Re: they're back: oh happy days!!

[Ferdinand.Engelbeen@ping.be (Ferdinand Engelbeen)]

Charley Cray reacted on our postings about dioxins from PVC.

>----------
>Original-TO:      dioxin-l@essential.org
>----------
>assertion:
>We think you didn't read carefully. The incineration of PVC
>production-waste is counted as (the largest) part of the dioxin
>emissions from PVC production, wich is accused by Greenpeace to
>emit enormous quantities of dioxins, wich is obvious not true.
>
>reply:
>"Obvious" ???  Who says?  What level of dioxin do the
>chlorophools suggest is safe?
>
We didn't say that any level of dioxins is 'safe'. We only repeatedly said
that a risk of one to one million/year of accidents, poisonings, excess
cancer risk, etc. is acceptable, otherwise you will have to close every
factory, stop all heating and traffic... and cut all trees to prevent wood
fires...

>We do not have exact figures for dioxin emissions from US EDC/VCM
>production incinerators...the industry has refused to submit that
>

In Europe we had published figures, measured by friends of Greenpeace and
several other laboratories. Greenpeace has chosen to use non-comparable
laboratory data, even manipulated these by confusing between formation and
emissions, to suggest 10,000 times higher 'emissions' than really
measured...
(emissions of Akzo Nobel/Rovin plant Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 50 mg I-TEQ/yr)

Greenpeace has chosen to break into US EDC/VCM plants to steal some waste
to suggest that dioxins found in that waste are all 'emissions', while that
waste is properly disposed of afterwards...

>
>Industry argues that dioxin in the wastes from incineration are
>destroyed when incinerated.  And yes, Virginia there is a Santa
>Claus...

Every chemist with the slightest notice on incineration can tell you that
dioxins and other OC's are effectively destroyed above 800 °C, when with a
sufficient residence time...
And Santa Claus has since long been poisoned by the dioxins in a lot of
chimneys from burning natural wood in fire places... Maybe it is therefore
that we have to use stand-ins nowadays?

>Tests on Dow's Edmonton, Canada facility show that -- to the
>contrary -- incinerators burning VCM wastes are emitting
>
>substantial amounts of dioxin.  And that's under carefully
>controlled circumstances which do not reflect everyday operations
>-- upset conditions, etc.
>

I have received the concentration rates of Dow's Canadian facility, sent by
Philip Fleischer. Although pretty high (10 I-TEQ ng/m3), that doesn't say
anything about the quantity released.
If we look at the USEPA estimate from that facility, the only one in Canada
(CBNS, table I, page 6, item 15), it will give between 0.5 and 5 I-TEQ
mg/year, MILLIgram! Calling that a 'substantial' amount is a little bit
exaggerated, isn't it?
Even if it is underestimated and in reality would be the ten- or
hundredfold, that is completely neglible, compared with the total
anthropogenic dioxin emissions in the US/Canada, estimated to be 8,100
I-TEQ GRAM per year or even compared with the natural dioxin emissions,
estimated 800 I-TEQ GRAM per year (or 40 kg sum dioxins, 10% of
anthropogenic), if we may believe your previous posting, the
'dioxin/cl/incineration: another study'.

>
>The Instutute reported that diffuse emissions of organochlorines
>(including ethylene chloride, VCM and EDC) at the Norwegian plant
>were 65 times higher than direct discharges.  At the Swedish
>plant, diffuse organochlorine emissions were over 12 times higher
>than direct discharges.
>

Fugitive emissions are from fugitive products, having a low boiling
point/high vapour pressure, not from stuff with extreme low vapour pressure
like dioxins.
That is the reason that you will find almost all dioxins from EDC/VCM
production in the high boiling point 'heavy' ends, wich are incinerated,
and not in VCM or EDC... That means that although more VCM/EDC can be
emitted by fugitive emissions than by direct emissions from vents or
stacks, that is absolutely not the case for dioxins. But even for the real
fugitive emissions, these can be avoided by installing bellows on control
valves and the use of closed pumps and by good designed incinerators for
the vent gases from tanks and safety devices, again emitting less than a
few mg dioxins per year...

>In June 1992 the Kansas Department of Health and Enivornment
>(KDHE) detected Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM) in water in Doniphan
>County Rural Water District #5.  VCM was found in later tests
>from 2.9 to 7.4 ppb.  Industry later admitted that 23 year old
>pipe was the source of VCM in the water.
>

Some stuff for another list, the GP-historic-l, we think.
Only some 23 years ago, it was discovered that VCM was a human cancerogen,
through an industry sponsored study at the university of Bologna (Italy).
And this was made public by the industry itself.
Until then nobody cared for VCM monomer rests in PVC. Immediately after
that discovery, VCM in air and in PVC polymer were reduced drastically a
hundred- to a thousandfold. So it is possible that old pipe like the one
mentioned still leaks VCM. But even then, if you drink 2 liter of that
water a day, every day, the excess cancer risk is less than 1 to 10 million
in a lifetime, wich is almost neglible. With modern PVC pipe, that risk is
now even orders of magnitude lower...

In no case, neither by incineration or by sunlight, PVC is degrading back
into VCM, it will split-off hydrochloric acid, leaving a (hydro)carbon
skeleton. And we have tests from the water supply companies in The
Netherlands, showing no sign of degradation, in any type of soil, after 37
years of useful life. Similar tests exists from German 50+ years
PVC-pipe...

>Anyone who is interested in the PVC pipe issue should get a copy
>of the PVC pipe report put out by the City of Toronto's Public
>Health Dept.
>
Is that the same wich was already posted by Morag Simpson? Not great stuff
isn't it? Looking at all (possible) negative aspects of PVC, while
overlooking the (worse?) real negative aspects of the alternatives...

>Assertion:
>There have been many, many tests that disprove the connection
>between chlorine in the input and dioxins in the output, compared
>with a few wich prove it... and a few wich prove the contrary.
>That means that any burnable material gives the same amount of
>dioxins in the same incinerator under the same circumstances, no
>matter what the chlorine or carbon content is, as long as there
>is some present, wich is unavoidable.
>
>Response:
>It is avoidable: simply don't burn garbage (common sense),
>because it turns mostly perfectly good materials into ash and
>toxic gases.
>

That may be common Greenpeace sense, but it depends entirely of why you
incinerate what and how you incinerate or destruct or thermolyse...
For the rest we completely agree: PVC is one of those perfectly good
materials, wich can be recycled many times, each for another hundred+
years...

>assertion:
>And we haven't seen any peer-reviewed scientific comment yet from
>the scientific community that this claim is not thrue, neither
>that replacing PVC by other materials will give less persistent,
>bioaccumulating, hazardous pollution...
>
>reply:
>The Clean Combustion Technology Laboratory undertook the
>experiment I cited in my last posting in response to the
>Chlorophools  to answer the question: "Is there a relationship
>between PVC input and the chlorinated hydrocarbon emissions from
>incineration? ... These results, contrary to the prevailing
>opinion lead to the physically reasonable conclusion that
>decreases in the levels of organically bound chlorine (PVC) in
>the input leads to decreases in chlorinated organic emissions.
>.. Thus we are convinced that, when all other factors are held
>constant, there is a direct correlation between input PVC and
>
>output PCDD/PCDF and that it is purposeful to reduce chlorinated
>plastics input to incinerators."  (John C. Wagner and Alex ES
>
>Green, Correlation of Chlorinated Organic Compound Emissions From
>Incineration With Chlorinated Organic Input; Chemosphere, Vol.
>26, No. 11, pp2039-2054, 1993)
>

At first, while dioxins are chlorinated hydrocarbons, chlorinated
hydrocarbons are by far not all dioxins. Different OC's are formed at
different circumstances. And in any case they all are effectively destroyed
when the temperature is high enough and the residence time is long enough.
They are not formed again if the cooling time is short enough...
And laboratory/pilot plant incineration is by far not the same as large
scale incineration...

For the last time, we hope, it is becoming boring:
The average results of more than a hundred large scale municipal waste
incinerator tests show NO correlation, neither in composition, neither in
amount of dioxins with chlorine/PVC input, even when PVC was omitted or PVC
in large excess was added. Neither do more than twenty medical waste
incinerators. Neither do near thirty hazardous waste incinerators (even
with a variation in chlorine content of 1:10, up to 80% of chlorine!).
Neither do hazardous waste (co)fired boilers. Neither do cement killns.
Neither do biomass combustors...
That can be found in the ASME report, including all for the calculations
used data from ALL tests they found, having simultaneous measurements of
chlorine input and dioxin output and other relevant measurements. So
everybody who wants to do so can check the results. And everybody who has
additional testfigures of other not included tests, can still send them to
the ASME...

Will we make a bet for large scale PVC pipe incineration testruns in Toronto?

Ferdinand Engelbeen
Chairman Chlorophiles

Ferdinand.Engelbeen@ping.be