CEMFUEL is good for the UK and European governments because it helps them achieve recycling and energy recovery targets, says the British Cement Association.

As I sat at the British Environment and Media awards ceremony in London recently, listening to Environment Minister John Gummer, I mulled over that claim. The last piece of the Cemfuel jigsaw fitted into place.

How central to the UK's international commitment on recycling and recovery is the burning of toxic waste in the Ribble Valley?

Instead of forcing UK industry to invest in cleaner technology to reduce the use of dangerous substances such as solvents, the UK is achieving its 'target' by calling incineration of used toxic wastes heat 'recovery.' Clitheroe is a lynch pin in this farce. Without cement kiln incineration, the UK would be like the other countries, so roundly criticised by John Gummer for failing to reach their targets on recycling and recovery. Over the last three years, any time there has been criticism of the burning of these wastes in Clitheroe, we have been attacked, not just by the cement companies, but by the government agencies as well. However, the Secretary for the Environment, while not mentioning cement kilns by name, demonstrated just how central to government policy the continued incineration of wastes is.

This would explain why the cement companies are given so much notice before 'independent testing,' why the government agency is in charge of overseeing inputs and declaring that production has been 'normal,' when everyone who is not blind can vouch that the smoke plumes from the chimneys at the works were far less than normal; why the government's own guidelines are constantly broken etc.

MARY HORNER, Heights Farm, Bolton by Bowland.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.