Residents in Kirkby have set up an action group to campaign against the pollution caused by the Sonae chipboard plant.
A number of options are being considered, including direct action. A march through Kirkby to highlight the issue is planned.
Sonae spews out noxious fumes, day and night, which the company claim is just steam, but which sometimes takes the form of a ‘Blue Haze’ said to be formaldehyde. A white dust from it settles on everything around. Wood dust is particularly nasty and can puncture the lungs.
People living nearby have complained to the local council about breathing problems and an investigation revealed toxic chemicals including dioxin and mercury. Environmental Health suggested a few alterations to the chimney to make the plume disperse further. Emissions, they say, are within limits.
Kirkby people who have had to suffer years of constant bombardment by a cocktail of chemicals from the industrial state – said to be the biggest in Europe – are fed up with this latest polluter. One resident said that in her road – only about a hundred yards long – there have been eleven deaths from cancer.
The Sonae plant may not be responsible for cancer in Kirkby - yet! But it is certain these emissions will cause cancers in the future if they are not stopped. How do we know this? Because exactly the same problems have been caused by a chipboard plant in North Wales. And cancers of the nose and mouth have resulted.
Kronerspan, an Austrian company, set up their chipboard plant nearly twenty years ago, outside a town called Chirk, famous for its castle. Once a thriving tourist trap, the town itself has virtually closed down because tourists won’t brave the fumes. The company has been prosecuted for releasing formaldyhyde (a carcinogen) into the atmosphere, and they had two deaths at the plant because of lax health and safety. Twenty years on and the wood dust from the plant still settles nearby. Chronic asthma and respiratory diseases along with the cancers are the result.
So, here are two chipboard plants with almost identical ways of working, even getting their wood from managed forests and adding some old doors to give them cred in the now sexy world of recycling.
What is ominous, though, is the role of the local councils. Both invited the plants to their location, both have agreed to expansion – the Kronerspan plant to produce Medium Density Fibreboard, (MDF, another baddie) - and Sonae to get a rail link. Both say that the emissions are within limits. You would think that Kronerspan would have something going for it: at least they have a trade union – the T&G. But no, the plant has been described as a ‘Hell Hole’, and the local official says: “What can we do if they are within the law?”

Click here for an overview of the hazards associated with the Sonae UK Ltd site
Click here for the results of a health questionnaire carried out by KATS in Northwood, Kirkby, to examine the effects on public health and quality of life of the emissions from the Sonae Chipboard Factory