Friday, 30 October 2009
Muck,Planning and Brass Neck
How to fly a pyrolysis incinerator under the planning radar……
And then let the aliens breed a new colony!
From Where there’s Muck there’s Brass……GLA Oct 2009
"whereas smaller sites can be located amongst housing or
industrial units and use the heat generated locally. EPI have sited their
pyrolysis plant in a current waste treatment area, which underpinned
their business model and helped during the planning process.
EPI has a series of small modular pyrolysis units up and running
outside London. The Committee visited a test site on an industrial
estate in Mitcham. It has a single processor unit, which can process
8,000 tonnes of waste a year. Up to four other units could be added
on to the site to process 40,000 tonnes per year which is the average
waste requirement for a borough. This would produce enough
electricity to power an estimated 7,000-10,000 homes. This size of
plant would require around 3,000 sq ft of covered space and a smaller
version could be developed for use near to large buildings such as
sports centres and hospitals, which can use both the heat and power
produced. The long-term plan at Mitcham is to sell heat to other
units (such as a 24 hour bakery) on the estate.
The benefits of this process are that as the waste is not burnt, more
energy is captured than through the incineration process, there are no
harmful emissions, the process is odourless and virtually noiseless. In
addition, the size of the operation meant that recent planning
applications for 40,000 tonne plants had been approved in 12 weeks.
The plants are not subject to Environment Agency regulation as they
are considered low impact and therefore local authority environmental
health departments are responsible for granting the facilities a permit.
No Harmful Emissions!? That will be a first…I would definitely like to see the peer reviewed research on which such a statement is based.
The Residues?....pyrolysis (which is an unalterable chemical process,like gravity is for physics )produces some of the most carcinogenic residues known to man.
Sunday, 25 October 2009
JAPANESE CANCERS,FALLOUT,NUCLEAR POWERSTATIONS AND INCINERATION
Where did the Mushroom Clouds go?....What happened next?
The latest decision by government to allow low and very low level waste to go into landfill blows a chill wind over the whole incinerator issue.
The latest decision by government to allow low and very low level waste to go into landfill blows a chill wind over the whole incinerator issue.
There isn’t much (probably 50 yards) between that and burning the stuff. There are at least three London incinerators already licensed to do that, with appropriately high infant mortalities downwind…Beddington could join the club!
The microscope picture above (from Treatment and Conditioning of Radioactive Incinerator Ashes) shows how the radioactive metals go up the chimney and condense in the cold air outside. Because of the tonnages involved even filtering will fail to prevent significant amounts of radioactive metallic “snow”.
Although the American occupying authorities removed all the morbidity and mortality data for the five years after the bombs, and prevented Japanese research, the graph shows the catastrophic growth in cancers as a cause of mortality in subsequent years.
The cancer rate was 75/100,000 in 1947 and was 250 in 2004.
An onsite nuclear physicist said he thought that the refusal to count the immediate deaths from fall out dusts dramatically reduced the numbers, but hid the truth.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE..A GLOBALISED VIEW
"Much of it lands in West Africa. An investigation by the Mail on Sunday found computers which once belonged to the NHS being broken up and burnt by children on Ghanaian rubbish dumps. They were trying to extract copper and aluminium by burning off the plastics, with the result that they were inhaling lead, cadmium, dioxins, furans and brominated flame retardants. Tests in another of the world's great fly-tips, Guiyu in China, show that 80% of the children of that city have dangerous levels of lead in their blood."
From George Monbiot's article in the Guardian today.
So the EU's WEEE directive is working then!
Soon all these good things will be on our doorstep too,its only fair to share.
From George Monbiot's article in the Guardian today.
So the EU's WEEE directive is working then!
Soon all these good things will be on our doorstep too,its only fair to share.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
LONDON AIR POLLUTION DISASTER
LONDON AIR POLLUTION DISASTER
Simon Burkitt and CCAL have forced the government to release the truth about their sums for deaths from air pollution in LONDON under FOI.It does not make for pretty reading:
*** Government releases previously unpublished spreadsheets for calculating premature deaths due to air pollution in London after formal information request from ‘Clean Air in London’ (CCAL) ***
*** Using government spreadsheets and its current risk figures indicates there were around 5,000 premature deaths in London in 2005 due to dangerous airborne particles (PM10) alone ***
*** CCAL urges Mayor Johnson to apply the Precautionary Principle when developing his Air Quality Strategy and accept government recommendations for sensitivity analyses which suggest there may have been some 6,300 to 7,900 premature deaths in London in 2005 due to PM10 alone ***
“Ministers tend to say:
air quality is good across 99% of the UK’s landmass;
has improved a lot since 1990;
that people lose on average a maximum of seven to eight months of their lives due to the problem;
and the alert bands show air pollution as being mostly ‘low’ or ‘moderate’.
The real picture is quite different.
1.No-one lives in our fields and mountains; they live alongside the 1,117 kilometres of roads in London (2,496 kilometres nationally) forecast by the government to breach legal standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2010.
2. Air quality has improved since 1990 but the level of dangerous airborne particles (PM10) in London has increased at a mean rate of around 0.4% per year since the late 1990’s despite public health laws requiring sharp reductions.
3. London has the highest annual mean concentrations of NO2 of any capital city in western (or eastern) Europe.
4. Rather than talk abstractly about an average reduction in life expectancy across 60,975,000 people, Ministers should warn people that the amount of time lost per statistical victim due to dangerous airborne particles may be 9.8 years.
5. Air quality can be in the 'low' band all year round but still breach European Union (EU) limit values.”
So,into this very real mess,the local councils intend to force through new sources of particulate pollution,from new waste streams.The continuing denial about how bad London's air is already,how many people its killing,how many childrens' lungs are being damaged and how many pregnancies ruined JUST WILL NOT DO!
Simon Burkitt and CCAL have forced the government to release the truth about their sums for deaths from air pollution in LONDON under FOI.It does not make for pretty reading:
*** Government releases previously unpublished spreadsheets for calculating premature deaths due to air pollution in London after formal information request from ‘Clean Air in London’ (CCAL) ***
*** Using government spreadsheets and its current risk figures indicates there were around 5,000 premature deaths in London in 2005 due to dangerous airborne particles (PM10) alone ***
*** CCAL urges Mayor Johnson to apply the Precautionary Principle when developing his Air Quality Strategy and accept government recommendations for sensitivity analyses which suggest there may have been some 6,300 to 7,900 premature deaths in London in 2005 due to PM10 alone ***
“Ministers tend to say:
air quality is good across 99% of the UK’s landmass;
has improved a lot since 1990;
that people lose on average a maximum of seven to eight months of their lives due to the problem;
and the alert bands show air pollution as being mostly ‘low’ or ‘moderate’.
The real picture is quite different.
1.No-one lives in our fields and mountains; they live alongside the 1,117 kilometres of roads in London (2,496 kilometres nationally) forecast by the government to breach legal standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in 2010.
2. Air quality has improved since 1990 but the level of dangerous airborne particles (PM10) in London has increased at a mean rate of around 0.4% per year since the late 1990’s despite public health laws requiring sharp reductions.
3. London has the highest annual mean concentrations of NO2 of any capital city in western (or eastern) Europe.
4. Rather than talk abstractly about an average reduction in life expectancy across 60,975,000 people, Ministers should warn people that the amount of time lost per statistical victim due to dangerous airborne particles may be 9.8 years.
5. Air quality can be in the 'low' band all year round but still breach European Union (EU) limit values.”
So,into this very real mess,the local councils intend to force through new sources of particulate pollution,from new waste streams.The continuing denial about how bad London's air is already,how many people its killing,how many childrens' lungs are being damaged and how many pregnancies ruined JUST WILL NOT DO!
Thursday, 17 September 2009
"SAFE" LEAD LEVELS HARM CHILDREN
Young children's exposure to lead in the environment is harming their intellectual and emotional development, according to UK researchers.
The researchers say the toxic effects of lead on the central nervous system are obvious even below the current so-called safe level of lead in the blood.
They are recommending the threshold should be halved.
Lead has been removed from paint and petrol by law in the UK, but it is still widespread in the environment.
Sources of Lead:
Lead-based paint
Household dust
Lead water pipes
Soil around the home
Paint on children's toys
Children's bead necklaces
Christmas lights
Lead smelters/industries/incinerators
The Bristol researchers took blood samples from 582 children at the age of 30 months.
They found 27% of the children had lead levels above five microgrammes per decilitre.
They followed the children's progress at regular intervals and then assessed their academic performance and behavioural patterns when they were seven to eight years old.
After taking account of factors likely to influence the results, they found that blood lead levels at 30 months showed significant associations with educational achievement, antisocial behaviour and hyperactivity scores five years later.
1.With lead levels up to five microgrammes per decilitre, there was no obvious effect.
2.But lead levels between five and 10 microgrammes per decilitre were associated with significantly poorer scores for reading ( 49% lower) and writing (51% lower).
3.A doubling in lead blood levels to 10 microgrammes per decilitre was associated with a drop of a third of a grade in their Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs).
4.And above 10 microgrammes per decilitre children were almost three times as likely to display antisocial behaviour patterns and be hyperactive than the children with the lower levels of lead in their blood.
You may remember the Avonmouth smelter post below.....so Bristol are sensitive to this area of contamination.You may also remember how blase the English authorities are about measuring heavy metals,and think the problem is over for London. The map above,from Hull,shows the widespread extent of potential plumes.
Well, this research proves its not over....and that all those other heavy metals,mercury in particular,will make it all very much worse.As usual,the children are most vulnerable.....the researchers are beginning to reccommend that paediatricians start taking blood level tests of Lead again, and all that "hidden" contaminated land is just as important as ever.
The researchers say the toxic effects of lead on the central nervous system are obvious even below the current so-called safe level of lead in the blood.
They are recommending the threshold should be halved.
Lead has been removed from paint and petrol by law in the UK, but it is still widespread in the environment.
Sources of Lead:
Lead-based paint
Household dust
Lead water pipes
Soil around the home
Paint on children's toys
Children's bead necklaces
Christmas lights
Lead smelters/industries/incinerators
The Bristol researchers took blood samples from 582 children at the age of 30 months.
They found 27% of the children had lead levels above five microgrammes per decilitre.
They followed the children's progress at regular intervals and then assessed their academic performance and behavioural patterns when they were seven to eight years old.
After taking account of factors likely to influence the results, they found that blood lead levels at 30 months showed significant associations with educational achievement, antisocial behaviour and hyperactivity scores five years later.
1.With lead levels up to five microgrammes per decilitre, there was no obvious effect.
2.But lead levels between five and 10 microgrammes per decilitre were associated with significantly poorer scores for reading ( 49% lower) and writing (51% lower).
3.A doubling in lead blood levels to 10 microgrammes per decilitre was associated with a drop of a third of a grade in their Scholastic Assessment Tests (SATs).
4.And above 10 microgrammes per decilitre children were almost three times as likely to display antisocial behaviour patterns and be hyperactive than the children with the lower levels of lead in their blood.
You may remember the Avonmouth smelter post below.....so Bristol are sensitive to this area of contamination.You may also remember how blase the English authorities are about measuring heavy metals,and think the problem is over for London. The map above,from Hull,shows the widespread extent of potential plumes.
Well, this research proves its not over....and that all those other heavy metals,mercury in particular,will make it all very much worse.As usual,the children are most vulnerable.....the researchers are beginning to reccommend that paediatricians start taking blood level tests of Lead again, and all that "hidden" contaminated land is just as important as ever.
Monday, 14 September 2009
CORONER'S JURY SAYS URANIUM GUILTY
A coroner’s jury, last week, found that a soldier from IRAQ1 contracted cancer from depleted uranium in theatre. To do this they decided that the model of radiation damage proposed by the MOD was wrong, and that a model of internal radiation damage proposed by Professor Busby was to be preferred. Together with the Corby limb deformity decision of a month ago, the case adds to set a series of legal precedents about the effects of inhaling uranium, heavy metals and dioxins. This makes any refusal to measure heavy metals and dioxins near hazardous waste incinerators irresponsible and failing to set up public health monitoring around them grossly negligent. The HPA case for no research is now untenable, in my opinion. No doubt there will be appeals, but please bear in mind the opinions of the judge over Corby and a jury over cancer. It is not eccentric or foolish to believe that incinerators can be hazardous, either through their chimney emissions or their waste residues. The burden of proof and guarantee of safety now definitely resides with the commissioning council and the developer, and they can’t prove anything without measurement.
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