Store waste in the pits
At a recent visit to hospital, while waiting to be seen, I became engrossed in an article in a Geographic Magazine concerning waste and pollution. The article stated: “Within the next decade the amount of waste products we will generate will double in volume and there is no place where we can dispose of this volume of rubbish.”
Well this got me thinking and I came to a conclusion that the writer of this article is wrong.
There is a way that we can dispose of this amount of rubbish, a way which will also bring prosperity, employment and benefit to the North East of England and County Durham in particular.
As everyone knows; well the middle aged and elderly amongst us; almost every town and village in County Durham once had a coal mine.
These coal mines have been closed and capped and the villages have stagnated through the lack of investment and introducing an alternate way of employment.
These coal mines may have gone but the tunnels are still there underground; perhaps many are now flooded or have collapsed; but they are still there.
I was once told that the tunnels at Easington Colliery ran five miles out to sea.
The plan is to reopen these former coal mines, open the tunnels and all the waste that usually goes to landfill be stored in these tunnels by back filling them until one former coalmine is full then opening and filling the next former coal mine.
Durham County Council and councils from further around the North East would then pay the landfill charges to the towns and villages who have opened the former coal mines thereby bringing employment and finance to all.
Then when every former coalmine in County Durham is full of waste, after about 50 years or more, the same project can be carried out in South Yorkshire, then Nottingham, then Wales and the so on and so on.
The end of landfills, plastic waste left to deteriorate at its own pace for the next thousand years, no unsightly waste dumps near housing estates that have to be capped when they reach twenty foot high.
So, where there’s muck there’s money!
“Whichever way you voted, it was probably not for this scenario.”