CLEAN-air campaigners have switched their protest to the companies they believe are supplying the waste materials for the controversial Cemfuel.

Residents Against Toxic Substances have written to 12 companies they believe could be sending waste for burning at the company's Clitheroe plant.

They are appealing to the companies to think twice before sending waste via Solrec, the main supplier of Cemfuel to Clitheroe, for burning in cement kilns.

RATS spokesman Mrs Lynda England said the aim of the letters was to "prick the consciences " of the companies' bosses.

She said: "We know the companies are no longer sending the waste to be incinerated. This means they are either not producing waste, which is unlikely, or sending it elsewhere. "We are trying to get them to realise what might be happening to their waste when they get rid of it."

The letters list statistics taken from Castle Cement's latest set of emission figures, as well as making various health claims about the effects of burning Cemfuel.

Also printed on the letters are two colour pictures showing plumes of smoke coming from chimney stacks at Castle Cement's Ribblesdale Works.

It is the second time the group has used this tactic. Eighteen months ago it sent out 14 letters and received two responses.

The latest letter drop is to the remaining 12 companies.

A Castle Cement spokesman said: "Emissions from cement works are principally a product of the raw materials used, not the fuel, and companies which produce solvent waste are well aware of that fact.

"They are equally aware that the great majority of the solvent waste they now produce could not be recycled if the residues from that process were not safely dealt with by their inclusion in Cemfuel."

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