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This story is astonishing, and huge. Britain's used tyres are being exported en masse to India, without proper oversight or control, where they are baked to make a filthy fuel, with horrendous consequences. My column: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
The UK govt is flagrantly flouting its own rules, and clearly couldn't give a damn. On Monday, I asked for responses to my questions by noon on Tuesday. It sent a non-response, answering none of my questions, at 10.20 last night, hours after the paper had gone to press.
This allows it to claim that it responded to my request, while ensuring that I can't use its response, which, as it knows, does not answer my questions. It hopes to put the issue out of mind, regardless of how many Indians this toxic policy is killing. #WasteColonialism
This is your department, @michaelgove, and it is making a mockery of your green credentials. Are you going to do something about this scandal, or are you happy to allow our waste to poison people on the other side of the world?
Here's a video of Indian workers, without any protective equipment, cleaning the carcinogenic sludge out of a tyre pyrolysis plant. Perhaps our tyres. They are dead men walking.
But as far as the UK government is concerned, they are "just" foreigners. Their lives appear to count for nothing. As you can probably tell, after being comprehensively stonewalled while investigating this scandal, I'm angry and upset about it.
