‘Moving this waste is not the answer’
EARLIER this month, a friend in Wolstanton rang and, in the course of conversation, complained about the stench from Walleys Quarry in Silverdale – more than two miles away.
Clearly, it is spreading. Indignation is rising. There are demands for closure until the problem is solved. Capping and more detailed investigation are in train.
This raises wider questions. Where, if it is closed, is the waste to go? To other sites? Many are already under pressure.
Disposal is a growing problem. It was brought into focus after the first lockdown. Think of the gruesome pictures of flytipping deposits.
It is not just a countrywide problem but a worldwide one. Since its dramatic move from the Third World to the First, China has found that vastly increased consumption has crammed landfills years before expected.
Humans were not engineered, so to speak, to worry about waste. When there were only a few hundred thousand of us roaming round Africa, there was no need. Space was limitless. Anyway, natural processes cleared rubbish up.
But now there are more than seven billion of us and we make things that last, and in some cases, fall quickly out of use. Natural processes cannot absorb and recycle them.
The association between waste, smell and disease has been known for centuries.
Where will all the rubbish go? Underground? This could be risky. Iceland has just had 50,000 small earthquakes.
An earthquake or volcanic eruption could explode a subterranean rubbish dump, however tightly it was sealed. The sea? It is polluted enough as it is.
A lot more research should be done into recycling metal and making plastic biodegradable. We should get a move on.
Do we want Walleys Quarry to become Walleys World? A return to health risks of the past? In the Potteries, of all places, we should bear this in mind.
And we could remember how long some waste lasts. Our broken pots might last as long as the clay tablets of Ancient Sumeria, made 5,000 years ago.
This should be a wake-up call.
MARGARET BROWN BURSLEM