GREENPEACE REPORT FINDS SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARDS
LINKED TO WASTE INCINERATORS

Report Based on Global Survey of Scientific Literature

May, 15, 2001 --- Today Greenpeace released a new report, "Incineration and Human Health," which documents more than a dozen serious health effects experienced by workers and local communities at or near incinerators. The health effects include different forms of cancer, respiratory illnesses and birth defects. Incinerator workers and children living near these facilities are among the groups that have been shown to experience these diseases.

The Greenpeace report also shows that local communities are at greatest risk from incinerator accidents and the so-called fugitive emissions from waste storage and other incinerator operations.

In addition, one of the more than 300 studies and papers cited by Greenpeace was a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study which concluded that even the latest EPA regulations designed to control dioxin emissions from incinerators "may not adequately reduce risks attributable to cumulative emissions on a regional basis."

It is the cumulative releases of toxic pollutants from all incinerators that threatens the general population, even thousands of miles from any incinerator. The report identifies more than 190 chemicals that are released from incinerators. The NAS found that , "Pollutants emitted by incinerators that appear to have the potential to cause the largest health effect are particulate matter, lead, mercury and dioxins and furans." The NAS also found that different types of incinerators, municipal solid waste, medical waste or hazardous waste all emit similar pollutants.

Furthermore, incinerator emissions, such as dioxins have been shown to have widely contaminated our air, water and food supply, passing these deadly pollutants on to people through milk, meat and other fatty animal products.

Finally, the new Greenpeace report corrects a popular misconception that incinerators reduce wastes. The report shows that when all outputs from incinerators are added up, including all air emissions, ash and wastewater, they exceed all waste inputs.

The findings of this report are especially relevant now as the US Senate will soon consider the ratification of a global chemical treaty on pollutants known as POPs (persistent organic pollutants) which include dioxins and PCBs. The POPs treaty will be signed in Stockholm on May 22-23. President Bush made a dramatic pre-Earth Day announcement saying the US would sign the treaty but the White House has yet to push the Senate for a vote or announced plans to implement the treaty.

To achieve the elimination of dioxins and furans mandated by the POPs treaty, all forms of incineration will have to be phased out and replaced with comprehensive recycling programs for municipal waste and materials substitution policies that eliminate the root sources of dioxin pollution. The largest single source of dioxin pollution is currently the life cycle of vinyl or PVC plastics. For the US and these actions were first recommended in 1992 by the International Joint Commission, which called for the phase out of industrial uses of chlorine and the shut down of incinerators in the Great Lakes region.

The full report is available on the Greenpeace International web
page at: www.greenpeace.org/~toxics/

For more information contact: Rick Hind (202) 319-2445


Excerpts from the National Research Council's Waste Incineration & Public Health. ISBN 0-309-06371-X, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press 2000.

"Despite differences in waste composition and incineration processes, the same types of pollutants of concern can be emitted by each kind of incinerator [hazardous waste, municipal solid waste, and medical waste]." --- Page xi

"After pollutants from an incineration facility disperse into the air, some people close to the facility may be exposed directly through inhalation or indirectly through consumption of food or water contaminated by deposition of the pollutants from air to soil, vegetation, and water... Persistent pollutants can be carried long distances from their emission sources, go through various chemical and physical transformations, and pass numerous times through soil, water, or food." --- Page 4

"Dioxins, furans, and mercury are examples of persistent pollutants for which incinerators have contributed a substantial portion of the total national emissions. Whereas one incinerator might contribute only a small fraction of the total environmental concentrations of these chemicals, the sum of the emissions of all the incineration facilities in a region can be considerable." --- Page 4-5

"Although emissions from incineration facilities can be smaller than emissions from other types of sources, it is important to assess incinerator emissions in the context of the total ambient concentration of pollutants in an area. In areas where the ambient concentrations are already close to or above environmental guidelines or standards, even relatively small increments can be important."
--- Page 5

"Recommendations ... Environmental assessment and management strategies for emissions from individual incineration facilities should include a regional-scale framework for assessing dispersion, persistence, and potential long-term impacts on human health."--- Page 5

"Recommendations ... Government agencies should link emissions and facility-specific data from all incineration facilities to characterize better the contributions of incinerators to environmental concentrations and failed to provide convincing evidence. Lack of evidence of such relationships might mean that adverse health effects did not occur, but it could also mean that such relationships might not be detectable using available methods and data sources." --- Page 6

"Pollutants emitted by incinerators that appear to have the potential to cause the largest health effects are particulate matter, lead, mercury, and dioxins and furans." --- Page 6

"Studies of workers at municipal solid-waste incinerators show that workers are at much higher risk for adverse health effects than individual residents in the surrounding area. In the past, incinerator workers have been exposed to high concentrations of dioxins and toxic metals, particularly lead, cadmium, and mercury." --- Page 6

"EPA has proposed or has promulgated separate regulations for incineration ...However, the effects of such regulations are less apparent when emissions of the most-important pollutants from all incineration sources are considered on a regional scale. For example, the collective contribution of dioxins from multiple incineration sources might remain problematic despite MACT regulations. Because the collective effects of incinerators on metropolitan or regional scales are largely unknown, it is uncertain whether implementation of MACT standards for incinerators will substantially reduce the actual risks posed by persistent environmental pollutants at those scales."--- Page 7-8

"... the committee concludes ... Substantial concerns about regional dioxin and furan exposures and moderate concerns about regional exposures to metals are not expected to be relieved by MACT regulations, because the regulations may not adequately reduce risks attributable to cumulative emissions on a regional basis." --- Page 8

"Recommendations ... In monitoring for compliance or other purposes, data generated during the intervals in which a facility is in startup, shutdown, and upset conditions should be included in the hourly emission data recorded and published. It is during those times that the highest emissions may occur, and omitting them systematically from monitoring data records does not allow for a full characterization of the actual emissions from an incineration facility." --- Page 9