Re: dioxin formation in landfills [burning]

[Neil Tangri <ntangri@essential.org>]

Hi Joe,

Most of my dioxin knowledge comes from Dying from Dioxin, so I'm by no
means an expert. But my impression is that the figures from forest fires
are very controversial (it's hard to do stack measurements of a forest
fire, so there isn't much good data!). I think the forest fire numbers have
been deliberately exaggerated by industry. Also, a forest fire will burn
much hotter than a landfill: I think they go well over 1000 degrees,
whereas most landfills that I have seen are just smoldering. 

I'm in complete agreement about collecting and not venting methane, though!

Neil

At 15:02 9/20/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Neil,
>My understanding is that a forest fire puts out 
>huge quantities of dioxins.  So if landfills burn 
>as hot at that, as is likely, dioxins should result. 
>Methane is a greenhouse gas about 20 times or 
>so as potent as carbon dioxide, which is why 
>landfills should collect, and not vent it.
>Joe
>NJ/NY Environmental Watch
>
>Re:
>"A question about landfills: in many places, landfills are merely open
>dumps
>without any methane collection system, so they periodically catch fire
>spontaneously and smolder for long periods of time. I was concerned about
>the possibility of dioxin formation from the PVC and other plastics that
>are dumped in these landfills, but on reflection it seems that the
>temperature would be too low for dioxin formation. Does anyone have any
>information on this?
>
>Neil"
>