New fuel, NEW DANGER?

The recently-formed UK Environment Agency, intended to be a watchdog to prevent pollution of air and water, is in danger of losing its credibility because of the way it has handled the burning of waste solvent-derived fuels in cement kilns, according to the House of Commons Environment Committee. Moreover, the committee says, in its second report on the environmental impact of cement manufacture, use of these `secondary liquid fuels' threatens to divert waste into kilns where it could have be usefully recycled.

Foul smells, rising rates of asthma and other respiratory complaints have all been blamed on the burning of SLFs such as Cemfuel in cement kilns. SLFs are burned at four cement works in the UK - two operated by Castle Cement, at Clitheroe and Ketton; and one each by Rugby Cement and Blue Circle, at Barrington and Masons respectively.

One of the aims of the committee was to decide whether the use of SLFs in cement kilns amounted to waste disposal or recycling. Cemfuel and other SLFs are made from materials which would otherwise be incinerated - the province of merchant incinerators like Cleanaway. Both the cement and incineration industries are in precarious financial positions (see feature, page 22). If the MPs decided that SLF use was recycling - thereby supporting the cement companies - the inicnerators would lose much-needed business. But classifying SLFs as waste disposal would cut off the cement industry's supply of cheap fuel, driving it further into crisis.

The committee decided that SLF burning only counted as energy recovery if the calorific value of the wastes used in the SLF was high. Burning low calorific-value waste amounted to disposal, it said; this should remain the province of the incinerators, and such wastes should not be blended into Cemfuel.

CEMFUEL CONTROVERSY

The environmental aspects of the issue were even more worrying, however. All of the neighbouring communities have objected to the burning of SLFs, but the problem is particularly acute in Clitheroe. Castle Cement's works has a problem with `plume grounding' - the emissions from one of the plant's kilns reach ground level unusually near to the plant, and unusually often. This would happen regardless of the fuel burned in the kiln, but local residents have complained that the smell from the plant has worsened in the four years since Cemfuel was first burned there, and have also reported a range of breathing problems whose onset coincided with the first Cemfuel trials.

The committee found that the activities of the Environment Agency and its predecessor, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP), were riddled with `inefficiency and lack of foresight.' More serious still was a `lack of openness' about the burning of Cemfuel at the works. In 1994, HMIP instituted the `Bedford Protocol', forbidding SLF burning trials in kilns that were regularly subject to plume grounding. However, Cemfuel continued to be burned at Clitheroe after this date. HMIP withdrew authorisation for SLFs in one of the works' kilns, but two others continued to be in use even though - according to local residents - the plumes were still grounding.

The environmental manager of the Clitheroe works, Ian Walpole, told PE that Castle considers plume grounding to be a problem `principally associated with kiln 7. We voluntarily ceased to burn Cemfuel in kiln 7 in 1994, in response to concerns expressed by the local community. The company has now embarked upon the installation of a £5 million gas scrubber. Castle will not re-apply to burn Cemfuel or new alternative fuels on kiln 7 until this has been successfully commissioned.'

The row over Clitheroe has involved the local MP, Conservative Nigel Evans, so much that he has joined the environment committee since the report's completion. He approves of the stand the committee has taken - `The HMIP has had its knuckles rapped, and rightly so,' he comments - but is still not satisfied with Castle's handling of plume grounding. Despite the installation of the scrubbing unit, Evans wants the firm to stop burning Cemfuel in the other two kilns. `We need much more research into the health problems that have been appearing in the area, and in the meantime Cemfuel should not be burned,' he comments. `It wouldn't be permitted in any other kiln with a plume grounding problem.'

`We are particularly concerned about the Environment Agency's rOle in this matter,' comments committee chairman Andrew Bennett. `We were strong supporters of its formation, but if it falls down in one area, it casts doubt upon all the others. Moreover, if the public has no confidence in the Environment Agency, it has be confident of the second safeguard of the local authority planning process -and we were also less than pleased with this.'

Responses to the report have been mixed. The British Cement Association, representing Blue Circle, Castle Cement and Rugby Cement, said that it was `pleased that the committee had recognised that SLFs... can have positive effects for the environment.' The committee's concerns about solvents being diverted from materials recovery are unfounded, claims the BCA. `The economics dictate that, if solvents can be recycled for another use other than as a fuel and sold on, then they will be. If not, they'll be burned,' BCA spokesman Bernard Clarke told PE.

Friends of the Earth, unsurprisingly, takes the opposite view. The organisation said that the cement firms should stop burning all waste-derived fuels in their kilns immediately. `People have suffered from the polluting effects of the cement industry while the official watchdog appears to have been toothless and idle,' comments pollution campaigner Mick O'Connell.

Responding to the committee's criticism of the Evironment Agency, director David Slater comments: `Already we have taken steps to increase the efficacy and consistency of the environmental risk assessment of proposals to burn SLFs and other alternative fuels.'