From junk mail
to nuclear waste - it's all unwanted
Apr 28, 2006 - Independent-London
Author(s): Joan Bakewell
"No Junk Mail", the notice says on my front door. In green letters.
It is provided by Camden Council, who are at last making a serious
attempt to deal with one of the mounting problems of our time: what to
do with all the stuff we produce and no longer want. Yet the junk keeps
on coming. Clearly the senders don't recognise their own circulars under
such a disparaging heading.
Yet almost anything free and unsolicited must count as junk. Two
types persist right now. Political leafleting is mounting as local
elections approach, and in this ward the Lib Dems are the most prolific.
Messages come in print, in pseudo handwriting, again and again. At least
they seem to be using recycled paper. Labour has so far made only one
strike, an all-singing all-dancing full colour broadsheet proclaiming
their virtuous past and future intentions. A small offering from local
Tories slipped in almost unnoticed. I give them all a cursory read as I
head for the bin. At least election fodder is brief, short term and
might have some relevance to my life and my vote.
Not so the regular lifestyle glossies, vehicle for estate agents'
publicity, that regularly thunder on to the doormat entirely ignoring my
green sticker. This month's London Magazine runs to 260 pages, half of
it chat about grossly indulgent consumption - fashion, food, dcor - half
given over to the property market. If s spring, this is the house-buying
season and the promotional copy is nauseous. Straight into the bin. As
the clich has it, how many forests must be felled to provide this tidal
wave of unwanted and insidious promotional fodder. And how can it be
kept away from my door?
Waste is now a major issue for developed countries. Packaging is a
prime example. Buy any iPod or electrical gadget and you discard
cardboard, perspex covering and pre-formed blocks out of all proportion
in size to the product within. Bubble wrap, oceans of drifting
polystyrene snow, come with virtually any mail-order delivery. Need it
really be so? And how is it all to be disposed of? Landfill sites and
car-crushing centres make great locations for social realist movies, but
how many of them can the country sustain? We shall have to address
seriously the issue of using less, reducing society's de-tritus, before
we drown in a tsunami of polystyrene.
The market is not self-regulating, and someone has to set limits.
And then there's really serious waste. Think of the Albert Hall and
then multiply it by five, and fill from floor to ceiling. That's how
much radioactive waste is being stored at power stations in Britain,
according to Keith Baver-stock, a former World Health Organisation
radiation expert. He broke ranks with fellow scientists at the weekend,
having supposedly been sacked last year from the government-appointed
committee on radioactive waste management (CorRWM). In the week that
marked the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, this
committee is reporting on how existing radioactive waste could be safely
disposed of underground.
Mr Baver-stock claims they have done "a Mickey Mouse job" How are we
to know?
The new report plays into the Government's imminent decision about
its future nuclear energy policy. One of the greatest arguments against
building more nuclear power stations is that we will be leaving a
hideous and unpredictable legacy for coming generations, extending
hundreds of thousands of years into the future. Always, its usual to
add, supposing civilisation lasts that long. That is no silly
qualification when brains as eminent as Lord Rees, the current President
of the Royal Society, and James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia
theory, have both expressed doubts about the capacity of our
civilisation to survive at all.
The option of surface storage is considered no longer wise, given the
risks of international terrorism. There are almost certainly wild and
messianic groups who would see the acquisition of any kind of nuclear
material as giving them the power they lack now. So the considered
option is to bury radioactive waste deep within the earth, the sort of
place where Gandalf and his like consort. If Britain goes for more
nuclear power stations, the spent uranium fuel rods would triple
radioactivity in the UK's current waste cupboard. So the digging will
have to be deep and long.
On our small island, it's going to be an interesting debate as to
where exactly we could dig. The Geological Society of London, and the
Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining have expert members eager
and willing to help with suggestions. Back in the 1990s, scientists
planned an underground laboratory somewhere near Sellafield, but uproar
at a local inquiry put a halt to it. The geology has to be correct
before such momentous steps are taken. Places such as Wales, the Lake
District, central Scotland and the east coast of England have been
mentioned.
To the local people in such places, this will be far more offensive
than my junk mail is to me. Whatever scientific evidence is offered that
radioactive dungeons are safe beyond error, they will still see it as
contamination. Numerous guardians of landscape, wildlife and natural
beauty will be out in force to protest and resist. Waste is one of the
unintended consequences of capitalism and industrialisation. But we
can't wish it away. It calls for global strategies and a good deal of
tolerant international negotiation. It's too late to stick a flyer "No
Radioactive Junk" here. It's already on our doorstep.
Waste is one of the unintended consequences of capitalism and
industrialisation
joan.bakewel@virgin.net
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