Health Impacts of Incinerators

Grundon incinerator

Incinerators are recognised all over the world as being a major risk to human health. Proposals to build incinerators have been stopped because of public concern and protest.

The health impacts include:

• increase in cancers, especially childhood leukaemia
• increase in heart disease
• increase in asthma
• increase in birth defects

The precise impacts of incinerators are hard to disentangle from the other causes of these health problems, especially other forms of environmental pollution. However, there is now a strong body of evidence to show that incinerators can have devastating effects on health.

Here is a collection of articles and papers on health impacts. Most of them may be found on or from the SAIN (Slough Anti-Incinerator Network) web site.

• Birth defect variations in England and Wales, Micheal Ryan. Paper not available 20/12/04 - contact SAIN
• Soaring birth defects, by Dick Van Steenis. See SAIN web site - "Links"
• Report on St Niklaas. See SAIN web site - "Links"
• What are PM10s ? (SAIN web site)
• Incinerators, radiation and birth defects (SAIN web site)
• Response to DEFRA whitewash on health impacts (SAIN web site)
• The Colnbrook incinerators: a health time bomb (SAIN web site)
• Incinerators: Truths, half truths and outright lies (SAIN web site)
• Predicted effects on children of the Colnbrook incinerator (SAIN web site)
• Predicted effects of the Colnbrook incinerator (SAIN web site)
• Press report on Colnbrook incinerator (SAIN web site)

Other links

(Dec 04)