{"id":1959,"date":"2019-05-07T23:23:43","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T22:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/?p=1959"},"modified":"2019-05-08T08:16:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T07:16:16","slug":"no-waste-incinerator-in-llansamlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/2019\/05\/07\/no-waste-incinerator-in-llansamlet\/","title":{"rendered":"No waste incinerator in Llansamlet – Sweet Victory for Young Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ANM<\/a>The Swansea Planning Committee decided against Biffa’s planning proposal of a new waste incinerator in Llansamlet today.<\/p>\n

The plans were rejected unanimously by the Council, who now have the task of finding alternative disposal for the 21,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste, currently going to landfill in Merhyr Tydfil, that the incinerator was going to burn.<\/p>\n

The LLansamlet Residents Against Biffa Incinerator Facebook Group was created on 4th July 2018, and has 764 members today.<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Young Activists Taste Success<\/h4>\n

Quite a crowd entered the chamber today for the planning meeting, including a number of pupils, from Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Lon Las and also from Trallwn Primary school. Pupils from both schools addressed the Planning Committee.<\/p>\n

Some year five and six pupils reported being concerned for friends with asthma, as well as feeling that such waste disposal units should be cited further from human population. The children had been integrally involved in the campaign, with the matter being raised at School Council and practise letters being written, before formally writing to the Council.<\/p>\n

Today’s win must be a particularly sweet victory for these young activists. Their actions were previously reported in the The Planning Committee Report of 2nd April as:<\/p>\n

\n
\"ANM<\/a>

Pupils from Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Lon Las protest outside the Guildhall.<\/p><\/div>\n

“Objections have been submitted by staff and pupils at Ysgol Gymraeg Lon Las on the ground of increased traffic, noise, health impacts and impacts on the wildlife within the nature reserve. These concerns are duly noted, however, [ …] the applicant has provided evidence to demonstrate that it is not considered that the proposed development would conflict with Article 3 (best interests of the child)\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carbon Issues<\/h4>\n
\"ANM<\/a>

Dr Geraint Havard had five minutes to speak for residents at the meeting.<\/p><\/div>\n

The 2nd April report also conceded:<\/p>\n

\u201cObjectors are concerned that the proposal would generate significant amounts of CO2 and this is a valid concern.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Committee nevertheless recommended acceptance of the planning application in April.<\/p>\n

But then both the Welsh and UK Governments declared a Climate Emergency, which made the \u201cvalid concern<\/em>\u201d of local residents that \u201cthe proposal would generate significant amounts of CO2<\/em>\u201d, harder to overlook.<\/p>\n

Then the Climate Change Commission<\/a> published its report that we must phase out greenhouse gas emissions entirely by 2050.<\/p>\n

Enter the Cavalry?<\/h4>\n
\"ANM<\/a>

Misleading headline from the BBC on Llansamlet protest<\/p><\/div>\n

Following all that, at the Swansea Extinction Rebellion meeting on Thursday last week, it was decided to offer very belated support to the community group.<\/p>\n

So it was that intrepid rebels blocked the entrance to the Biffa\u2019s Swansea Depot this morning. They symbolically set fire to the climate emergency declarations, and several also joined the protest before the meeting at the Guildhall.<\/p>\n

The protest at Biffa’s depot may very well have contributed to the positive outcome of no waste incinerator in Llansemlet. I suppose you could argue that Extinction Rebellion have nudged both Governments into making declarations of climate emergency as well.<\/p>\n

Does any of that really justify this extraordinary headline from the BBC: “Waste incinerator rejected after Extinction Rebellion protest<\/em>“?<\/p>\n

Biffa are considering their position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Swansea Planning Committee decided against Biffa’s planning proposal of a new waste incinerator in Llansamlet today. The plans were rejected unanimously by the Council, who now have the task of finding alternative disposal for the 21,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste, currently going to landfill in Merhyr Tydfil, that the incinerator was going to burn. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,4],"tags":[356,349,355,2,354,58],"class_list":["post-1959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-news","category-politics","tag-climate-change-comission","tag-climate-emergency","tag-dr-geraint-havard","tag-featured","tag-llansamlet-residents-against-biffa-incinerator","tag-swansea-council"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1972,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959\/revisions\/1972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amazonnewsmedia.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}