The problem with incineration
Article courtesy of Greenpeace UK
Incinerators do not destroy waste Every year in the UK, we produce millions of tonnes of domestic waste. We chuck it in the bin and wait for the council to collect it. Only 11% is recycled. The majority is landfilled or burnt, in 15 municipal incinerators around the country. Many people assume it has been destroyed.
But it is one of the fundamental principles of science that matter can never be destroyed; it can only ever be transformed. Incinerators do not destroy waste. They simply turn it into ash, gases and particulate matter. Our rubbish still exists. We may see less of it. But we are breathing it in instead.
Incinerators release a deadly cocktail of chemicals - from their chimney-stacks, in grate (bottom) ash and in water discharged to the sewerage system. The heat of the incinerator furnace vaporises some of the hazardous heavy metals - such as mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium and tin - found in household waste. And it causes chemical reactions, producing many new toxic chemicals, such as dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated napthalenes, chlorinated benzenes, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Other pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, are also released in huge quantities.
Incinerator emissions poison the human body.
Cancer, heart disease, respiratory problems, immune system defects, increased allergies and birth defects can all be caused by the chemicals that spew out of large incinerators. Dioxins have been classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as carcinogenic, and have been described as the most toxic chemicals known to science. And yet more than half of British babies and toddlers exceed safe levels of dioxin intake.
Incinerator emissions are poorly regulated.
Less than half of the chemicals they produce are continuously monitored. Independent dioxin monitoring occurs no more than twice a year, and the operators are warned in advance roughly when this will be done. A Belgian study has shown that dioxin levels, if continuously monitored, may be 30-50 times higher than the figure that emerges from this monitoring.
Incineration is not green. New incinerators, such as the SELCHP plant in Lewisham call themselves 'combined heat and power stations' and claim to produce 'green energy'. But generating energy from waste in this way is extremely polluting and inefficient. Burning materials that could be recycled and composted to recover a small fraction of the energy embodied in them is in no way green. Britain already has a massive potential resource of green energy in wind, wave and solar power. And investing taxpayers money in so-called energy from waste schemes is to ignore these valuable and lucrative resources.
The government is reacting in blind panic. Pressure to comply with the EU Landfill Directive is forcing both central and local government to embrace incineration technology as a quick-fix solution with little regard for impacts on health or the environment.
The UK can easily comply with the Landfill Directive without incineration - by recycling or composting just 30% of household newspaper, card and organic waste by 2010.
For more infrmation on incineration relating to the Greenpeace campaign against incineration visit their website.
