TOM PRENDEVILLE,
Madam, - Mr Jim Killeen of IBEC insists that waste incinerators are necessary (The Irish Times,November 28th).
However, even when equipped with the latest emission controls, incinerators will release a wide range of pollutants that will affect human health and the health of the environment.
Although solid wastes are usually considered non-hazardous, they are contaminated with thousands of potentially dangerous compounds, including used oils and paints, old drugs and pesticides, mercury batteries, glues, solvents, inks and dyes. In addition, the basic chemical building blocks that make up most solid wastes can recombine under the high temperatures found in an incinerator to form new and much more dangerous compounds.
Air emissions going up the incinerator stack will include: nitrogen oxides (which cause both acid rain and urban smog); sulphur dioxide and hydrogen chloride (two other acid gases); the asphyxiating carbon monoxide; carbon dioxide (linked to global warming); toxic heavy metals including lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium; and dangerous organic compounds such as dioxins and furans, PCBs, phenols and benzene.
Many of the most dangerous chemicals emitted by municipal incinerators - such as dioxins and furans, mercury, arsenic and cadmium compounds - are included on the Department of the Environment's list of candidate substances for banning or phase-out. The list of chemicals is based on defensible scientific criteria and the Irish Government is committed to eliminating the environmental release of these compounds. A ban on waste incinerators would support this commitment.
However, a ban should also be based, in part, on unanswered environmental and health questions that have been raised about incineration emissions. For instance, scientists don't know enough about the long-term toxic effects of many of the hundreds of other potentially dangerous compounds produced through incineration. There is great uncertainty about how these contaminants move through the environment, how quickly they break down (if at all), how they combine with other pollutants, or how they can build up in the food chain.
It is prudent to avoid, whenever possible, discharging toxic chemicals into the air we breathe and the environment we rely on. Our Minister for the Environment, Mr Martin Cullen, in weighing the uncertain environmental and health risks posed by incineration, has chosen the most imprudent route by not banning the future construction of incinerators in Ireland. Yours, etc.,
TOM PRENDEVILLE, Zero Waste Campaigner, Friends of the Earth, Upper Camden Street, Dublin 2.