Re: Dioxins and Plants

[Ralph Ryder <ralph@tcpub.demon.co.uk>]

Is this helpful?

Dioxin gets into the food chain by bioaccumulating in organisms in the
food chain. How does it get into the food chain environment? Some
dioxins are directly eliminated into water, for example, from pulp and
paper mills. Most dioxin is released directly to the atmosphere and is
subsequently distributed worldwide through atmospheric transport. Dioxin
is very sticky, it binds to particles, is picked up on dust particles in
the winds and is blown around.  Nowhere in the world today is free from
dioxin. This is a worldwide contaminant and can be found, with sensitive
analytical techniques, even in the most remote places on earth.

When was dioxin first found in the environment, and when did it start to
accumulate? Some chemical companies have been trying to convince us for
a long time that dioxin has been around since the beginning of time, and
that it is a product of forest fires and volcanic activity. Prior to the
onset of heavy uses of chlorinated organics in industry, which really
commenced about 1930, levels were extremely low, based on analysis of
sediment samples. People have done analyses of Egyptian mummies from
more than 2,000 years ago and frozen Eskimos from northern Canada and
the levels are below the detection limit. Dioxin is a product of the
modern industrialisation. Other than forest fires and volcanos, what are
the other major sources? I think it is a point to remember that, unlike
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins and dibenzofurans have no
known industrial use and they were never made for any purpose. They are
contaminants of industrial processes involving certain organic compounds
and chlorine. They are produced by low temperature combustion at between
300o to 400o degrees centigrade. To destroy dioxins, you have to go to
over 1200o centigrade. But you can form them at combustion temperatures
characteristic of wood burning in wood-burning stoves. In addition,
dioxin is a product formed by the chlorine bleaching of paper and pulp
products. 

Linda Birnbaum Presentation to Great Lakes Water Quality Board July 1993

Also: 
Dr. Schecter noted industries strong stance that the Environmental
Protection Agencies recent dioxin reassessment overemphasises dioxin
toxicity. Industry he said, has mounted an enormous scientific barrage
and public relations campaign to detoxify dioxin, promoting theories of
‘natural’ dioxin sources to belittle industrial dioxin pollution. 

        "Dioxin is controversial of course because it’s relatively new.
We weren’t able to measure it until fairly recently, and dioxins weren’t
even around until relatively recently. Despite Dow Chemical’s ‘trace
chemistries of combustion’ theory that any burning produces dioxins,
certainly there’s very powerful scientific evidence that the majority of
dioxins, if not all, definitely are from industrial sources and are
fairly new."
        The first evidence that dioxin are new came from Czuczwa and
Hites, who looked at sediment cores from remote lakes and found that
only in the newer sediments, deposited in this century primarily after
the 1940s, was there evidence of dioxins. Dr. Schecter followed this up
by comparing tissue levels of dioxins in industrialised and non-
industrialised nations, finding high levels in industrialised countries
and very little in less industrialised countries. He also analysed
tissue from the bodies of Eskimos who froze to death over 100 years ago
and found "as close to zero as you can get... the point is dioxin are
new, they are not something that’s always been around."

Dr Arnold Schecter,
Presentation; Dioxins in Food, Dioxins in People,  Aril 1993 
Physicians fo Social Resposibility Sponsored conference, Salem Public
Library


Wishing you good health


Ralph Ryder
In article <199801271652.AA22501@interlock.wdni.com>, "Catalano, Dennis"
<catalad@wdni.com> writes
>Not exactly true about the only reason trees give off dioxin when
>burned.  Dr Gross of the University of Nebraska found dioxin in very old
>petrified trees that had burned thousands of years ago.  He also found
>dioxin in the tissue of Eskimo bodies found frozen in an igloo from
>several hundred years back.  The dioxin was thought to have come from
>burning wood for heat within the igloo.  The chlorine source for this
>was most likely salt air from the sea, but trees do contain chlorine
>from salt uptake from the soil.  I agree that the levels are higher now
>due to the organochlorines from the atmosphere.
>
>Dennis Catalano
> ----------
>From: Byron Bodo
>To: Multiple recipients of list
>Subject: Re: Dioxins and Plants
>Date: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 8:26AM
>
>At 11:14 PM 26/01/98 -0500, Jon Campbell wrote:
>>Hello,
>>
>>       Dioxins are not found in nature except in exceedingly small
>>concentrations (lightning bolts into the ocean), nothing like what is
>found
>>today.
>
>I've heard that there was a recent paper on some sort of naturally
>formed
>PCDD/Fs in the seabeds off Japan but I couldn't find a precise
>reference.
>
>>The only reason that trees give off dioxin when burned is because
>>they have absorbed organochlorines from their contaminated atmosphere
>>(especially where 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T have been sprayed!). They are
>extremely
>>peculiar molecules. As far as I have read, there are no natural
>organisms
>>which can use or assimilate them.
>
>That's the 1st time I've seen anyone claim this.  What about the natural
>Cl content of wood & vegetation?
>
> -bb

Regards

Ralph Ryder

*************************************************************************
 Communities Against Toxics              Tel 0151 339 5473
 PO Box 29                               Tel/Fax 0151 201 6780 
 Ellesmere Port                          Email ralph@tcpub.demon.co.uk       
 South Wirral                            
 L66 3TX. United Kingdom                 
 
 Working for a cleaner environment for us all!
 
 Join CATS from six pounds a year or two pounds a month by standing order?

 Publishers of ToxCat ISSN 1355 5707 available by subscription.
 
 To join our mailing list, just ask?
 ************************************************************************