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From Greenpeace in New Zealand (Aotearoa) 29 April 2003.

Despite our recent efforts and the wishes of South Auckland communities, Auckland International Airport Ltd. (AIAL) continues to burn truckloads of medical and quarantine waste in their South Auckland incinerator. The result is deadly dioxin emissions and dumping of dioxin laden ash in landfills.

Instead of committing to phasing out incineration in favour of cleaner technology such as steam sterilisation AIAL continue to endanger the health of Aucklanders. Dioxins are the most toxic substance known. Even in very small amounts they cause cancer birth defects and endometriosis.

AIAL are not listening to reason. Greenpeace have commissioned a detailed report on the Alternatives to incineration and presented it to the shareholders annual general meeting. We even bought shares in the company and put forward a resolution that the incinerator be phased out. But the burn continues.

So today we have returned to the incinerator and blocked the main gate. Three activists have put their bodies on the line locking their arms inside concrete-filled barrels in the incinerator driveway preventing trucks from entering the facility.

You can help us stop incineration by using our fax-the-government form on the website to send a message to Marion Hobbs, Minister for the Envi ronment asking her and the Government to ban incineration.

The NZ Government has already signed the international Stockholm Convention, which aims to eliminate dioxins, and lists incineration as a key source of dioxins, yet they continue to ignore incineration.

Please click here to send a fax

And click here to check out today's action.

Sampling has recently been undertaken at the AIAL incinerator and it is now technically operating under the 'legal' level for dioxin emissions. But that is effectively irrelevant because there is no proven safe level of dioxins. DDT, 245-T and Thalidomide were also once legal and thought to be safe but the opposite turned out to be true - we already know the harmful effects of dioxin - its production must be outlawed.

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