The public is likely to inhale toxic fumes 24 hours a day
London – 22 October 2024
On September 16th 2024, a junior minister approved the construction of a 202,000-tonne-per-year waste incinerator in the heart of Dorset’s UNESCO-designated Jurassic Coast.
The vast waste incinerator will be built below HMP The Verne. The prison lies on the cliff – top high above Portland Port on the Isle of Portland. The inmates and staff of the prison will be subjected 24 hours a day, to inhaling an insidious plume of emissions from the incinerator’s flue outlet.
As shown in the image, the 80 metre tall incinerator emissions stack is in close proximity to the prison. Waste incinerators are deeply unpopular wherever they are built and as Greenpeace has noted, most are built in socially deprived areas where residents are least likely to have the financial resources needed to campaign against the invasive polluters.
However, residents at least have the right to protest, as has happened on Portland, with nearly 7,000 residents on the small island voicing their despair and anger at the proposal.
Furthermore, approximately 3,500 felt so strongly that they wrote to the planning department to object. This is not the case with prisoners, who have no right to protest.
Some local residents in areas close to incinerators have their lives so disrupted by the noise, light pollution, and foul smells that they sell up (that is if they can) and move, prison officers can resign, but the inmates have no option but to stay where they are. Hence, it is the duty of the Peter Tatchell Foundation to oppose the proposal on their behalf.
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