Expert to advise council on health effects of poor air quality

An expert has been called in to help a local authority determine the health implications of poor air quality in the area.

Gloucestershire Council has appointed professor Roy Harrison, deputy chairman of the Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards and a member of the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants.

The local authority hopes that Mr Harrison will be able to help it understand whether proposed waste facilities including an incinerator and a mechanical biological treatment factory could have a negative impact on residents' health.

However, speaking with the Gloucestershire Echo, Mr Harrison stated that there is a "less than a one in a million chance of developing cancer" for those people living within one kilometre from the sites.

Gloucestershire Council wants to use these processes as environmentally-friendly ways of eliminating waste in the area, as 57 per cent of the county's 1.2 million tonnes of waste currently goes to landfill sites.

Last week, the editor of BusinessGreen.com James Murray urged the government to do more to make the UK a zero waste society, adding that this is "technically entirely feasible".

Posted by Joseph Hutton