The county risks becoming the waste dump of the east if it goes ahead with proposals to build giant incinerators.

SUFFOLK: The county risks becoming the waste dump of the east if it goes ahead with proposals to build giant incinerators.

That was the warning today from heritage group the Suffolk Preservation Society as the debate over what to do with the county's rubbish rumbles on.

The council has identified four potential sites for incinerators - two in Great Blakenham, one on the old British Sugar site at Sproughton and one on Eye airfield.

But the SPS said the emphasis on incineration as a way of disposing of waste was wrong because it would lead to more rubbish being imported into the county.

“We believe the strategy is fundamentally flawed by what it is not telling us,” said Simon Cairns, SPS director.

“We're urging the county council to come clean and let the public know what exactly they are signing up to. Let's not become the dustbin of the east.

“The buildings are huge edifices, with tall stacks producing a plume of emissions. Furthermore, they will need pylons to distribute the electricity to the national grid and will also be floodlit at night, impacting adversely on local communities causing light pollution for miles around.”

The SPS is also worried that the incinerators could pour dioxins into the atmosphere - and that the incinerator or incinerators could attract waste from Cambridgeshire, Essex and London which have rejected the incineration option.

Suffolk's planning spokesman Guy McGregor said only one incinerator would be built and it would be tailored to accept residual waste from Suffolk.

He said: “We are not going to be insisting that all the waste comes from within the county - some of our waste is disposed of outside the county and we take some in on a reciprocal basis.

“But we certainly aren't planning a string of incinerators to take waste from all over the region or anything like that.”