22,000 tonnes of hazardous waste dumped in non-hazardous Teesside landfill
Plus: King Charles in Middlesbrough is met with protests + operator picked for Tees Renewable Energy Plant (£)
After a week in which the government cut its subsidies to the enormous Drax biomass plant in North Yorkshire, today’s edition - the 32nd - starts and ends with stories about two other biomass plants on Teesside.
The first is an exclusive follow-up to a story from last month, while subscribers have a story on the operator being chosen to operate a long-delayed new biomass plant on the banks of the Tees.
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See you Wednesday!
Leigh
Nearly 22,000 tonnes of hazardous waste has been disposed of in a non-hazardous landfill site, adjacent to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), The Teesside Lead can reveal.
The disclosure comes from a freedom of information (FOI) request I submitted to the Environment Agency.
A few weeks ago I reported on the spin in an Environment Agency press release which celebrated Sembcorp paying £290,000 to Tees Valley Wildlife Trust, after it was found to have breached its environmental license.
The £290,000 donation was effectively a fine, which Semborp paid after an Environment Agency audit in September 2019 found the company had incorrectly identified hazardous ash from an incinerator at its Wilton biomass power plant as “non-hazardous”.
At least four years’ worth of hazardous waste had been disposed of incorrectly.
In an FOI request, I asked the Environment Agency to reveal how much waste this equates to, and where it was sent.
They said 21,900.61 tonnes of hazardous waste was disposed of in non-hazardous landfill at the Cowpen Bewley Landfill site, near Billingham.
Cowpen Bewley landfill site, operated by Highfield Environmental, sits next to a SSSI. In October, the Environment Agency refused permission for a non-hazardous waste incinerator to be built barely two kilometres away across the protected salt marsh. In its refusal notice, it said: “we consider that the predicted air emissions from the proposed activity are likely to damage features of interest within the Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast SSSI.”
Although the Environment Agency discovered Sembcorp’s hazardous waste had been incorrectly disposed of in September 2019, the FOI response suggests hazardous waste continued to be disposed of incorrectly until 2021, as it specifies “between 2015 and 2021, 21,900.61 tonnes of hazardous waste was disposed of in non-hazardous landfill.”
The Environment Agency refused to comment specifically on this FOI request when I approached them, but pointed to the fact Sembcorp conducted an independent report after they had been found to have incorrectly labelled their hazardous waste which showed “no significant risk to human health or the environment as a result of the wrong disposal.”
The Environment Agency agreed with the report Sembcorp conducted into its own mistakes.
The hazardous waste contained concentrations of lead, copper, zinc and nickel. Since the Environment Agency discovered Sembcorp’s error the company has disposed of all ash from its incinerator in a specialist hazardous waste landfill.
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King met with protests
King Charles’s visit to Middlesbrough this week was met with a sizeable contingent of anti-monarchy protesters.
Dressed in yellow, as has become the norm for anti-monarchist group Republic, the activists held placards and waved enormous (and I mean ENORMOUS) flags saying, “NOT MY KING”.
The group was highly critical of Teesside University, which it said had spent tens of thousands of pounds preparing for the royal visit after announcing staffing cuts just before Christmas.
CEO of Republic, Graham Smith said: “Wherever the royals go they end up costing taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds. Charles's visit is just more royal PR, a brief visit that royalists will insist shows they work hard.
“The university, schools, local council and local police will all face huge bills for this visit. This is at a time when local services are facing cuts and local people will see their taxes go up.
“The university is said to be paying a substantial sum for the visit, just two months after announcing staff cuts.
“An estimated 1 in 3 children in the North East is living in poverty, while Charles insists local people pay for his pointless PR trip.
“That's why local campaigners took action today, protesting against a lavish royal visit funded by taxpayers and university fees which locals neither have a say in, or benefit from.”
I joked to a colleague in the newsroom I was working in that Ben Houchen would make a post about the king arriving to Teesside via the airport, only to be proven correct. Lord Houchen should give me a job, I clearly understand him better than most!
Operator selected for delayed biomass plant
An operator has been selected for the Tees Renewable Energy Plant (TeesREP).
The biomass power station is on the banks of the river Tees on land owned by PD Ports, and has been hit with numerous delays in starting operations since construction was completed in 2022.
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