Protest against clinical waste incinerator near Harthill

Apr 28 2011 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A PROTEST against a planned clinical waste incinerator near Harthill is to take place this weekend.

Residents of Harthill, Eastfield, Greenrigg, Shotts, Breich and Fauldhouse have all raised concerns about plans to build a waste treatment facility at Hassockrigg, a former opencast mine site on Shotts Road.

Healthcare Environmental Services lodged a planning application with North Lanarkshire Council in February to relocate an existing clinical waste treatment facility from the Centrelink 5 industrial complex in Shotts and add an advanced thermal treatment plant.

A Facebook page called “Say No: The Incinerator Must Go” has already attracted 325 members while members of the campaign have collected hundreds of signatures on petitions from nearby communities.

Now a peaceful protest has been arranged to take place at Hassockrigg between 7 and 8pm on Saturday, April 30.

The protest organisers say they are worried about the smell and other potential hazards that will result in medical waste being burnt at the facility.

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) have already objected to the application on the grounds of lack of information.

In their objection letter, dated March 29, SEPA wrote: “To date insufficient information has been submitted to allow for determination of whether the development would comply with SEPA's thermal treatment of waste guidelines.”

It also adds that there had been 13 complaints about odour received about the existing clinical waste facility at Centrelink 5 during 2010.

Referring to the complaints, the letter continued: “Six of which were substantiated by SEPA officers as constituting offensive odour beyond the boundary of the site and breaches of permit condition. The source of the complaint on each occasion was attributed to the release of emissions from the autoclave steam system via the existing condenser.

“It is noted that there are a number of residential receptors in proximity to the proposed site with the closest being around 170m. The complaints received from the existing Shotts facility have varied from 50 to 300m from site.

“Therefore on the basis of the odour issues at the existing site and the potential proximity to sensitive receptors we seek that the applicant submit an odour impact assessment.”