Protesters oppose the Edmonton incinerator

• I AM not clear on what kind of infrastructure for waste disposal Camden has given its recent approval to.

I do know that any particulate matter is extremely damaging to human health. And I do see the black soot which precipitates on my window ledges every few days.

So depending on this Edmonton incinerator that is to be constructed, if much bigger than what is there now, it will only worsen health in London and beyond.

You know those particles can end up a long way away. Miles in fact.

Quick fixes and very short-sighted plans are certainly not the answer to the waste crisis that faces us all, and which often affects the poorer countries far beyond Europe.

The UK government is surely capable of coming up with, and paying for, an all-encompassing plan to avert ruining our city, country, and planet.

In Lancaster, California, SGH2 Energy claims to take trash that includes plastic, paper, tyres and textiles that would otherwise sit in a landfill and rot, and turn it into super-green hydrogen at bargain-basement prices.

So not only is waste dealt with in a non-polluting way, without any toxic by-products, but pure hydrogen would help to get us away from the destructive fossil fuel energy industries.

And that includes fracking. https://scp.gov.vn/tin-tuc/t11639/california-trash-to-hydrogen-plant-promises-dirt-cheap-super-green-h2.html

In Konin, Poland, engineering consultancy Sweco is also pioneering waste plastics to hydrogen.

Hydrogen Utopia International intends to replicate these construction plants cross Europe with the two-fold ambition of dealing with the major environmental threat posed by waste plastic and providing alternative, price-competitive, energy sources that are not dependent upon the use of virgin fossil fuels such as coal, gas, oil and fossil-fuel-derived electricity. See: https://hydrogen-central.com/sweco-environmental-impact-assessment-hydrogen-utopia-plastics-plant-poland/

These innovative waste incineration infrastructures are of a far higher standard than that of the newer European Union environmental standards for waste incineration.

I know these new plants are initially expensive but when integrated into the National Grid the investment would pay off in spades.

I mean we can even make black diamonds and clean air out of smog. Towers already built, which have been used in Rotterdam, Beijing, Tianjin and Dalian, suck up 30,000 cubic metres of polluted air per hour, cleans it at the nano level – the PM2.5, PM10 particles – and then releases the clean air back into the city. And, wait for it… the towers are powered by solar energy. See: https://ideas.ted.com/this-tower-sucks-up-smog-and-turns-it-into-diamonds/

We have the science and engineering. Why isn’t the private sector along with the UK government investing in all our futures?

PRIMAVERA BOMAN, NW1