Environmental issues are not just a global concern, our health and living conditions are being attacked locally as well. Merseyside Hazards Centre has been set up to give people the opportunity to take on such issues themselves. For info or advice ring: 0151 726 9595.

Public enquiries, once an outlet for the community to voice concerns, are now increasingly an excuse for corporations to force plans through. Knowsley Council refused permission for Redrow Homes to build luxury houses on an old armaments dump containing such materials as asbestos and arsenic, after a local action group campaign. Redrow, who have the backing of a massive US corporation, are now suing Knowsley to pay for the enquiry and their costs.

Kirkby residents have been complaining about the local Sonae factory since it opened, after suffering from headaches, nausea and respiratory problems. A council commissioned report decided emissions from the plant did not breach regulations despite poisonous chemicals having been found in the waste. They have suggested heightening the chimney so we can all be poisoned.

Liverpool City Council may give Shanks Waste Services the go-ahead to build a pyrolysis plant. They claim this doesn’t burn waste, just ‘roasts’ it. The emissions, however, will be deadly and include Dioxins, which induces an estimated 8100 cases of cancer per year in the UK, Mercury, and Cadmium, which damages the kidneys and lungs. Shanks are linked closely with Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. Smell something rotten?

A local campaign group in Bootle won an important victory when the council rejected plans to build a landfill site in a residential area close to five schools. Nearby the Captain Jack council estate has been neglected due to false boundaries, that mean it falls outside two adjoining pathway areas, both receiving European money.

MICKY CAUGHT RIPPING OFF KIDS
Did you know that in Thailand recently Disney sacked 1,145 workers and replaced them with cheaper sub-contracted labour including 10% child labour, and this when their Chief Executive Michael Eigner earns more than $300 million a year. In Liverpool on 25th November a group of people entered the Disney Store on Church Street, presenting their arguments to the much loved multi-national – this was all part of BUY NOTHING DAY – in the store the group urged people to dump their plans of purchasing unnecessary useless crap and to BUY NOTHING. Meanwhile leaflets began to appear in consumer magazines throughout the city, urging people to sack capitalism and buy nothing. BUY NOTHING DAY is an annual worldwide event that seeks to draw attention to obsessive consumerism, corporate corruption and the exploitation of people and the environment.
More info: Adbusters Magazine: www.adbusters.org
New Internationist: www.newint.org

RONALD McDONALD ON THE SICK
Saturday 2nd December was a bad day for McDonalds,Lord Street! As Liverpool University Green Group, People Not Profit and the SWP held a demo with around 20 protesters, which soon attracted (due to the racket of the People Not Profit drummers) 100 more. Numbers increased as over 1000 leaflets were distributed and people stopped to read the 8-metre banner. The police, not happy with the demo exposing their masters, attempted to intervene at one point, but were soon forced to retreat as they became aware of a hostile crowd gathering around the periphery of the demo. The day was a great success, as more and more people were made aware of how McDonalds evil empire is built on the exploitation of people, animals and the environment. For more info on what really lay behind the smiles of McDonalds and other High Street stores check out. www.mcspotlight.org www.corporatewatch.org