It has emerged today that contractors working for the Olympic Development Authority have made an approach to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) for permission to dump a quarter of a million tons of toxic waste soil in central Scotland.
The soil, contaminated by oil and diesel, has been excavated from the site of the London Olympics and is now ready to roll 350 miles northwards to a site thought to be near Falkirk, should SEPA give the nod.
Amid outrage from environmentalists, Green MSP Robin Harper asked: ‘Should Scotland’s legacy from the Olympic Games really be hundreds of tons of polluted soil’? He also made the point that: ‘the waste must be dealt with appropriately and near the original site. Whatever treatment it would get in Scotland they should be doing locally; and that’s before you consider the huge carbon cost of transporting it all up to Scotland’.
The oxygen of publicity is always a stout piece of armoury. After the disclosure, the Olympic Development Authority has asked the contractors concerned to try and find a site nearer London.
SEPA will only say that it is ‘currently awaiting further information from the operator before coming to a decision’.
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