Environment Monday - The Hottest Summer on Record - A guest blog by Ben Samuel

Ben Samuels

By Ben Samuel

I can safely say that it will be the hottest summer breaking records yet again. Without even looking it up, because such is the pace of global heating. Our borough is no different. Mill Hill is no different.


The other day I was at a gardening customer, dealing with the moth that only eats box. Picking through, they can be manually squashed. Others might use insecticide. It’s a form of chemical warfare against insects. I don’t know if many people think about it, that these chemicals might effect the environment too. Glyphosate, whose trademark name goes as Roundup, is a weed killer available to garden amateur consumers and councils alike. Barnet Council passed a motion with a diluting amendment from the Conservatives, following a campaign by Pesticides Action Network. Though called pesticide-free, they’re not campaigning for their total elimination, just to stop the blanket spraying that might go on, the squirting of the herbicide weedkiller on our pavements. I see it as a political signal from the suburbs, that the countryside needs to be managed in a different way too: to end the chemical warfare. I have a friend who is seriously allergic to these chemicals and could die from a very dilute exposure a mile away, and gets very sick. By law, those spraying should notify her by calling her before doing so, so she can stay inside for that day. Barnet Council don’t bother. We heard all this at Barnet Council’s environment committee, who invited her to speak for 7 minutes. The Conservatives tabled a motion to further cut the speaking time at these meetings. It’s very difficult to speak because as ordinary people we have to read hundreds of pages of reports and   agendas and meet the deadline and give them written notice what we’re going to say.

Anyway, the third environment issue I want to raise on this blog is the fact that many local residents get their food in plastic packaging. Food waste and plastic packaging all add to the stream of domestic waste and this is a problem. Many years ago I took a degree in chemistry. No matter how great the end of pipe filter, that they put on the North London Incinerator expansion, it’s not as good as producing less burnable rubbish in the first place. If indeed our rubbish goes into the incinerator, not all of it will disappear at the end. Any Bachelor of Science of Chemistry graduate with honours can tell you that rubble won’t burn, no matter what technology will use. You just take it in the truck half way across the North Circular Road, Up the A10, load it into the burner and set it on fire. The energy recovered from the rubbish then heats up the rubble, in stead of generating heat or power that can be of profit to the North London Waste Authority. What happens in reality is that there is an economic incentive built into the future operation of the burner, to send more recyclable stuff to not be recycled into useful materials. The plastic burns and additives sort of melt down and it all turns into a toxic ash. If I were to dump the rubble from my little home refurbishment in Summer’s Lane municipal recycling centre, they would probably recycle it for me, turning it into new aggregate, but charge me for doing the right thing. I’m not very pleased with the way the Government rewards me for trying my best to recycling properly. So my number one tip is buy less stuff.

Lately it’s at a meeting of Barnet Rebels – the local group of extinction rebellion – that Roger has suggested Barnet Rebels contribute a guest blog to Environment Monday. There may even be one coming up not about environment, from a retired teacher. Some of the local group were involved centrally in the protests for London Climate Week which we code-named Operation Mushroom. We pledged to go on tax strike until the GLA stopped putting money into un-sustainable projects: The Edmonton Incinerator, and the Silvertown Tunnel and associated concrete works. Actions Barnet Rebels propose to do locally to tackle the Earth Crisis. Something at Brent Cross?

A transport related bicycle swarm World Car-free day is September 22nd Guerilla,  gardening group– to green our surroundings up and provide a habitat for natural creatures A packaging action – to give local shoppers in the supermarket to leave their unwanted packaging tobe sent backNorth London Uprising – We want our brown bin food waste recycling collection brought back! I hope to have more debate around the North London incinerator project, because there are a lot of complex options and arguments swirling around the internet!
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Ben Samuel is a Barnet Resident, member of the Barnet Green Party and supporter of the Extinction Rebellion Campaign.

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