| PaulKing 2004-12-15, 5:05 pm |
| 12 May 1999
Half UK pollution
traced to one plant
By Michael McCarthy, Environment
Correspondent
Official figures show that Britain's
most heavily polluting factories are still spewing more than 10,000 tonnes
of
cancer-causing chemicals every year, Friends
of the Earth claims today.
Nearly half is coming from just one
plant, that of Associated Octel
which produces lead additives for motor fuel at Ellesmere Port,
Merseyside,
the environmental group says. The ICI chemical
plants at Runcorn and Teesside, and Glaxo
Wellcome's antibiotics plant at Ulverston, Cumbria, are the next worst
offenders,
FoE says.
It bases its claim on pollution figures
for 1998, which are available in the Environment Agency's Pollution
Inventory,
a public database of factory emissions to be launched today by Michael
Meacher,
Environment minister. FoE has analysed the emissions for cancer-causing
substances,
using the international scientific literature in each case to categorise
the
chemicals concerned as carcinogenic.
Its move threatens to overshadow
today's launch of the inventory, which is regarded as a major step forward
in
making environmental information public. Containing details of 150
different
pollutants from about 2,000 of the largest industrial processes in England
and
Wales, it is available on
the Environment Agency's internet web site. The information allows people
to find out about major pollution in their area by typing in their
postcode.
The agency stresses in its own announcement
that the inventory illustrates the big reductions that have been made in
pollution
over recent years. Emissions of lead, benzene and particulates from large
industrial
sites have more than halved over the last decade, it says. Dr Paul
Leinster,
the agency's Director of Environmental Protection, said that it shows
"great
strides" have been made. "Obviously there is still a long way to go,"
he said.
FoE claims the data show that the
chemicals still being released contain large amounts of cancer-causing
substances.
In February, the group analysed the emission figures for 1996 and claimed
that
more than 12,300 tonnes of carcinogens had been released that year. A
preliminary
analysis of last year's figures, they say, shows that at least 10,871
tonnes
of five principal recognised carcinogens are still being emitted, ranging
from
4,023 tonnes of chloroethane to 397 tonnes of vinyl chloride. Associated
Octel's
Ellesmere Port plant, which manufactures tertraethyl lead, a petrol
additive
being completely phased out in Europe because of health risks but still in
use
in developing countries, emits the largest total, as it did in 1996, the
group
claims. Then, FoE says, it emitted 5,340 tonnes of carcinogens. last year
it
emitted 4,090 tonnes, the group claims, composed of chloroethane, lead,
and
dichloroethane. The company had no comment last night.
ICI was the next worst offender,
the group says, emitting 4,383 tonnes of carcinogens from its three plants
at
Runcorn, Redcar and North Tees, while Glaxo Wellcome at Ulverston released
at
least 992 tonnes of cancer-causing substances.
ICI said last night it had spent
more than £140m on environmental improvement since 1995 in the UK alone.
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