The UK government has provided Macedonia with an incinerator to burn hospital waste that would be illegal under British law because of its toxic emissions.

The British-made incinerator was given as humanitarian aid, and is in use near the Macedonian capital of Skopje. If the country joins the EU, as it hopes to do, the incinerator would have to close as it is a danger to local people and breaches EU emission standards.

The incinerator is one of several provided to the Balkans under World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, none of which reaches EU standards.

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Adam Ostrowski, an expert on toxic waste management employed by the Basle convention, which regulates international trade in hazardous waste and is signed by the UK, said: “This is one of the worst pieces of dirty technology dumping dressed up as aid that I have witnessed in eastern Europe.”

Mr Ostrowski said the basic equipment was functional but lacked important additions to maintain even temperatures, or essential flue gas cleaning equipment to remove toxins that could cause cancer and birth defects.

“I am really surprised that the British government is indulging in this sort of practice,”he said. “This sort of technology has been outlawed in western Europe. It is just not right to generously give it to the Macedonians knowing it will have toxic emissions and have to be scrapped when they join the EU. They should be ashamed.”

Velevski Gjorji, manager of Drisla, the state owned company that operates the incinerator, said it was not told the smoke would be damaging to human health. “When we found out we asked the WHO and they said the parts were not necessary for us, but if we wanted them we could buy them for £200,000. For Macedonia that is too much money.”

The plant was given at the time of the Kosovo refugee crisis. It burns waste from Skopje’s hospitals and operates seven hours a day. If fully utilised it could burn half the country’s hospital waste.

A spokesman for Incinco Ltd, which made the incinerator, said it was asked to provide the basic boiler. The extra functions were available but would have made the package far more expensive.

A spokeswoman for the Department of International Development said: “Our policy for supplying equipment depends on the local situation and a judgment has to be made on what is appropriate.”

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The department paid £47,000 towards the incinerator - one with proper flue gas cleaning would have cost three times as much.

Phillip Rushbrook of the WHO advised against the equipment, but he said: “This incinerator was a lot better than the alternative, which was burning waste in large metal boxes which produces far worse fumes and possible diseases.”

He admitted that the incinerator breached EU regulations, but said: “We might not have been able to find the money for a state of the art incinerator. If we had done so the Macedonians might not have had the money or the expertise to run it.”

Mr Rushbrook added that the Macedonians seemed very pleased at the time the incinerator was installed.