-use or recycle as much of it as we can and put an end to this damaging and wasteful strategy of disposal?
Currently in Warrington, the Risley Landfill Opposition Group is campaigning against the proposed extension of Risley Landfill.
As they so vociferously say in their campaigning "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"
The appeal begins at 10am Tue 22nd April to Fri 25th April at the Halliwell Jones Rugby Stadium.