To protect the environment and air quality, residents in Rumney Cardiff are fighting against the incinerator proposal.
A nine-year-old schoolboy in Rumney has written a letter to Prince Charles asking his help to stop an incinerator proposal, which he says will damage the local environment.
Ben Rogers wrote the letter as a part of the local campaign against the proposed £150 million energy facility plan on Newlands Road, Wentloog, Cardiff, which will burn 200,000 tones commercial waste each year.
“It will release harmful smoke which will go into our lungs,” says Ben. “I want do something to protect the environment in our community.”
The proposal is lunched by the Môr Hafren Bio Power company, which would produce 15MW of electricity and target some of the 90,000 tones of commercial and industrial waste that Wales currently sends to landfill.
“At the moment, there is one incinerator in Splott already. We don’t want them to build another one, because one is more than enough. It already added more pollutions in the air and it’s not the best place to put the incinerators,” said Amir Khan, one of the organizers in the against CF3 incinerator campaign.
However, the new planned plant will be located just 717m from the St John Lloyd R.C Primary School and very close to the local residential area and other three high schools nearby, which also having the potential to pollute the air for up to 50 miles in all directions.
“If it will be built, we will see the incinerator directly from our street, and a lot of green trees will be felled down that way. A lot of emissions we don’t know what’s likely will come out of the tower, and the extra traffic as well. They recognized that there will be extra up to a hundred vehicles a day going to that plant,” said Ben’s mother, Ruth.
Up to now, there are more than 2006 people signing in the online petition against the CF3 Incinerator, a protest held on November 23 as well. People gathered outside the Senedd showing their concerns towards the potential air pollution and its negative effects on health.
“Its effects on the environmental is in the form of global warming, acidification, photochemical ozone or smog formation, eutrophication, and human and animal toxicity,” said Sharma, environmentalist.
“It will also damage all students’ health in the Eastern High, and will increase heart problem, asthma and skin diseases of students,” written by a student from the Eastern High school in an open letter to a Welsh politician.
The company is conducted the first round of public consultation for its energy facility plan, which will take two year to build, creating up to 300 jobs during construction and 40 permanent jobs once the facility is operational.
The proposed incinerator review will be conducted by the Welsh government and Natural Resources Wales to obtain the finial permission.
“What we think the Welsh government need to do is obviously to reject (the proposal), otherwise the incinerator firm will appeal. If the rejection would not be done strongly enough and it will be accepted by its appeal, so the government do need to take the stance,” said Amir Khan.