Infant mortality rates are highest where industrial PM2.5 exposure is greatest. Office for National Statistics data consistently show sudden post-incinerator rises in the infant death rates of councils exposed to incinerator emissions.
This section brings together two decades of maps, reports and correspondence, and the responses of the agencies responsible for protecting public health.
Start here for the main findings.
For a quarter of a century the Environment Agency and its expert health advisers have failed to examine ONS data that shows infant death rates rising after incinerators start operating.
Read the report →Intended to clearly illustrate how living downwind of a waste incinerator and exposure to the emissions results in elevated infant mortality rates.
Read the report →For those who face the prospect of an incinerator, who have been exposed to emissions, and for politicians who wonder why their constituents are concerned.
Read the guidance →Infant mortality around individual incinerators and power stations, using ONS data at council and electoral-ward level.
Changes in infant death rates in three boroughs exposed to emissions. Wandsworth is mainly "upwind" and relatively free from emissions.
Graph · pageBexley's infant death rate rose twice after incinerators started.
3 documentsEmissions from Edmonton incinerator cannot be excluded as a causal factor in wards with infant death rates of 9.0 per 1,000 and above.
Map · pageONS ward data show a four-fold increase in infant mortality downwind compared with upwind, 2003–2007.
5 maps · pageThe permit, the objections, the planning appeal, and the letters to the PCT, the council and the press.
7 documents · pageElevated infant death rates downwind of the Kirklees incinerator.
2 mapsHigh rates of infant mortality in electoral wards around incinerators.
2 mapsWide variations in infant mortality in wards across Bridgnorth, South Staffs, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell.
2 mapsThe pattern of high infant death rates around Veolia's Tyseley incinerator.
MapInfant mortality in wards upwind and downwind of Coventry incinerator.
MapInfant mortality in electoral wards around the Bolton incinerators, 2004–2013.
MapThe recent rise in Rugby's infant death rate after the cement works began burning waste-derived fuel.
In the Sept 2026 reportPM2.5s are particles that are small enough to enter the lungs. Particles that are larger than 3 microns in diameter (PM3s) are too large to get into the lungs.
Harvard School of Public Health found that for every reduction of one microgram per cubic metre in average levels of industrial PM2.5 emissions, there were 3% fewer deaths. The largest drops in mortality rates were in cities with the greatest reduction in fine particulate air pollution, ie PM2.5s.
Unlike the USA and many other countries, the UK do not measure PM2.5s, preferring to measure PM10s.
Source: Harvard School of Public Health press release, 15 March 2006 (archived copy).
What the agencies were told, and how they responded.
The newly formed Health Protection Agency, aware of health concerns around incinerators and landfill sites, promises to check data.
Statement of evidence to the EFRA Committee inquiry into the performance of the Environment Agency (Ev 202–206).
The Greater London Authority dismisses the link between incinerator emissions and infant mortality.
A Freedom of Information request reveals that no relevant data had been examined. Letter to Dr Robert Maynard, HPA.
HPA admit no health studies around incinerators: Justin McCracken's letter.
Shropshire County PCT gives the "green light" to Harlescott incinerator.
Letter to Philip Duffy, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency.
Mr Duffy replies, without responding to the points raised. Full text in the September 2026 report.
46 documents on incineration: reports, letters, maps and press cuttings.
Browse them all in the library →