Laid To Waste
by Christopher Booker

Over the next 12 months, it is safe to predict, the benefits of Britain's membership of the European Union will become more evident than ever before.

The most obvious sign will be the coming into force of more of the edicts already approved by the EU's technocracy, such as the extension in July of the working hours legislation to junior hospital doctors, which NHS trusts across the country have warned will lead to widespread ward closures.

Also by July a waste crisis will hit the UK when EC directives reduce the number of landfill sites permitted to take "hazardous waste" from 218 to only 10, most of them in the north-east and none in the south-east or Wales. The effect of this will be compounded by the EC's ever widening definition of "hazardous waste", which now includes paints, old vehicle and electrical equipment such as television sets, computers and mobile phones.

As a spokesman for the Environment Services Association put it last week, with 5 million tonnes of such waste to be disposed of each year and virtually no where to put it, "the fridge mountain will pale into insignificance by comparison with what will happen when this directive bites". Already the difficulties surrounding the disposal of old cars created by phase one of the End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive have led to hundreds of thousands of vehicles being abandoned - although, as we learned last week, this may soon be an offence for which the owner can lose his licence for life.
The Sunday Telegraph, 4th January 2004

Further Resources:
Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day
Vigilance by Ashley Mote
The Real Face of the European Union
(video, PAL format only). Release: Feb 2004

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