[Dioxin-l] Thank you Connie Hansson

[superjicb]

To DAVID BELL (couldn't send to whole list via your post so used David Ross)

I apologize for misquoting you.   I was responding to some comments you made
and some Michael made and lumped them.  I won't do it again.

Have you had any experience working on environmental issues with
politicians?  If  "no politician can ignore the logic" then we wouldn't
still be discussing dioxin and incineration.   The problem would have been
fixed years ago.   The problem is that some politicians can and do ignore
logic, in fact all politicians ignore logic at times because of limited
resources and confliciting demands.  I'm not saying that when they hear
something logical that they do not recognize the logic (although some do
not) but I am saying that they have their own agendas and those agendas are
not always tied to the health of their constituients.

Run a CFCs time line versus a dioxin/incineration time line.  My memory is
not perfect on this issue but I think the dioxin/incineration relationship
came to be know first.  Why is it so far from being fixed?  The political
environment was much more favorable to environmental advocates in the first
half of the 1990s than it is today.  Also advocates had several interested
parties on their side.  They had scientists, and replacement chemical
manufacturers, and equipment suppliers.  Most cooling/refrigeration
equipment didn't have to be replaced all at once like it would with
incineration.  With CFCs lots of equipment just needed one chemical to be
swapped out for another.  Also refrigeration/cooling/ac equipment tends to
last a shorter time than incinerators.  Also net,net the CFC changeout just
caused increased sales and new opportunities for vendors, they did not lose
any market segments, like I'm sure incinerator manufacturers would  (small
models would likely be to expensive if they were compliant).  Plus you have
the whole issue of chlorinated wastes that are not burned in incinerators.
This certainly is not something chlorine manufacturers of the CCC would be
too happy with, especially if you remove chlorinated derivatives that likely
get burned and the chlorine industry does not get to participate in the
replacements. My understanding is clean incineration will cost much, much
more than a CFC changeout.  Also if you remember there were a core of
scientists that swore the whole CFC hole was a fabrication.  It was just
because industry and environmentalists pulled together that the job got
done.

I didn't get into the sedcore file as it would take download time and it
seemed from your statement that again they didn't tell you why the dioxin
was there to begin with. I do not know what industry was on these lakes or
where they were, but I'd bet that they had bleached paper mills on them.
Mills have been improving over the years as we all know and especially in
the 1990s dioxin was reduced as mills moved away from chlorine bleaching.
This however doesn't really address that we need to decrease dioxin
formation in incineration.

Connie
----- Original Message
----- Original Message -----
From: david bell <burnt_paper@hotmail.com>
To: <superjicb@email.msn.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2000 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Dioxin-l] "normal background level"


> Hi Connie
>
> David Bell here, and I notice you quoted me. I should point out I have no
> relationship at all with the incinerator industry, or Michael Oros.
>
> I do have a view which I like to advocate, and that is that the facts help
> the environmental argument.
>
> >Michael or David said quote: ".dioxin is highly toxic - a fact.  It
follows
> >to reduce the level till there is no toxicity. This has such strength and
> >clarity that no politician can ignore the logic, and activism wins."
> >
> >I disagree <snip>
>
> Can you explain to me what you disagree with in the statement ?
> At most I am arguing for going to politicians with facts, because going to
> polititicians without facts seems even less likely to be successful.
>
> I note also that you mention the CFC industry as an area where
> environmentalists have been successful. This is true, but it owes a lot to
> the logic I set out above. That is, someone discovered a massive hole in
the
> ozone layer. Some chemists spent ages showing that the hole in the ozone
> layer was caused by CFCs. The logic of the argument was: (1) CFCs cause
> ozone layer depletion (2) ozone layer depletion will kill all mammals on
the
> planet (3) stop CFC production. I don't think I can think of a better
> application of this logic by environmentalists.
>
> >I read the Beaver Lake Washington study by the EPA.  It scares me to see
> >six
> >times the amount of dioxin was present in 1964 that was present in 1932,
> >especially because between the 1800s and 1932 the dioxin level stayed
> >almost
> >the same indicating that incineration has had its toll in this area since
> >1932. Does anyone know anything about Beaver Lake?  Does it have lots of
> >industry or population?  Why did the EPA pick it?  I noticed that there
was
> >a drop in dioxin in the area between 1964 and 1974.  Is there a reason
for
> >this drop?  Did any industries in the area close?
>
> If you look at:
> http://www.epa.gov/ncea/docs/sedcore.wpd
> you will see similar analyses for 11 different lakes in the US. A 10 fold
> increase for most lakes, but only 3fold in Alaska (between 1930 and 1960).
>
> I am not sure of the chronology, but most of the big chemical companies
> realised they had a dioxin problem in the 70s, and changed manufacturing
> processes to avoid producing dioxins. Don't know if this is related to
> dioxin levels in sediments.
>
> cheers
> david bell
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________
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----- Original Message -----
From: David Ross <dsross3@yahoo.com>
To: <dioxin-l@lists.essential.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2000 5:43 PM
Subject: [Dioxin-l] Thank you Connie Hansson


> I find the contribution by Connie Hansson to be the most cogent and
> thoughtful contribution to the list I have seen in the short time I
> have been a member.  Thank you for it.
>
> Her posting prompts the following response:  For the record (and as I
> had thought I had made clear earlier), while now retired my
> professional experience and present motivation are directed to
> alternatives to combustion for the destruction of halogenated waste.
> We all agree that dioxin and related materials are toxic, and that
> classical incineration (i.e. combustion) of chlorinated waste is a
> significant (sole?) source.  And for very good technical reasons we
> cannot make incinerators cleaner and cost effective at the same time.
> There are moreover political elements to this issue as well, as
> Connie suggested.
>
> It is the case, however, that there do exist combustion alternatives
> that can be developed to commercial scale to be at least as cost
> effective as incinerators.  In such systems, which are not at all
> exotic and use common materials, dioxins cannot form (temperatures
> too low), and indeed purposefully introduced dioxins are destroyed as
> rapidly as other chloroorganics.  The products are NaCl, CO2, and
> water.
>
> There are therefore two paths to follow in my view:  i) Accepting
> that the PVC industry and its cousins are huge and will not be
> replaced, and that they are processes with very large quantities of
> chlorinated waste-side products that are largely incinerated or
> deep-welled, work to force a cleanup of the processes; and ii) since
> there will inevitably be waste at any rate, work to affect
> development and implementation of a combustion alternative for
> disposal.  (The list of course is no place for product promotion, and
> that is one reason why I have minimized discussing my background.  I
> won't go into specific alternatives accordingly, but will be pleased
> to discuss the technical issues individually with interested
> parties.)
>
> My guess is that this view will not be very popular with some list
> members since I am not advocating elimination of all organochlorines
> forever.  Rather I recognize that PVC and other chlorinated products
> are with us like it or not, and they are in many ways useful to us.
> And while I cannot support the following statement with a citation,
> my view is that replacement of those chlorinated materials we find so
> useful today, including polymers, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, etc,
> with halogen-free substitutes would be difficult if not impossible.
> But since a big part of the problem is their ultimate disposal, it
> would seem that a replacement for combustion is a satisfactory route.
>
> Finally, I don't know the answer but I ask Connie:  Is not municipal
> incineration where the feed is largely common C,H,O,N's and is
> relatively chlorine-free ok?  Or are there problems in that arena
> too?
>
> Michael
>
>
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