The New Straits Times, July 5, 1999
IN the US, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified incinerators as the largest source of dioxin. The poison is often one of the many components of the gaseous emissions called flue gas which despite being "washed" through a cleaning process, may still contain some residue. Contrary to corporate rhetoric, even state-of-the-art incinerators release toxic substances, including dioxins and heavy metals, into the air, water and land. Since dioxin is a "persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemical", even minute residues could pose long-term health and environmental risks.
Given the many failures of incineration technology, coupled with the success of the anti-incineration movement in the United States and Western Europe, incineration companies have inadvertently been sent out to search for new markets in newly industrialised countries.
Since the early 1990, the environmental movement - Greenpeace, for example - has monitored industry attempts to construct waste incinerators in the South and the countries of the former communist bloc. Specifically, in Latin America, toxics campaigners have uncovered so many proposals to construct waste incinerators, that Greenpeace has rated incineration the priority toxics issue for the region.
Many incinerator companies from the North have been identified by the movement as rushing to convince Latin American authorities that incineration is the answer to their waste problems. These corporations are showing up in communities throughout the region, claiming that incineration is a popular, proven choice for waste management, and that all the technological difficulties associated with incineration have been solved. Sometimes, this corporate misinformation is the only literature available to communities struggling with waste problems.
"Government authorities considering incineration are very surprised to learn that the dioxin emission problem has not been solved," reported Madeleine Cogging, a Greenpeace toxics expert who recently spent two months in Latin America researching the regional anti-toxics movement. "In fact, some officials are convinced that 'waste-to-energy' facilities are totally different from waste incinerators."
In Central America, the Canadian firm Continental Waste Conversion Inc is pushing incinerator proposals in the capital cities of El Salvador and Guatemala. Meanwhile, the European Community is financing a regional programme for the collection and incineration of hospital waste.
In Malaysia, it is reported that there are four major incinerators, three of which are for clinical waste and the other, industrial waste. It is understood that there is no incinerator handling municipal (garbage) waste as yet. While there are assurances that the four incinerators have been operating within guidelines based on that of the European Union (not exceeding 0.1 nanogramme per cubic metre), there are still no standards for dioxin emissions in the Malaysian environmental laws.
The irony is, once these incinerators exist, they will require a steady input of wastes to burn to remain economical. There more they are built, the greater is the chance that waste will be imported to fill any access capacity, rather than to have them operate at a loss. In other words, waste importing countries are literally dumping grounds with impending health and environmental problems.
Added to this are the smaller incinerators that could also release dioxins, especially if there are hydrocarbons and chlorine in the waste like polyvinyl chloride or PVC. This is more likely if the separation of waste disposal is not yet an accepted practice in the community.
Therefore, paper, glass, metal and wood ought to be separated from chlorinated waste so that toxic waste can be better managed.
In any case, big or small, accidents and negligence involving dioxin can occur with direct consequences on innocent lives as in the case of Seveso, Italy in 1976. It resulted in 474 burns, 187 cases of ecloracne, 737 long-term evacuations and thousands of animals killed and slaughtered. It involved more than four sq kilometres of environmental damage, with an estimated evacuation cost of US$3.5 million. Many more have occurred in the US, including in Love Canal (Niagara Falls), Time Beach (Missouri), Pensacola (Florida) and the entire city of Midlands, Michigan.
Again in February 1998, the French authorities after detecting excessive levels of dioxins in the milk of diary cows have ordered three waste incinerators located near the farm to be closed. And as recent as March 1999, about a ton of particles said to be contaminated with dioxins escaped into the environment in Duisburg, Germany, polluting an area of more than 3,000 sq kilometres. It was reported to be caused by malfunctions.
Whatever the merits of the situation, the effect on human health caused by incineration emissions with toxic chemicals like dioxins and heavy metals, as well as the complications of ash disposal, must not be an afterthought. Our health cannot be better than the health of the environment that we live in - the quality of our air, land and water - with or without incineration.
As such, it is more prudent for Malaysians to adopt a waste prevention strategy that aims to not produce waste where possible, and minimise waste.
When there is waste, the long-term solution is to recycle and reuse the non-toxic ones. As for toxic waste, the only way to deal with it is to limit the use of potentially hazardous material with the eventual aim of phasing it all out, including all known and toxic production processes.
We ought to invest time and money in educating ourselves to make this a way of life, rather than resort only to building an indiscriminate waste disposal infrastructure that is fast being considered outmoded.
