Activated carbon stream good for mercury control

[Joseph R Parrish Jr <JoeParrish@compuserve.com>]

In our area the children within about ten miles of our MSW incinerator 
began to walk at later and later ages once the burner got going, without 
having the mercury controls.  We tried to get our DEP to put the controls
on 
for six years and finally succeeded.  The carbon injection system 
dramatically reduces both the mercury and a little of the odor, and 
the infants should begin to walk at earlier ages.  Mercury especially 
hits the medulla of the brain of newborns and causes balance disorders.
The carbon injection also reduces dioxins by about 90 percent, so that will

at least help folks some distance away, but probably not much in the 
immediate vicinity.  The World Health Organization has gotten correlations 
between a mother's mercury content in her hair, which is how it is
excreted, 
and the age her baby walks.You might contact them for the details in New
York.  
 A mother's mercury teeth fillings, "silver" fillings, are also responsible
for infant 
balance disorders, as is eating more than one serving of large fish (tuna,
etc.) per 
week during pregnancy, since large fish concentrate mercury in their
tissues. 
One difficulty once the carbon has absorbed the mercury and dioxins is that
it 
should be labeled a hazardous waste for disposal, but usually is not.  It
is 
extremely hazardous but often is mixed with the heavy metal sludge ash at
the 
bottom of the incinerator burner and used in normal landfills, or, as is
beginning 
to happen in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere, especially New Hampshire,

the ash is mixed with asphalt and layered onto roadways and parking lots
where 
it deteriorates and releases the heavy metals and dioxins into the
environment.
Joe
NJ/NY Environmental Watch

Re: "We are being asked to pay for a retrofit to the Wheelabrator MSW
incinerator
in our community for the purpose of "reducing" mercury emissions. The plan
is for a carbon injection system that cools flue gases allowing extra
mercury to be captured. A dastardly option! If I'm understanding some of
how
dioxin is formed in the incineration process, cooling the stack gases
produces more dioxin. Correct? If this is the case, it would be another
argument against retrofit. Thanks for any help. Jackie"