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In this Issue
You are reading the first issue of the GAIA Campaigner or GC, the
quarterly newsletter of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global
Anti-Incinerator Alliance, which is available electronically and
in printed version. GC hopes to serve as a campaign tool to build
up GAIA's twin-mission, namely putting out the flames of waste burners
and putting up real solutions to the waste crisis. As such, GC will
offer campaign-centered news, analyses, updates and related items
touching on both the anti-incineration (Burning Issues) and pro-alternatives
(Way Forward) front.
In this issue, you will find a review of the recently
adopted POPs Treaty and how it can give campaigners an extra set
of tools for pushing alternative and non-burn discard management
options. Also included are the highlights of newly released reports
that expose the health, economic and social impacts of incineration.
These studies further confirm our resistance against waste incineration
is built on solid ground. The news from the regions underlines the
global character of this expanding resistance, including the achievements
of the recent Waste Not Asia 2001 Conference.
Our campaign victories while mostly local in nature
are essentially global feats which serve not only to sound the death
knell for the incineration industry, but also marks the triumph
of good sense and vigilance over greed and the tyranny of bad ideas.
And because GAIA is about promoting solutions, we are trail blazing
this issue with a feature on Zero Waste.
GC is your newsletter. It is published with your needs and interests
in mind. Do share with us your thoughts on how you find this issue
and what you want the next one to focus on.
Salamat (thank you) to all who assisted us in this
effort. Welcome to GC, your newsletter.
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Incinerator
Emissions and Shrinking Genitals
<
back to contents>
Poisonous emissions from incinerators could be seriously
hindering the sexual development of children, a medical research
has confirmed.The research, published in The Lancet and released
in May this year, found that teenagers living near incinerators
had smaller sexual organs than those in non-incinerator areas.
The teenagers' bodies, insist the findings, contain
high levels of toxic chemicals that not only retard and diminish
sexual development, but are also linked to cancer, heart disease,
allergies and breathing illnesses.
The study looked specifically at heavy metals, dioxins
and polychlorinated biphenyls, all of which are key contaminants
in incinerator emissions. The study compared the levels and effects
of environmental pollutants in the bodies of children living near
two waste incinerators in Belgium with those of adolescents living
in rural Belgium away from incinerators.
Boys living near the incinerators were found to
have smaller testicles which could be due to exposure to endocrine
disrupting chemicals from the emissions of the incinerators and
a nearby lead smelter during fetal, neo-natal (immediately after
birth) and prepubertal periods of their lives.
While girls adversely suffer from breast retardation
as a result of high concentrations of dioxin-like compounds, boys
are said to suffer mainly due to high consumption of PCBs. The release
of report coincides with a worldwide awareness campaign on the negative
effects of incinerators in the environment.
The Lancet is a highly respected professional
medical journal. For the complete report, please issue 357,2001
(www.lancet.com) or cntact
Dr.Jan Staessen of the Environmental Health Study Group e- mail
:jan.staessen@med,kuleuven.ac.be, www.lancet.org
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THE STOCKHOLM
CONVENTION: Marking the Beginning
of an End to Waste Incineration <
back to contents>
by Jim Puckett
In Stockholm, Sweden on May 22nd of this year, the
international community adopted the Stockholm Convention - a new
international treaty to eliminate 12 of the most persistent organic
pollutants (POPs). As chair of the negotiations, Mr. John Buccini
proclaimed the treaty as a declaration of war against POPs. That
same day the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
issued a press release declaring in unison, a war against incineration.
Indeed, while the treaty provides many new advancements
for toxics activists in general, it has seriously implicated waste
incineration as part of the global POPs crisis. In so doing, the
treaty has endowed our movement with a new and powerful set of tools
to persuade policy makers around the world to avoid this inappropriate
and environmentally harmful waste management option.
Like all international agreements, which are negotiated
on the basis of consensus and thus can be lowered down to any one
country's idea of a "common denominator", the Stockholm
Convention is far from an environmental masterpiece and contains
an expected amount of wobbly caveat language. Nevertheless, this
"wishy-washy" language is significantly the exception
to the rules presented which, if implemented in good faith according
to letter and spirit, will throw serious doubt on all incineration
projects.
It will of course be up to civil society to see
that this scenario actually takes place, and much work, nationally
and internationally to ensure strong interpretation and implementation
of the treaty will need to be done. Once a treaty is adopted the
real battle over its efficacy truly begins. Needless to say, ironically
there is a massive industry which would wish to sell incineration
as a "solution" to the POPs crisis and it will thus be
necessary for us to loudly and strategically counter the globe-trotting
industry spin-doctors and pollution peddlers.
The Goal of Minimizing and Eliminating Dioxins and Furans
In two areas, the Convention provides activists with significant
tools to fight incineration. The first issue area (Article 5) has
to do with the fact that the treaty has appropriately and crucially
included, furans dioxins, PCBs, and hexachlorobenzene as unintentionally
produced POPs on the list of the initial 12 targeted chemicals.
As such, a goal has been set for their "continuing minimization
and, where feasible, ultimate elimination" with all Parties
being required to develop an action plan within two years of entry
into force of the Convention, to identify, characterize and address
the release of these unintentional POPs by applying"best environmental
practices" and "best available techniques" to reduce
or avoid existing and new sources.
Whereas the other, intentionally produced POPs (i.e.
aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, DDT, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene,
and PCBs) include but a handful of chemicals, many of which have
already seen their global production seriously curtailed, the listing
of by-product POPs such as dioxins/furans, means that the treaty
will indirectly takes on a far more vast and significant scope including
not only the entire chlorine industry and its products such as PVC
plastic, chlorinated solvents etc., but numerous production and
waste management technologies that produce dioxins/furans as well.
Included among these is incineration, for it is well known that
incinerators, no matter how designed, all lead to the production
of some levels of dioxins and furans as by-products of combustion
of wastes. Indeed in an annex, the Stockholm Convention provides
a list of sources that have the "potential for comparatively
high formation and release of such unintentional POPs." Included
are: waste incinerators, including co-incinerators of municipal,
hazardous or medical waste or of sewage sludge; cement kilns firing
hazardous waste."
Incineration proponents will no doubt try to seek
comfort from the fact that the treaty in most instances, speaks
of "releases" and not total production of dioxins/furans,
and thus try to claim that such POPs captured by air pollution control
devices and ash collection do not constitute a "release"
to the environment. However, it must be noted that in one of the
most important yet often overlooked paragraphs of the Convention,
it states that Parties must "promote the development and, where
it deems appropriate, require the use of substitute or modified
materials, products and processes to prevent the formation and release
of" dioxins/furans. This vital Substitution Principle together
with the use of the word "formation" in this context,
will make it very difficult to advocate incineration as long as
alternative processes exist that do not allow for such formation
of dioxins/furans.
A New Disposal Paradigm for POPs: No Deposit - No Burn
The second issue area (Article 6) with great implications for the
future of incineration deals with how to destroy existent POPs wastes
including obsolete pesticide, PCB and dioxin stockpiles. This section
of the treaty is precedent setting in that it provides us with a
new high standard with respect to what constitutes appropriate hazardous
waste disposal. The Convention calls for Parties to take measures
so that POPs wastes are:
"Disposed of in such a way that the persistent organic pollutant
content is destroyed or irreversibly transformed so that they do
not exhibit the characteristics of persistent organic pollutants..."
While the text above is followed with some caveats such as excepting
low levels of POPs content, which must await further interpretation,
the use of the words "destroyed or irreversibly transformed"
so that they do not exhibit the characteristics of POPs, is meant
to be inclusive of all outputs (no matter how releases might be
defined) and goes far beyond what has previously been envisaged
for any hazardous waste in international law. The Stockholm treaty
also states that POPs wastes cannot be recycled in any way.
This language means that unless the POPs waste in
question qualifies as an exception to the rule, POPs wastes can
no longer be simply "deposited" (e.g. management options
such as landfilling, deep-well injection, sub-seabed disposal, etc.).
Nor can they be recycled. Nor can they be processed (e.g. incineration)
if the process used results in outputs, including residues or by-products,
released to the environment or not, exhibiting POPs-like characteristics.
Currently, most authorities still allow POPs stockpiles to be disposed
of via incineration. Until now, this has been considered appropriate
disposal even when it is known that such combustion processes invariably
entail POPs outputs of dioxins and/or furans which then must be
subject to an imperfect and very costly effort to capture them to
prevent their uncontrolled release to the air.
Now, however, it is clear that even the "most
advanced" incineration technology will have great difficulty
in meeting the new higher bar posed by the Stockholm Convention
for POPs waste disposal. For even recovered dioxins from air pollution
control devices such as those found in fly ashes will be considered
as part of the equation. Further, those recovered dioxins from the
past such as those already caught in carbon filters can not be landfilled
or recycled into roads and building materials as is the case all
too often today.
Pointing the Way to Incineration Alternatives
With continued vigilance and pressure from member groups of such
global anti-toxics networks as GAIA, IPEN (International POPs Elimination
Network), HCWH (Health Care Without Harm), BAN (Basel Action Network)
and PAN (Pesticide Action Network) to ensure that only the most
progressive implementation and interpretation of the treaty prevails,
it is very likely that authorities will have to admit that incineration
is at best, an interim method to be replaced by alternative technologies.
Thus the global effort to rid society of POPs will likely give new
impetus and life to many long existent or emerging waste management
methods that either prevent or reduce wastes, or actually destroy
or detoxify historically produced hazardous wastes. These include:
use of less packaging and one-time or short-time use products, avoiding
toxic inputs, composting, source segregation and recycling of non-hazardous
wastes, or for existent hazardous waste stockpiles such as PCBs
and obsolete pesticides, utilize a new generation of chemical or
biological destruction methods that don't produce new POPs such
as dioxins and furans as by-products of the process.
As outlined above, the Stockholm Convention endows
activists with a strong set of globally accepted political/legal
tools to utilize in resistance to the increasing proliferation of
misguided incineration technologies. These policy arguments combined
with effective use of powerful economic arguments, will complete
a toolbox that should allow common sense alternative methods of
waste management to prevail and allow us to close the sad chapter
of our society's attempt to burn it's way out of the waste crisis.
Jim Puckett is the director of
the Asia Pacific Environmental Exchange (APEX) and coordinator of
the Basel Action Network (BAN).
e-mail: jpuckett@ban.org
website: www.ban.org
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AFRICA, BEWARE:
SOME CURES CAN KILL
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by Rebecca Wanjiku and Nityanand Jayaraman
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Worldwide Fund for
Nature (WWF) and PAN -UK have embarked on a major project aimed
at cleaning up the obsolete pesticides dumped at various sites in
the vast continent.
Africa is now stuck with far in excess of 50,000
tonnes of date-expired and hazardous pesticides and pesticide-contaminated
wastes distributed over 45 countries, according to the FAO 2001
report.
At least as bad as the problem of ongoing poisoning by these pesticide
stockpiles is the looming threat of pollution resulting from their
improper disposal by incineration - a discredited polluting technology
that is now poised to make an entry into Africa.
But action to remedy the situation and prevention
of its recurrence is slow. Now PAN UK and the World Wide fund for
Nature (WWF) are leading an international initiative to raise a
US$250 million fund to pay for the removal and destruction of all
obsolete pesticides in African countries and initiate prevention
measures to avoid similar problems from arising in the future. The
initiative is called the Africa Stockpiles Project (ASP).
Whist the decision is a positive gesture and is
welcome, the core objective of the ASP is to dispose off the obsolete
pesticides but there is no provision for the abandonment of the
harmful disposal practices so the waste may end up to an incinerator
or a cement kiln.
Africa's pesticide stockpiles, like such stockpiles
in other poorer parts of the world, are stored under the most appalling
conditions, under trees, in leaking containers, near children's
playground and schools. Again, as with other poor countries, these
deadly poisons were sent mostly as aid by rich countries, which
have since banned the use of these pesticides.
The damage that has already been done to the soils
and the groundwater may well be irreparable now. But let alone contain
this damage, Africa continues to be besieged by accumulating stockpiles
of poisonous chemicals that come its way in the form of trade and
aid.
Many of the companies that manufactured and profited
from the export of these poisons to Africa are still in business,
although some may have changed their names. According to Greenpeace,
most of the pesticides in the stockpiles are from the big ten chemical
corporations -- American Cyanamid, BASF, Bayer, Ciba-Geigy, DowElanco,
Dupont, Monsanto, Rhone-Poulenc, Sandoz, Zeneca and AgrEVO.
The Aid agencies have again stepped in - this time
with proposals to contain and dispose the stockpiles. Like the earlier
aid programs that left Africa saddled with poisons that nobody wanted
the current proposals to aid in disposal of stockpiles could leave
Africa stuck with more disposal technologies that are proven polluters
and discredited in much of the West.
In some parts of Africa, citizens' groups have warded
off proposals for polluting technologies such as incinerators by
tying up with international environmental groups. Mozambique, for
instance, received an aid project that proposed to destroy its pesticide
stockpiles by burning in a cement kiln. The project was defeated
"due to stiff resistance by environmental NGOs," according
to FAO.
The six months since December 2000 have effectively
been spent assembling the ASP partnership and maneuvering it to
the starting point. Enormous progress has been made in a very short
time, and PAN UK believes that maintaining the momentum is crucial
to its success.
If all goes according to plan, PAN UK and WWF will have initiated
and stood at the helm of a program that could ultimately remove
all obsolete pesticide stocks from Africa, and revolutionize the
way in which pesticides are used and managed throughout the continent.
In the press statement, it was clear that the World
Bank fully supports the project, and granted its affinity for incineration,
Africa might be up to a cure that will definitely kill. It is now
up to the organizations working in Africa and the rest of the world
to stipulate how the destruction of the pesticides would be done.
Incinerating the pesticides would mean that the
same pesticides would be harmful to human health only that this
time it would be as a result of dioxin emissions and other products
of the burn. The continent has to be wary of this cure, lest it
kills instead of healing.
Rebecca Wanjiku is a Kenyan journalist working with the People
Daily and won the Claude Ake Memorial award for African scholars
in 2001.
e-mail:rwanjiku@people.co.ke
Nityanand Jayaraman is an independent journalist
specialising in investigating and reporting environmental crime.
e-mail: nity68@vsnl.com
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ZERO WASTE: A New Thinking
for A Sustainable Society <
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by Warren Snow
Over the last hundred and fifty years, mankind has
created an enormous industrial system based on the premise that
resources can be extracted and waste from the system poured into
nature forever.
Everything manufactured by every factory is sooner
or later on its way to a landfill or an incinerator. Now, than at
any time in history, the total output of the human industrial waste
and materials are finding its way into our communities and ending
up as mountains of pollutants in our respective environments.
Finally, belatedly, we have started realizing that
resources are finite and that nature can no longer absorb the vast
quantities of waste continually released to it.
The same industrial system that created the problem
has created two solutions for waste; the first is landfills and
the second is incineration or burning. A landfill is just a big
hole in the ground; a better name would be 'toxic waste pit'.
After thirty years, big waste companies walk away
and leave the community for many generations to deal with the heavy
metals, toxins, gases, damage to the environment and the loss of
land. The other solution is to burn waste, with all the consequent
toxic releases into the atmosphere and dangerous residues still
going to landfill.
Communities around the world are rising up against
waste, fighting landfills and incinerators and in many cases stopping
them. However, dividends are painfully slow. For every single success
registered, 10 fresh ones are suggested by filthy rich corporations
with influence and affluence that led to the creation of the current
problems in the first place. GAIA is becoming recognised throughout
the world as a key part of the community based anti-incineration
movement and as such is a bright shining light of hope for the many
people who suddenly find that there is going to be a huge landfill
or incinerator in their back
Consequently, the war against incinerators and landfills
should be redoubled. There is need to provide a solution, one that
everybody can agree with, one that everybody can stand for.
The Zero Waste campaign, therefore calls for a new
industrial system…a new design for a sustainable society. Zero
Waste provides people who are 'anti' something with a real positive
alternative.
Zero Waste is a competing disposal technology, competing
directly with incinerators and landfills. All around the world,
surveys show support for and participation in recycling to be over
90 percent, yet recycling has not changed the industrial system
because it deals with the final outputs of the system and has very
little impact on the design of the products and services that flow
through communities and eventually require burying or burning.
Zero Waste seeks nothing less than the total redesign
of the industrial system. The good news is that Zero Waste can out-compete
existing waste disposal technologies not only from the social and
environmental perspective but also the economic.
A significant benefit of Zero Waste is that it favors
local communities and local economies. When materials start to circulate
local opportunities are created and start to reverse the forces
of globalization, which until now have increasingly marginalized
small distant rural communities and certain sectors of society.
People on low income and with less education will
be able to find local opportunities for training and employment
as more and more industries spring up around the materials that
are being diverted back into the economy or nature.
Zero Waste is a breakthrough strategy for a society
in crisis. Incremental change won't bring about the urgently needed
change. What is needed is a total breakthrough; a totally new way
of looking at the problem, something that leads to a new paradigm,
a new vision, and a new target for society.
Zero Waste in itself is not a technology but rather
a basket of technologies that can compete head to head with landfill
and incineration. Already Zero Waste is changing the way businesses,
institutions, communities, schools and individuals think about waste.
We are slowly educating people to think beyond the end of the pipe;
to look at the whole supply chain as their business and that every
time they buy something they must think where it will end up at
the end of its life.
Everybody should take personal responsibility; designers
should design products that are durable, repairable and easy to
disassemble for recycling and made of materials that can easily
be incorporated harmlessly back into nature or back into the industrial
system.
Manufacturers should invest in new design, to create
products with no waste, to eliminate wasteful packaging and to take
responsibility for the whole lifecycle of their products. Retailers
need to ask their buyers to think about every single product that
they buy and to demand that their suppliers create products in an
environmentally sound way with fair labor conditions and no waste.
Universities and schools should incorporate Zero
Waste as part of their basic curriculum and to have their own recycling
systems in place. They should teach people that when they leave
school to work in industry to be responsible for helping to redesign
the industrial system so that human society can truly be part of
nature.
Governments are urged to take the leadership role
and to put the vision of a Zero Waste society forward for their
communities and industries to make their countries more competitive.
Those countries that don't aim for Zero Waste will increasingly
become less efficient and competitive and their economies will decline.
3 core principles for a Zero Waste strategy;
1st principle: 'End cheap waste disposal'.
The only way to make Zero Waste possible is for the true cost of
disposal to be charged to the waste generators. If we were to charge
the true cost of disposal nobody would be able to design something
that was going to end up in a landfill or incinerator because the
cost of that product would be too high and nobody would buy it.
2nd principle: 'Design waste out of the system'; Zero
Waste is an 'end of pipe' strategy but above all it is a design
principle. We must design waste out of the system if we are to achieve
Zero Waste and we must design the strategies that will enable the
supply chain to be radically changed so that it all points up and
down the chain, each person is playing their part in creating closed
looped, resource efficient systems
3rd principle: 'Engage the people'.
No vision and no target will be successful if we do not engage every
single person and help them to believe that it is possible to move
towards the target; in New Zealand this is what we are trying to
do.
There is still a long road ahead and there are many
critics waiting and watching for us to fail. Our vision is strong
and our target is firm, we are slowly building the infrastructure
for a Zero Waste economy and society.
Warren Warren Snow is the Director of Zero Waste New Zealand
Trust.
e-mail: wsnow@voyager.co.nz
Website:www.zerowaste.co.nz
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PUTTING
OUT THE FLAMES
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Denmark. Forty Danish NGOs succeeded in convincing their
government to stop promoting the incineration of hazardous waste
in DANCEE aid projects in Central and Eastern Europe and also in
Africa. Environment Minister Svend Auxen said that the Danish government
will also support guidelines for national action plans in line with
the POPs Treaty; May 2001 (uugluszy@cyf-kr.edu.pl).
France. Defeated plan for a 100,00 tons/year
medical/municipal waste incinerator in Cherbough, France; March
2001 (Pierre@cniid.org). Routed a proposed landfill project in Ronsenac,
France (alexandra@cniid.org).
Ireland. Galway County Council voted unanimously
against the Connacht Waste Management Plan despite mounting pressure
from the central Government to adopt the controversial scheme. At
the meeting, councilors spoke very strongly against waste incineration;
April 2001 (asuttle@tinet.ie).
Philippines and Slovakia. The Governments
of the Philippines and Slovakia have both signed the final Project
Document paving the way for the preparatory work to start the Global
Environmental Facility-funded project to demonstrate appropriate
non-combustion technologies for POPs stockpile destruction in their
countries, and to demonstrate appropriate means of civil society
participation in decision making; April 2001 (jackwein@uic.edu).
Poland. Two Polish
NGOs (Association for the Earth and Waste Prevention Association)
defeated a medical waste incinerator in Starogard Gdanski at the
Baltic Sea coast. This is the 55th anti-incineration victory of
the Polish people since 1993. (uugluszy@cyf-kr.edu.pl).
Poland. The City Council of Zakroczym rejected
a proposed municipal solid waste and hazardous waste incinerator
as this will change the whole character of the county and its inhabitants
who depend on agriculture and agrotourism; April 2001 (uugluszy@cyf-kr.edu.pl).
South Africa. groundWork
together with the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF), Wildlife
and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) and Earthlife Africa
commended Compass Waste Services for selecting autoclaving above incineration
for their proposed medical waste facility in KwaZulu-Natal, in deference
to the concerns expressed by the civil society; July 2001 (llewellyn@groundwork.org.za)
South Africa. Provincial authorities refused
permission for an Atmos/Aidsafe incinerator as campaigned by Earthlife
Africa in Johannesburg together with the Legal Resources Centre,
Environmental Justice Networking Forum, Wildlife and Environment
Society of South Africa, Group for Environmental Monitoring, and
groundwork; April 2001 (muna@iafrica.com).
United Kingdom. The Kidderminster proposed
burner has been dropped after three years and the Hull incinerator
proposal has had a severe setback when East Riding council said
they would not support the proposal and they are referring it to
the Secretary of State; April 2001
(ralph@tcpublications.freeserve.co.uk).
Europe. The European
Union issued a directive that will classify energy produced from
incinerating the biodegradable portion of municipal and industrial
waste as renewable; June 2001.
http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles
France. A report commissioned by the French
Ministries of Environment and Industry concluded that the government
should stop prioritizing waste recycling overincineration with energy
recovery and should introduce financial incentives to stimulate
further growth in the latter. Published on 8 August 2001, many of
the report's conclusions run counter to the views held by the Environment
Ministry and Ademe, the government agency charged with greening
France's waste management sector.
http://www.environnement.gouv.fr/
Netherlands. Dutch Environment Minister Jan
Pronk announced the country's waste strategy (2002-2006), which
includes a temporary ban on exports of "burnable" waste
in order to encourage local firms to invest in new, more environmentally
sustainable energy-from-waste incinerators; June 2001(http://www.minvrom.nl/).
USA. The government assesses market opportunities
for incinerators and waste facilities for US firms in the following
countries/regions: Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Central
and Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam,
Asia's Air Pollution. Control Sector.
{http://infoserv2.ita.doc.gov/ete/eteinfo.nsf/Approved/?SearchView&Query=(+incinerator)}
USA. The U.S. Conference of Mayors at their
June 2001 meeting asked the U.S Congress to provide tax credits
for incinerators which recover energy from burning trash.
<
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United Kingdom. Communities Against Toxics held
a "Zero Waste Management in the 21st Century" Conference
in London on 12 May 2001. Fifty delegates from community-based campaigns
around the country heard speakers from Canada, Netherlands, UK and
USA speaking on incineration, landfill and the concept of zero waste.
One of the conference highlights was the formation of Zero Waste
UK. The conference was part of the activities of the "traveling
team" conceptualized by activists from Europe to disseminate
information to communities threatened with planned energy from waste
incinerators. The team of Dr. Paul Connet (USA), Ralph Ryder (UK),
and Arne Schoevers (Holland) debated with people from all corners
in UK, France, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.
Ralph Ryder, CATS,
e-mail: ralph@tcpublications.freeserve.co.uk
France. The Mouvement pour les Droits et le Respect
des Generations Futures (MDRGF) convened a public conference on
incineration in Beauvais, Oise on 16 May 2001, with Dr. Paul Connett
as main speaker. The conference, attended by 130 people, was held
to raise public awareness on the pitfalls of incineration and to
prevent the construction of two municipal waste incinerators in
the Oise region. The Centre National d'Information Independante
sur les Dechets (CNIID) assisted in organizing the conference.
Francois Veillerette, MDRGF,
e-mail: courier@mdrgf.org
Armenia. The medical waste treatment and disposal
policies and practices of three hospitals in Armenia are being studied
as part of the "Improvement of Medical Waste Management Project"
of the Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment (AWWHE),
a project supported by the Health Care Without Harm (HCWH). The
study will provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of waste
generated in republican and emergency care hospitals and how these
hospitals manage the different categories of medical waste.
Elizabeth Danielyan, AWWHE,
e-mail:liza@armentel.com
Russia. The Baikal Environmental Wave launched a
"hot line" service for residents of Irkstuk who suffer
from the harmful effects of burning rubbish. Irkstuk is 60 kms.
away from a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Lake Baikal. The Baikal's
initiative hopes to help the people by providing them with an avenue
to air their complaints against improper waste management practice
in the area. The complaints are then sent to the City Administrator
for action.
Vyacheslav Kudryatsev, Baikal Environmental Wave
e-mail:norman@baikalwave.eu.org
Thailand. Protestors led by Greenpeace made their
way to the Bangkok office of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation
on 21 May 2001. They demanded the cancellation of the bank's proposed
five billion baht (US$110 million) loan for the construction of
two incineration plants in Bangkok, saying these burners would bring
long-term health woes and add financial burdens to the country.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia
e-mail: tara.buakamsri@dialb.greenpeace.org
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RESOURCES
<
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REPORT REVIEW
Report on the Cost for Incinerator Construction
in Japan
Greenpeace Japan has commissioned the Environmental
Research Institute in March 2001 to examine the full extent of tax
investment that Japanese government has expended so far to promote
incineration as a waste management option. The report reveals that
vast amount of taxpayers' money goes to the construction of waste
incinerators and for implementing technical counter measures to
control dioxin emission from these incinerators.
Over the last five years, the Japanese government
has spent almost 6-8 billion dollars annually for building new municipal
waste incinerators and for improving existing ones. The data used
in the study were taken from the reports of the Ministry of Environment
regarding national subsidies and the Ministry of General Affairs
on loans from municipalities.
Report on Incineration and Human Health
Another report released in May 2001 points to clear
evidence that incinerators release a virtual soup of toxic substances,
and that workers at incinerator plants and people living in nearby
communities are in danger of developing a host of serious health
problems as a consequence of exposure to the chemical by-products
of burning waste.
The scientific findings published in a new report
entitled "Incineration and Human Health, compiled by the Greenpeace
laboratories at Exeter University in the United Kingdom identifies
links between incineration and a variety of human health impacts,
including cancer. It concludes that, where studies into health impacts
of incinerators have been conducted, waste incineration is associated
with definite hazards to human health such as lung, throat, liver
and stomach cancers as well as respiratory problems and heart disease.
The report also confirms that there is no "safe"
level for many environmental chemical pollutants that are toxic,
persistent and bioaccumulative, such as dioxins.
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ASIAN ALLIANCE SUPPORTS DRIVE
AGAINST INCINERATION IN TAIWAN
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In solidarity with local groups fighting waste incineration,
an international alliance of Asian activists urged the Taiwanese
government to start shifting its waste management focus on a strategy
that puts precedence on waste reduction, composting and recycling
programs instead of relying on incinerators and landfills.
Waste Not Asia (WNA), a coalition of environmental
groups from Asia-Pacific countries, specifically called on Taiwanese
national and local government officials to junk current plans to
construct additional incinerators for the country, stressing that
wasting much needed financial resources on this dangerous disposal
option is unjustifiable especially when safer and economical alternatives
could easily be implemented.
" Taiwan needs to make the critical shift now
from the traditional "burn and bury" disposal options
to active pollution prevention and disposal reduction programs like
recycling and composting. This approach is not only environmentally
desirable, it is also economically superior and less expensive than
the traditional disposal oriented systems," according to Madhumitta
Dutta from Toxics Link, an Indian environmental group.
Moreover, incinerators have been pinpointed as major
if not the largest sources of toxic emissions into the environment,
including heavy metals and the ultra toxic dioxins and furans, which
are known carcinogens. Dioxins and furans are on the list of persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) now targeted for elimination by the international
community under the newly adopted Stockholm Convention on Persistent
Organic Pollutants which renders incineration as an untenable option
for many countries.
"Taiwan should learn from the lamentable experience
of Japan which has chosen the incineration route over other safe
and productive waste management options, only to find itself in
deep financial quagmire wasting precious public money in a futile
exercise to control dioxin emissions," said Ayako Sekine of
Greenpeace Japan, a member organization of Waste Not Asia.
Japan operates the most number of waste incinerators
than any other country in the world today. The country, however,
also owns the dubious distinction of having the highest levels of
dioxin emissions in the environment, a major consequence of this
mindless waste burning policy. According to a recent Greenpeace
study, the Japanese government spends between 5 to 7 Billion US
dollars every year for the construction and maintenance of incinerators,
with a third of the amount going into emission control devices.
According to independent studies, communities living
around and downwind of incinerators in Japan have been documented
to have higher rates of cancer, birth defects and infant mortality
compared to incineration free areas.
"Instead of wasting the people's resources
on dangerous and dirty waste management dinosaurs like incinerators
and landfills, the government should channel its resources and energies
instead into the right solutions, namely intensive waste segregation,
recycling and composting. This is the only lasting and genuine solution
to this problem," said George Cheng, Executive Director of
the Taiwan Watch Institute.
"Taiwan should not repeat the costly mistakes
of countries who went the incineration route like Japan. It just
doesn't make sense for our officials to drain our economy of much
needed financial resources especially to pay for dirty projects
which will end up poisoning our people and our environment,"
added Cheng.
For her part, Mageswari Sangaralingam of the Consumers
Association of Penang, a Malaysian group, deplored the continuing
export of incinerators from industrialized countries like Japan,
Denmark and Germany to the developing countries of Asia, describing
it as "a form of toxic trade which traps developing countries
into a vicious mix of toxic emissions, massive debt repayments and
financial expenditures and even greater poverty."
WNA is the Asian node of the Global Anti-Incinerator
Alliance or GAIA, an expanding international alliance of environmental
and other non-governmental organizations working to stop all forms
of waste incineration and seeking to promote sustainable waste prevention
and discard management practices. Waste Not Asia held its second
annual meeting in Taipei from 26-30 July 2001.
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