There is another rubbish burner near where a mate of ours lives.
N Quay Rd, Newhaven BN9 0AB
One Friday night when the wind was blowing out to sea they are suspected of chucking a load of plastic on the fire.
Later sea mist rolled in and pushed the smoke back inland.
the plant you mention would be this one then
acording this the contract is until 2033
although they were suspected of throwing plastic on the fire I have looked into the news you have sent and so far as far as they got was the suspicion it could of been from a boat or shipwreck but cause they didnt have the equipment to test the gas and find out what it is the outcome was that they still dont know what the gas was and where it came from. it was commented that it smelt like plastic that had been burnt but nothing mentioned that comfims or denys the suspicion and no leads or trails that show one event although similar and happening close together caused the other. so for now there just suspicions but I have found out that they have got new equipment now in case an event like that happens again
I gave the post code to give a plan view. You have spent a bit more time and found a technical drawing.
It is meant to burn things like old MDF kitchen units and so on. It is a bit more sophisticated than that straw burner with those grumpy crane drivers.
The day of the week and the time fits in with a couple of loads of mixed MDF and UPVC going in.
The cheeky refuse company will have picked Friday afternoon because the environment police will be on the way to the pub and by the time they are allowed to drive to site again the smoke will have blown away. On a windy winter night the smoke will get diluted and go unnoticed.
That Friday night the wind speed was low enough for sea mist to form allowing for the smoke to meet the mist and form hydrochloric acid that is heavy relative to normal mist causing it to sink to the ground.
It was certainly not stormy enough to disturb an old shipwreck.
The ‘Friday afternoon’ issue is well-known. It’s also why many truck drivers are a lot less courteous at that time. They have weekend traffic and tacho hours to balance - and they are often expected to clean their own vehicle before knocking off. Run out of hours, and they’ll have to do unpaid Saturday work.
But I’d offer something in mitigation for the waste industry - though it is, as I know well, a shining example of all that is wrong with the industrial world:
Waste companies are managing other peoples’ problems. They’re not the waste producers. And everyone from the huge agro/pharma companies to the builder renovating a house will lie to them: it’s only a question of scale. It’s not too hard to dig down into a skip of rubble to find the hidden asbestos (though it is time-consuming to do, irritates the driver and his boss, and opens a can of legislative worms if you find such), but the wrong mix of liquids in a tanker of waste process liquor requires a decent chemist and expensive lab equipment to spot.
Typically, the illegal load is only spotted after acceptance. That opens another can of worms. The authorities prefer to prosecute the waste contractor: bigger headlines, and an easier case to build. So the temptation is to pretend you haven’t noticed it either.
The most expensive error I know of involved some hidden iodine in a load sent for incineration. A bright purple plume that probably had a minimal effect on the environment, resulted in a hefty fine. I have also heard that solvents contaminated with tritium (used to monitor reaction processes, and not as stringently controlled as other radioactives) create no visible evidence during incineration.
I was once told a story about a waste tanker when working a summer holiday as a lab technician at a metal finishing plant.
They called it in to get rid of some gold plating electrolyte. There was some room left in the tanker so they had a quick clean up and chucked a faulty batch of stainless steel polishing electrolyte in. They were not happy companions.
All but one of them got round the corner of the building before the tanker burst.
An unhappy consequence of one company getting rid of all its experienced, well-paid drivers to save money:
The tanker turned up to collect waste processing liquor from pesticide manufacture (due to the hazard, this was a top-loader tanker). Given the ignorance of the driver and the lack of the ‘usual chap’ on the site, loading was delayed, and the wagon had to spend the night at motorway services - in November. But it was also forgotten/unknown that the waste had to be mixed with some used solvent (usually sold to cement kilns) to keep it mobile. Staff at the incinerator were presented the next morning with a tanker full of toxic waste the consistency of bonfire toffee…
That tanker was a little less dramatic than the one that burst.
The waste flowed down the yard and out into the street while an ambulance was approaching for the guy that failed to get into the shadow of the building before it burst.
The acid from the stainless steel polishing electrolyte made a right mess of the concrete yard. I did get to see the yard some time after the incident.
The gold plating electrolyte contained potassium cyanide and reacted with the acid violently.
I recall reading about it - the casual approach to the industrial use of cyanide always scared me: I once visited a company who carried out plating (using cyanide) in one shop, and acid pickling in the one next door. This didn’t seem like a good idea to me! The one advantage of inorganic cyanide is that it degrades in the environment pretty quickly - though that makes it hard to prove when there is an accidental spill into a watercourse: lots of dead fish, but no good evidence. Coincidentally, this morning: Major incident declared after Walsall canal cyanide spill - BBC News
“which can cause seizures, vomiting and loss of consciousness”. That’s rather understating the case; per Wikipedia an oral dose of 200-300mg can be fatal.
There sure is a cyanide spill in the news today.
Truckloads of dead fish.
