THE decision to allow the cement company Lafarge to trial the hazardous waste RLF in the kilns at Westbury shocked many people.

It did so because they had raised many serious concerns about the emissions that will spew from the plant once the trial started, especially when the company had fitted no abatement filters to allay their fears.

When you then read what the Environment Agency considers a trial to be, you can then see how rigged the results already are. Nothing is considered environmentally significant except Nox and Sox (nitrous oxides and sulphur dioxide) and the success (for there is only one outcome on this basis) is established on only these two acidic gases. That nearly all other substances have increased (like lead and mercury) is dismissed as a non-environmental detriment.

Where can the members of the public go to challenge the agency over this failure to conduct a trial that evaluates the chemical composition of what it is burning, with a risk assessment and hazard analysis on which to evaluate the destruction of the RLF? How can they know what to test for in the emissions until they test the RLF?

At present the agency is recommending tests on the known, what concerns us is the unknown properties of the sludge that is used to make RLF and they can be legion. If you doubt me, read the agency guidelines on RLF and see the thousands of different chemical compounds and the thousands of different mixtures you can have.

The only way you can assess the destruction of the RLF is to chemically analyse for all the potential compounds. That's sound science.

Everything I have read in this decision document leaves me totally disgusted with the agency and frankly they are not up to the task of regulating this industry.

DAVID LEVY

Southcroft

Chapmanslade