The arguments against incinerators are much wider than Veolia or its supporters among Newport CC's officers imagine. The western world has for many years been guilty of profligate misuse of scarce resources, especially oil, and nowhere is this clearer than in the amount of waste that is produced every year, but this situation is changing.

The growing competition for resources arising from population growth added to the phenomenal industrial growth in countries such as China and India will mean that we will have to be a lot more frugal in the future. That means we will be producing a lot less waste. It is clear therefore that an incinerator contract extending over 25 years is unsustainable, except at enormous cost to council taxpayers. Veolia's Robert Hunt mocks what he calls "the caprice of this political overlay", seemingly unaware that it is this same process (otherwise known as democracy) that permits his company to operate in this country at all. Third world governments have allowed their environments to be trashed, even allowing the importation of toxic wastes, but these countries are still poor. Wales needs investment , but of the kind that makes more efficient use of resources and definitely not the kind that Veolia will bring.

Clive Shakesheff, Lewis Way, Chepstow