David Sumberg MEP
Date:
21/1/02
TORY
MEP BLASTS MEACHER'S 'MISTAKE'
Euro
MP David Sumberg is warning the North West will face a bill of millions after
the Oldham MP and Environment Minister Michael Meacher's blunder over fridge
disposal.
From
January 1 EU regulations came into force ruling all ozone depleting CFCs in
fridges must be removed. Until the new year Britain had disposed of unwanted
fridges in crushers but they must now be crushed in units which capture the
CFCs. None of these units exist in the UK.
When
Michael Meacher agreed the regulation in 1998 he mistakenly believed it would
only apply to industrial fridges.
Mr
Sumberg said as a result of the blunder there are now 6,500 fridges being piled
up each week through-out the country with no facility to treat them.
'It is staggering that Michael Meacher could make such a basic error,' he said. 'Council's are now faced with huge costs to collect and store unwanted fridges which could be as high as 1.6m for each authority. The annual bill for the North West alone could be 30m. And the worry is that council tax payers will have to shoulder the cost.
'So far the Government has only made a paltry 6m available to councils to tackle the problem.'
FLY TIPPING
Mr Sumberg said he was also concerned there will be an increase in fly tipped fridges because of the extra disposal costs.
'Electrical retailers are now refusing to take old fridges in exchange for new appliances leaving the burden of waste disposal on councils,' he said. 'With all this extra cost there is a greater temptation for unscrupulous members of the public to resort to fly tipping.
'We have already seen how the high cost of disposing vehicles can lead to the menace of abandoned cars. There is now a serious concern we will see the same pattern with fridges. As well as being unsightly and environmentally unsafe dumped fridges pose a danger to the public particularly children. And this has all been caused by a ludicrous error betraying the increasingly familiar incompetence at the heart of New Labour.'