Toxic waste in Japan. The burning issue

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

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         Toxic waste in Japan. The burning issue
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    INDEXWaste management|Japan, toxic dioxin emissions; Chemicals|Japan,
    TERMStoxic dioxin emissions; Pollution|Japan, toxic dioxin emissions;
         Environment|Japan, toxic dioxin emissions;
     DATE25-Jul-98  _The Economist_
    WORDS978
         TOKYO
         A PENCHANT for wrapping everything in plastic and then burning the
         rubbish indiscriminately has turned Japan into the dioxin centre
         of the world. Dioxins, a highly toxic group of chemicals that are
         known to cause birth defects, skin disease and cancer, are
         produced when polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other plastic waste is
         burned at temperatures below 700 degrees celsius. So toxic is
         dioxin that a bit the size of a grain of salt will kill a man...
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I tried to download the whole artilce, but no luck by the time I got tired
of their archives.  It focuses on recent disclosures of toxic sludges in
harbors, etc.

Tony Tweedale

Causality is a concept not subject to empirical demonstration. -David Hume
(1711-'76)