Bad for the environment, bad for your council tax bill

Michael Clare has called for “informative” debate about incineration, so I’m sure he won’t mind me drawing people’s attention to this.

Copping out of debate

Bryan is unable to come to the keyboard for the moment, so he's asked me to post the original version of his letter in last night's Shields Gazette, before it went under the sub-editor's pen and lost a key point and therefore some context.


Councillor Clare bemoans my challenge to Coun McAtominey's false claim that domestic waste incinerators produce "absolutely no emissions".

He further complains about an uninformed media debate about incineration. An informed debate would be most welcome. However, the recent media comments by couns Clare and McAtominey seem more like the tactics of a slick PR campaign on behalf of the incineration industry than a desire to give the public an open and honest account of the waste strategy.

Indeed, the council and it's partners have done their best to keep information about the waste strategy out of the public domain and behind closed doors, hiding its plans and deflecting freedom of information requests with anti-democratic tactics like 'commercial confidentiality'.

When councils keep secrets, people are entitled to expect the worst.

We can't continue land-filling our rubbish. However, replacing landfill methane emissions with incinerator dioxins and CO2 emissions is not a sensible alternative.

If Coun Clare genuinely wants a sustainable solution to our waste problem, then instead of playing greenhouse gas Russian Roulette with our future he should forget about incineration and seriously explore alternative waste strategies which aim for an ultimate target of zero waste, zero carbon.

Aiming for anything less is a cop out.

Cancer is a Bastard

Blogging has been lighter than I intended this week as I’ve been spending large chunks of it with an ill loved one. I will still post when I get the opportunity but I have greater priorities at the moment. Apologies if you were expecting a call from me this week, I’m sure we’ll catch up in the near future.

O Day

Just a quick reminder for anyone interested that the Orwell blog goes live today.

Twenty’s plenty

Well said Shirley! There’s absolutely no reason why the majority of our residential streets can’t be Home Zones.

Who rattled your cage?

Bless my cotton socks I’m in the news… LOL! You really can’t buy this amount of publicity. I particularly enjoyed the line about recycling my own shit but I suspect the council wouldn’t be too happy if I ripped out the plumbing and put in a composting toilet. Don’t forget to check out here and here!

Phew what a scorcher!

While a few still remain in denial, we are all in the shit.

Splitters 2

The Indy Alliance Party supporters are at it again. They just can’t help falling out with each other. This time it’s their blogging wing that has split. They are beginning to make the old A + B teams of South Shields and Jarrow Labour party look positively unified!
Come to think of it, it’s not really that surprising considering the Labour Party has managed to dump a fair few of its members from the sectarian in-fighting years into the Alliance.