Correspondence Received
From Waste to Resource Recovery
Yesterday evening I heard a speaker from your group addressing North Tyneside Friends of the Earth and got quite excited that a new and dynamic group is making such strides in our region. You seem to be very much in the position that our group was in several years ago in opposition to the Byker Incinerator. We had a successful result and I'm sure you will, but along the way we started to question not just the wisdom of landfill or incineration, but the very policy of operating in such a 'wasteful' way. As someone said in a few years time we will be trawling through old landfill sites to recover the resources we are squandering now.
That led us to think about how we could move toward a zero waste, resource recovery approach based on re-use and recycling. A select committee and several reports later we are a lot clearer about where we want to be. It's been hard work persuading Newcastle City Council that there is another way forward and we are still not fully there yet. But we are now working in partnership with them and we are changing things for the better. At least Newcastle has got a waste policy, which from a trawl of their website is more than can be said for North Tyneside.
I will leave it there for now, except to say that we will be supplying North Tyneside FOE with a number of hard copies of our reports, such as 'A Wealth of Waste' and 'Too Good to Waste' for their stall at Tynemouth Metro on the 15th October, when the theme of the day is your campaign. I, and I'm sure I speak for other members of BAN Waste, look forward to working with you in the future.
Paul Roberts
BAN Waste
28 Sep 2005
A Teenager's View
As a teenager myself i think that it would be a great idea bringin the Younger kids into this as it is them who will grow up with this around them, Younger kids enjoy being able to get involved in these things as it gives them a sense of involvment, getting the kids to write letters on there thoughts and opinions as maybe the planning departments and the people of sita will take into account that children can be affected by these things with the noise levels, and the disgusting smells of the site, also to take into account alot of children around the backworth area like to go out on bikerides around the tracks where the new road is to be placed.
Scott O'Donnell
Text of email received by Lindsay Perks OBE (Chair)
Lindsay,
I saw your letter on the landfill issue in the WB Guardian. I must admit the first I was aware of this issue was various A4 fliers in windows and on gateposts.
As an infrequent cyclist (having cut back from my 5000 miles pa in my youth to er, not a lot, now) I now use a Trek MTB to go round tracks, and as my young son gets older I hope we can go on bigger rides. The roads are far too dangerous to cycle on these days. I would not be happy cycling close to and over landfill sites.
I wish your anti-landfill campaign every success, however, as a piece of what I hope will be regarded as constructive criticism of the "notolandfill" website, it would be helpful if a map was easily found on it to show the extent of the area affected - there might be one, but I couldn't easily find it! Whilst we may have sometimes been on opposite sides in arguments in the past I wish you well for this.
Regards,Robert Newton.
PS. I think SITA could smarten their act up a lot. I took an old car seat to the Howden Incinerator (let's just say I found it hard enough to lift into the metal skip as it was mostly steel). The operative working there then took the seat (which must have weighed 50lbs) from the "steel" skip and put it through the general rubbish (landfill I presume) window because as he said "it's got foam rubber on it" If he'd have said I would have removed the cushion which must have weighed 2lb in total. The foam would have got burned off or reclaimed when the seat was reprocessed for its steel. Now a huge lump of steel will lie in landfill for the next 50 years.
All they need to do is erect a sign that says "please separate steel and other materials", which is what I will do in future.
Robert Newton
Broken Promises
When the Seghill Landfill Site was started 30 years ago Councillors promised that it would only last for 10 -15 years and then close and be landscaped. Other promises that there would be no vermin, no toxic dumping and that it would be screened from the surrounding area have all been broken. The site is now a mountain 600ft high towering over the area which can be seen from the coast 10 miles away. Enough is enough.
If this extension goes through the mountain will go up to 1000ft and be see all over the North East. A mountain of filth and rubbish for all to see. Land fill was supposed to fill areas of depressions in areas away from communities not to build mountains of waste in the centre of communities.
D.P. Hall
Procter & Gamble
I'm sure this will have been voiced by others but has Procter & Gamble been approached to see if this adversely affects their development plans over the next 15 years?
I believe they own the land immediately adjacent to the current landfill site, if they object to the development it would add a lot of weight to any objection made by the local populace and could provide a huge level of resource. They are, supposedly, very keen to improve links with the local community and what could provide a better opportunity than objecting to the landfill extension?
As an alternate location I'm certain SITA already own the disused opencast quarry site 1 mile west of Blaydon north of the A 695. It's close to the A1 and has dual carriageways leading west & east to the location. The site must be 100 metres deep and can't be much smaller than the landfill here. I suspect they would rather extend the life of an existing site before moving to a new one.
Craig Newman
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