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IPS: Dioxin Levels Soar on Icelandic Farms (2011)

Jan 23rd, 2014
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by Lowana Veal, for the Inter Press Service:

In the northwestern Icelandic town of Isafjordur, milk is causing pandemonium. A local milk marketing board recently tested one farm’s milk for the presence of harmful chemicals. Dioxin, and dioxin-like compounds, were found to be present in amounts higher than the recommended maximum levels, threatening the future of local farmers, and angering residents.

Dioxins are highly toxic compounds produced as a byproduct in some manufacturing processes, notably herbicide production and paper bleaching. They are a serious and persistent environmental pollutant.

The milk that was tested came from a farm called Efri-Engidalur, located in a valley only 1.5 kilometres from a waste-burning incinerator that was closed by the authorities last year due to consistently high levels of pollutants.

“Usually, measurements are done by the authorities, but we decided to test for dioxin because we were concerned about the incinerator,” said Einar Sigurdsson, of MS Iceland Dairies.

As a result of the findings, the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (IFVA) decided to test samples of milk, meat, and hay from several farms in the surrounding area.

The findings revealed increased levels of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds in the majority of the samples. Dioxin-like compounds are polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly known as dioxin-like PCBs, which behave like dioxin, so are generally classified with it in terms of toxicity.

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Howard Winn: Government needs to rethink its waste management policy

Jan 18th, 2014
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from Howard Winn’s Lai See column on the SCMP:

We see that the forces in favour of building a large incinerator near Shek Kwu Chau are coming together for another push at getting the project approved by the Legislative Council. A South China Morning Post story recently reported that a group of academics and professionals were calling on the government to scale back landfill and get on with building the incinerator.

“We need to act now, or this will end with rubbish piling up on the streets,” said Professor Poon Chi-sun, of Polytechnic University’s civil and environmental engineering department and spokesman for the new Alliance for Promoting Sustainable Waste Management for Hong Kong. Poon says the government is right to adopt moving-grate technology – in which waste goes through a combustion chamber – in its incinerator plan, adding that the technology is used in 2,000 plants around the world.

What he doesn’t say, however, is that the number of operating incinerators and the installation of new ones is declining. In the United States, the number of moving-grate incinerators dropped from 186 in 1990 to 87 in 2010. In Japan, it fell 25 per cent between 1998 and 2005. In Europe, there is an overcapacity of incinerators because of successful recycling efforts. Not so long ago, New York City issued a tender for a waste management facility specifying that it did not want offers using traditional moving-grate technology.

Professor Irene Lo Man-chi, of the University of Science and Technology’s department of civil and environmental engineering, said the technology had been proved to be a reliable option that was safe in terms of emissions. This is a moot point, and there are peer-reviewed reports showing abnormally high death rates and incidence of cancer among people living near incinerators. We accept that modern incinerators produce less emissions but that is not to say they are safe.

One technology that is known to produce far less emissions than incineration is plasma gasification. However this is dismissed as the wrong choice by Lo, who says it wouldn’t be able to cope with Hong Kong’s volume of waste. And by way of support, she says that problems with plasma technology had led to the closure of a 10-year-old plant in Japan. She omits to say that the plant was closed because it ran out of feedstock. She also appears oblivious to the number of plasma gasification projects that are springing up all over the world.

Ever since the incinerator project was introduced, the Environment Bureau has refused to budge from its insistence that it must be built, even with the change of leadership at the bureau. It also continues with the politically expedient reasons for locating the incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau rather than at Tsang Tsui near Tuen Mun. But it is clear to many people that if any progress is to be made on this, then some aspects of the plan have to be rethought. About 42 per cent of Hong Kong’s waste that goes to landfills is food waste and is between 70 and 90 per cent water.

Clear the Air chairman James Middleton has spoken to three engineers who say it is perfectly feasible for food waste to be shredded at source using garburators and disposed of down the drain and handled by the Stonecutters water treatment plant, which is currently operating at 50 per cent capacity. This idea has been incorporated into the thinking of the New Territories Concern Group, which, after visiting various waste treatment plants, including plasma gasification projects in Europe, produced a report supporting the use of plasma technology. The group is politically significant and includes Junius Ho Kwan-yiu, who, in addition to being a former president of the Hong Kong Law Society, also has the distinction of having deposed Heung Yee Kuk chairman Lau Wong-fat as chairman of the Tuen Mun Rural Committee.

In addition to its support for disposing of food waste at source, the report suggests gasification as a more mature and appropriate technology to meet Hong Kong’s present and future waste management needs. It recommends the establishment of one or more pilot plants to determine the suitability of gasification technology for Hong Kong. This approach would give Hong Kong considerable breathing space for it to take another look at the options available rather than its current approach, which is making little progress.

4 Jan 2014

Time Out Hong Kong: Hong Kong’s new Air Quality Health Index

Jan 15th, 2014
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written by Anna Cummings, posted on Time Out Hong Kong:

Hong Kong’s air quality is, put simply, bad. That’s not really news for those of us who have little choice but to breathe in our city’s sometimes pungently noxious atmosphere. The Hedley Environmental Index shows that only 50 days throughout last year were registered as ‘clear’ – that’s the lowest number in the past four years. More shockingly, around nine preventable deaths and more than 400 hospitalisations occur each day in the city as a devastatingly direct result of this pollution.

It’s a perfect time, then, for the introduction of the government’s brand new Air Quality Objectives and Air Quality Health Index, which replaces the Air Pollution Index. They came into force on January 1 as part of the the ongoing Clean Air Plan, which was introduced back in March last year. The new AQHI monitors concentrations of four major pollutants on a three-hour moving average and alerts residents to the potential health risks posed by the air on a scale ranging from one (low health risk) to 10+ (serious health risk). Our new, stricter, Air Quality Objectives replace ones that hadn’t been updated since 1987.

This is certainly a positive step for the current administration, which is promising to make our air a top priority in coming years. Earlier in 2013, it was announced that $10 billion will be set aside for the retirement of old diesel-powered vehicles, although this will take some years to come into full effect. A Hong Kong NGO, Clean Air Network, has tentatively welcomed the government’s new-found enthusiasm as ‘encouraging’, claiming that concern for the air was ‘rarely seen during the previous administration’.

However, the government continues to be lambasted for what many feel has been a continuously lacklustre response to our choking problem. Andrew Lai, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Department, has insisted that the AQHI will ‘provide more timely and useful air pollution information to the public’, with its accompanying mobile app providing residents with real-time pollution information. But others claim they would prefer to see more direct action. “It’s pointless having an index saying that you’re going to die,” asserts James Middleton, chairman of city charity Clear the Air. “What they should be doing is stopping the reasons that you’re going to die.”

The new AQHI app. (Time Out HK)

Melonie Chau, senior environmental affairs officer at Friends of the Earth Hong Kong, agrees. “The change to the API system wasn’t the most urgent issue the public needed for the time being, because it’s no more than a tool to raise public awareness,” she says. “It’s not a measure to curb the problem.”Perhaps unsurprisingly, within only a few days of its launch, the AQHI reached levels of 10 or 10+ in Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok, prompting the government to advise children and the elderly to remain indoors.

Many residents would be surprised to discover that marine vessels are the largest contributor to our air woes, rather than idling engines or power plants. To highlight this fact, take a glance at AQHI readings from the remote, vehicle-less island of Tap Mun, located near Mirs Bay in Shenzhen. The pollution there is frequently as high as roadside stations in Central or Causeway Bay. “Our winds are mainly from the east or northeast, for most of the year,” points out Middleton. “Tap Mun is shrouded in nitrogen oxides and sulphur all year… it’s covered in gunk. And that comes from the ships. The wind blows it there.”

Almost inconceivably, the sulphur emissions given off by just 16 ‘supercarrier’ cargo ships are equivalent to that of all the cars in the entire world. The sulphur content of the super-viscous, low-grade bunker fuel used by cargo ships is up to 2,000 times higher than that used in motor vehicles. With such boats trundling around our small territory, it’s hardly suspiring that there is a problem. Even worse, these ships are already carrying low-sulphur fuel – but they don’t use it here. Such fuel is required by law inside Emission Control Areas that are set within 200 nautical miles offshore of many countries in Europe and the Americas. But in Hong Kong, there is no such scheme.

“We have all these vessels going into Shenzhen – and all these vessels are polluting Hong Kong,” says Middleton. “But they’re doing nothing about it! The government just says the waters are under Chinese control. Well, go and speak to China about it then! [If there was an ECA], there’d be an immediate improvement in people’s health and in the whole situation in Hong Kong. But who owns the container ports in Shenzhen, in Hong Kong, in Yantian? Li Ka-shing! I wonder why they haven’t done anything?” The Clean Air Plan does acknowledge this issue, and has promised to ‘begin discussions… on the feasibility of mandating fuel switch for ocean going vessels berthed in Hong Kong’.

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SCMP: Officials slammed for ‘cunning’ move to get funding for controversial landfill plans; ‘Sneaky’ plan for landfills is withdrawn

Jan 12th, 2014
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from Stuart Lau of the SCMP:

Officials stand accused of trying to get studies into controversial landfill expansion projects funded by putting them through an annual reserve fund that allows them to bypass lawmakers who oversee environmental affairs.

The government’s move comes half a year after environment minister Wong Kam-sing shelved its application to expand the Tseung Kwan O landfill amid strong opposition even among pro-government legislators.

The Environmental Protection Department is now applying to the Legislative Council’s public works subcommittee for an HK$8.8 million grant for a consultancy study on the design and construction of the Southeast New Territories landfill extension, according to Legco papers. (P5, P29-30)

The government’s two other plans to extend the Ta Kwu Ling and Tuen Mun dumps were also dashed last summer. Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said afterwards that the government “can’t give up” extensions to all three dumps.

The Ta Kwu Ling extension would require HK$37.7 million, while a feasibility study of road access to the Tuen Mun site would need HK$29 million, the latest papers showed.

The three applications are part of a total application of HK$12.2 billion for government capital projects. They are due to be discussed on Friday.

But one pro-democracy lawmaker has described the move to combine the applications as “cunning”.

“The government is very cunning because it opted to withdraw the [Tseung Kwan O] application last year, but is now binding its reapplication in one go with about 30 other items which I’m not opposing,” said “super seat” lawmaker Frederick Fung Kin-kee, of the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood. “It has posed a difficult question to lawmakers like me.”

Fung said he had asked the Legco secretariat if it was possible to remove the three applications from the bundle, but the secretariat said there were no precedents of that having been done.

An Environmental Protection Department spokesman said the application was “in line with relevant procedures” as it was for the “necessary” preparatory work for the individual projects.

Sai Kung district councillor Christine Fong Kwok-shan asked lawmakers to vote down the government application.

6 Jan 2014

from Ada Lee of the SCMP:

Attempts by the government to expand the city’s landfills suffered another setback yesterday after it was forced to withdraw funding applications in the Legislative Council.

The three applications for preparatory work on the expansion plans were part of a HK$12.2 billion reserve fund proposal to be voted on by the Legco Finance Committee.

Permanent Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Elizabeth Tse Man-yee and Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing withdrew the HK$27 million items before they were put to vote, citing controversies and misunderstanding.

Their move followed criticism by lawmakers that they were “sneaky” in trying to put the proposals through the annual reserve fund, enabling them to bypass legislators who oversee environmental affairs.

The government wants to expand the landfills in Tseung Kwan O, Ta Kwu Ling and Tuen Mun – which will all be full by 2019 – to take waste until a planned incinerator is ready.

Strong opposition forced Wong to shelve the Tseung Kwan O proposal in July, while legislators also decided to delay discussion of the Ta Kwu Ling and Tuen Mun plans.

Yesterday’s proposal sought funding for a consultancy study on the design and construction of the Tseung Kwan O landfill expansion, and compensation for acquiring land for the Ta Kwu Ling landfill. Wong said the cash would not be used until Legco approved the expansion plans.

The government also wanted to study the feasibility of improving roads leading to the Tuen Mun landfill, as requested by the district council. Democratic Party lawmaker Albert Ho Chun-yan, also a Tuen Mun district councillor, said the government should have gotten approval from the district council before presenting the plans to Legco. “The pretext of the preparation work was that the expansion would go ahead, and that is not agreed by the district council,” he said.

Dr Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung, of the Labour Party, said the government’s move was inappropriate. “If we passed these items, but then the landfill expansions could not go ahead, it would be a waste of public resources,” he said.

Lawmakers also wanted the government to withdraw another item for the proposed incinerator, but Tse said the study had already begun so they could no longer take it away. It was passed together with other applications.

Wong said the studies did not mean the expansions would go ahead. “We still need to submit our proposals to Legco,” he said. “The lawmakers raised their opposition too late, making communication difficult.”

He said he did not expect such controversies and the withdrawal was for the “overall interest”, as other items in the reserve fund proposal could be stalled if it was not passed. “We included the items in the proposal according to existing mechanisms. I’m surprised it sparked controversy.”

The government would continue to talk to district councils and submit an overall waste management plan to Legco before March, Wong said.

11 Jan 2014

Chairman’s Focus: Waste management consultation

Jan 9th, 2014
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In Hong Kong, 43% of the city’s daily municipal solid waste (MSW) waste is food waste – ultra wet food waste (water content is 75% in mall waste and 90% in wet market food waste). The Government insists on burning this water-waste with an incinerator on a scenic island, but the feedstock does not have the required calorific value required for combustion. Previous tests at composting Hong Kong food waste failed miserably due to the low quality and water content, and the test samples were actually landfilled since they were neither saleable nor exportable.

If there could be a mandatory separation for food waste here, placed in a Green Bin (see below example on Santa Monica), then collected Free of Charge by Government contractors, delivered to Transfer stations and garburated into a puree, the food waste can be then poured into the sewage system network. The CEPT system at Stonecutters island alone (there are ten other smaller treatment plants also) can handle 2.45million m3 of sewage per day by 2016. For reference, the current daily load is under 1.3million m3, so 3,600m3 of ultra wet pureed food waste per day would be a negligible load increase. This idea came from a senior technical engineer working for a company that happens to be Government consultants and it is totally viable.

The removal of food waste contamination would leave dry MSW that could form a new recycling industry here – without this, you cannot sort MSW already mixed and contaminated by food waste. Our Government-provided recycling figures are inflated. They pad the figures using imported trash from Europe and America that was being transferred through HKG to China – this only came to light when China erected ‘Operation Green Fence’, leaving many incoming containers stuck here.

The current lack of waste pre-sort requirements leaves food waste to create methane (23 times more dangerous greenhouse gas then CO2) and hydrogen sulphide when buried in landfills. On top of that, trucks drip foul stinking water (again, because of the high water content in local food waste) onto the roads whilst delivering to landfills. Flies and rats abound. The above food waste option, aside from being a much cleaner option, will create sensible recycling industries here. Tuen Mun can become ‘Green Tuen Mun’ instead of the territory’s toilet.

Landfills: viable recyclables are currently being dumped in landfills since they are tainted with food waste and there is no viable local recycling industry. A major portion of the landfilling is construction waste. Whilst 18,000 tonnes of construction waste is hived off to CEDD daily for shipping to China the remaining 3,000 odd tonnes of unusable construction waste is landfilled.

In Belgium a joint venture between APP UK and Group Machiels is building a  plasma gasification plant at the Houtalen Hechteren landfill – this will reverse-mine the landfill back to its pristine state, the recovered metals will be sold, electricity will be generated from the plasma syngas hydrogen and sold to the local grid and the plasma’d soil will form Plasmarok, fused at 6,000 Degrees C into an inert saleable road aggregate. The Government was offered a FREE 150,000 tonnes per annum trial plasma plant and rejected it, as it went outside of their incineration blinkers. This could have been operational now at the Tseung Kwan O landfill.

Incineration requires increased oxygen, frequently the addition of low-grade coal or oil to obtain combustion of wet matter and burns at 850 degrees C. If the burn temperature drops due to wet feedstock dioxins can and do form. Dioxins also form mostly on startup and shutdown of the burner. There are numerous peer reviewed studies of cancers, orofacial child defects, and deaths in proximity to incinerators. These are facts. The Government consistently refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of this salient health matter. The proposed stack height at Shek Kwu Chau will affect the whole of Hong Kong with wind borne toxic pollutants and heavy metal emissions carried on PM1 and PM2.5 particulates that escapes bag house covers and other equipment. Meanwhile, 30% of what is burned by weight remains as toxic bottom ash and fly ash. This needs landfilling, hence the need to extend landfills instead of doing away with landfills. Government officials will start applying to Legco for funding to build mega islands in the sea for new ash lagoons, when Hong Kong is hit annually by tropical storms. Super typhoons like Haiyan are always ready to hit and destroy empty safety promises of protective structures and punish the city with a blanket of toxic ash.

With current judicial reviews and appeals, the mal-thought incinerator option would not appear until 2023, by which time the rest of the world will be using plasma gasifiers for years already. Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia, countries that Hong Kong citizens don’t usually consider superior in terms of progress, are moving ahead with plasma projects; Solena Fuels Inc already signed with Pertamina Indonesia for an MSW feedstock plasma plant.

In a plasma gasification plant, plasma gasifiers operate with an initial fluidised bed at 1,200 – 1,500 degrees Centigrade that vaporises anything – construction waste, MSW, rock, metal – into its molecular gaseous state. The dirty syngas is then passed through multiple plasma arcs operating at the temperature of the sun, above 6,000 degrees Centigrade, which destroy any dioxins or other contaminants, leaving only pure hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is captured and the hydrogen is used to drive turbines to produce electricity. The plant emissions from the hydrogen are steam. There is no ash to landfill.

Alternative processes can add a Fischer-Tropsch backend process that takes the syngas and creates carbon neutral bio jetfuel, bio naptha, bio diesel or bio marine fuel as in the Solena Fuels system. Such systems are used in large-scale plasma plants that are being built in numerous countries, with some in the UK close to completion. The BA / Solena Fuels plant with a capacity of 1550 MSW tonnes per day and produces bio jetfuel is underway in London. (BA has ordered 3 more plants, one more in UK and two in Spain.) Lufthansa / Solena plant is underway in east Germany near the Polish border. A total of 14 airlines have signed agreements with Solena for projects, including Qantas, SAS, Alitalia, Fedex, Alaskan, American, Canadian Air etc. Maersk is seeking planning permission for a bio marine fuel plant with Solena in New Jersey. The US plant in Gilroy, California will supply the US based airlines.

Westinghouse Alter NRG has operated MSW / RDF plasma plants in Japan since 2001. Their Utashinai plant closed recently due to the loss of feedstock contracts to operate the plant. The Government and recently an alliance of Govt friendly academics are misleading the public by implying that the Utashinai plant closed due to technical problems, when the real reason is the lack of MSW feedstock. We challenged the academics, CS Poon from HK Poly U and Irene Lo from HKUST, to produce the evidence of Utashinai failure or retract their statements at an open public meeting in Tuen Mun this afternoon. They rejected the invites and any ‘evidence’ they might have is of course unavailable, still lying in the EPD’s imagination. (Coincidentally, Elvis Au – the prime mover of the incinerator idea from EPD, CS Poon, Irene Lo, and other EPD engineers are all on the Environment Committee of the HK Institution of Engineers, from whence the Alliance of academics has sprung.)

Westinghouse torches will power the Teeside Airproducts plasma plant in UK. The 1,000 MSW tonnes per day plant will open within the next few months. A second plant is also being built by Airproducts next to the first and will supply the UK Government Cabinet office with an 84 million pounds savings on its future energy bills.

http://www.alternrg.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Nov-13-2013-50-MW-Plasma-Gasification.pdf

Building an incinerator will cost 20 billion, landfill extensions 10 billion, operational cost per year 300 million + landfill management costs, new ash lagoons in sea 15 billion – treatment costs of illnesses caused by the emissions ??$ billion

Plasma gasifier – cost ZERO – funded by the design build operate company – operation cost funded by operator – emissions hydrogen/steam

Coming back to the Green Bin collection of food waste. This has been done successfully in numerous cities in California, especially with Santa Monica, where incidentally the undersecretary of environment, Christine Loh, has a residence. There is no excuse as to why Hong Kong should not take up the idea. By removing the food waste problem and initiating proper local recycling businesses, we obviate the need for an incinerator and the need to extend landfills.

The Government Environment minister previously stated unwisely that they have no Plan B – it’s time for a plan ‘G’ (‘G’ for Green Bin).

James Middleton

Chairman

8 Jan 2014

Food waste creates methane (23 times more dangerous greenhouse gas then CO2) and hydrogen sulphide when buried in landfills. The delivery trucks drip foul stinking water onto the roads whilst delivering to landfills. Flies and rats abound.

HK academics form panic-pressure group to push for incineration, hide dangers in backseat

Jan 6th, 2014
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A group of academics and professionals has now melded their minds with the stubborn ones of Hong Kong officials, pushing for the building of an incinerator for the treatment of the city’s waste.

Representative statements include “We need to act now, or this will end with rubbish piling up on the streets,” from Professor Poon Chi-sun of Polytechnic University’s civil and environmental engineering department, and “Decision makers need to find the most sensible choice – can we take the risk of having so much uncertainty when we have thousands of tonnes of rubbish to handle?” from Professor Irene Lo Man-chi, of the University of Science and Technology’s department of civil and environmental engineering.

The most sensible thing to do, of course, is to first retain composure, lest such voices of panic pressures Hong Kong into making a disastrous decision just for the sake of having to ‘act now’.

A look at their statements reveal aspects meant to mislead and hoodwink audiences. Poon, for example, says, “We have strong reservations about the proposal to double the size of the Tuen Mun landfill, especially when incineration could effectively reduce the volume of waste by up to 90 per cent.” Retailers also attract customers by offering discounts “up to 90 per cent”, when most of the discounts never come close. In the case of incineration, 30% of incinerated waste ends up as toxic fly ash – requiring more landfills and leaving even deadlier pollution than conventional landfilling of waste.

In discussing plasma technology, Lo is reported to have said that problems with plasma technology had led to the closure of a 10-year-old plant in Japan, which had been down for two-thirds of that time. These problems are, in fact, not technical, but a matter of business dealings – in a country with thousands of incinerators, the plasma plant had to close “due to lack of feedstock (loss of long term feed contracts).” Incinerators are both waste treatment and business, and they require feedstock and fuels to remain operational; it is not surprising that the plasma plant couldn’t compete with an established industry over feedstock supplies. Lo’s statement, however, makes it easy to mislead readers over the exact nature of the cited case.

Lo also said the technology had been proved to be a reliable option that was safe in terms of emissions, syncing her opinion with the ‘proven technology’ refrain of Hong Kong officials. ‘Reliable’ is a very attractive word for the public, but it is unclear what exactly is meant when incineration is ‘reliable’. Having the ability to reduce the mass and increase the toxicity of the materials going to landfills does not seem to fit the idea of ‘reliable’. Incinerator accidents in Guangzhou and Shanghai shows that incinerators are not necessarily accident-free ‘reliable’; U.S. regulatory agencies have also found that incinerators are prone to various types of malfunctions, system failures and breakdowns, which routinely lead to serious air pollution control problems and increased emissions that are dangerous to public health. What is ‘reliable’ about incineration is its ‘reliable’ business opportunity for the operator and its beneficiaries, and its ‘reliable’ demand for feedstocks and fuel, which actively discourages recycling efforts and increases consumption of fossil fuel.

Likewise, ‘safe’ also makes for attractive reading, but ‘safe emissions’ has no real meaning other than to indicate a high level of control over the emissions of pollutants. Emissions that are captured are actually re-released into the environment as ash or sludge after treatment, in even higher concentration of toxicity. Meanwhile, ultra-fine toxic particles such as dioxins can still escape emissions control and seriously endanger human health.

The stubborn attitude displayed by Hong Kong officials over incineration has always been frustrating, but it is especially worrying that academics and professionals – people walking around with an air of credibility – is choosing to join in and support a move that will endanger the future of Hong Kong’s waste management, environment, and the health of its citizens. It is imperative, therefore, that Hong Kong citizens recognize the panic pressure that they are trying to generate, and the shrewd sales language that they use in trying to cajole the public into accepting incineration.

The issue was reported by Cheung Chi-fai of the SCMP.
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SCMP Letters: Citizens support waste-cutting, opposed to incineration

Dec 30th, 2013
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Incinerator will pose risk to residents

from Massimo Massarola, Lantau

Studies have shown higher rates of adult and childhood cancer and also birth defects around municipal waste incinerators. The results are consistent with the associations being causal.

Incinerator emissions are a major source of fine particulate, of toxic metals and of more than 200 organic chemicals, including known carcinogens, mutagens and hormone disrupters. Emissions also contain other unidentified compounds whose potential for harm is as yet unknown, as was once the case with dioxins.

Since the nature of waste is continually changing, so is the chemical nature of the incinerator emissions and therefore the potential for adverse health effects. Incinerators produce bottom and fly ash, which amounts to 30 to 50 per cent by volume of the original waste (if compacted), and require transporting to landfill sites.

Abatement equipment in modern incinerators merely transfers the toxic load, notably that of dioxins and heavy metals, from airborne emissions to the fly ash.

This fly ash is light, readily windborne and mostly of low particle size. It represents a considerable and poorly understood health hazard. Two large cohort studies in America have shown that fine (PM2.5) particulate air pollution causes increases in all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and mortality from lung cancer, after adjustment for other factors.

A more recent, well-designed study of morbidity and mortality in postmeno-pausal women has confirmed this, showing a 76 per cent increase in cardiovascular and 83 per cent increase in cerebrovascular mortality in women exposed to higher levels of fine particulate.

The fine particles are primarily produced by combustion processes and are emitted in large quantities by incinerators.

We need to support zero-waste alternatives such as waste reduction, product reuse, recycling and composting, and oppose the planned waste incinerator in Hong Kong.

Cut waste with far better recycling

from Chan Wing-ki, Ngau Tau Kok

There has been strong opposition to the government’s proposal to expand our landfills, which are nearing capacity.

Residents living near the landfills are concerned because of the odour caused by the waste. Other people are against the expansion proposals because they will encroach on country parks.

Another proposal is to build an incinerator. If this option is chosen, I hope the government will give careful consideration to the site and have a thorough public consultation.

The most effective way to deal with this problem is to reduce the volume of municipal solid waste generated. The administration should be putting more resources into the recycling industry.

11 Dec 2013

Xinhua: 1 Dead in Shanghai Garbage Explosion

Dec 30th, 2013
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from CRI English:

One person was killed and five injured when a garbage incinerator blew up on Thursday afternoon in Shanghai. One person remains unaccounted for.

Police received reports at about 3:15 p.m. that a garbage incinerator on Suide Road, Jiading District, had exploded, causing a workshop to collapse and burying several people.

One person died at the scene and another is missing. Five people have been rescued from the rubble and taken to hospital.

Rescue work continues. An investigation is underway.

上海一垃圾焚烧厂爆炸1死5伤 300米外有震感

Eunomia: English Local Authority Recycling Limited to 60%

Dec 28th, 2013
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from Eunomia:

The Fifth Issue of Eunomia’s Residual Waste Infrastructure Review, published today, shows that residual waste treatment facilities already in the pipeline could limit the rate of recycling in 2020 for local authority collected (LAC) wastes in England to no more than 60%.

This limit will be in place for as long as the infrastructure remains operational and well beyond 2020 unless contracts can be renegotiated. If the country is successful in its efforts to reduce waste arisings or if more treatment capacity is commissioned, this will further limit recycling rates. Meanwhile, Scottish and Welsh authorities have invested in less infrastructure and will be able to achieve much higher recycling rates.

This is on the conservative assumption that only the 2 million tonnes per annum (tpa) of residual waste treatment capacity commissioned by local authorities that has reached at least ‘preferred bidder’ status reaches financial close. The finding is in stark contrast to the potential recycling rates for LAC in the devolved administrations, which the report shows could reach 82% in Scotland and 79% in Wales.

Adam Baddeley, the report’s lead author said:

“It’s worrying that we are already in danger of limiting how far we can go with recycling in England. If we genuinely aspire to develop a circular economy, then we must shift the focus of investment away from residual waste towards options further up the hierarchy.”

The report is based on local authorities’ annual WasteDataFlow returns to Defra, and Eunomia’s Facilities Database, which holds information on all residual treatment facilities in the UK (both operating and under development) to model the balance between the two. Data is analysed on both a national and regional basis, to provide a detailed picture of where insufficient or excess capacity is anticipated.

28 Nov 2013

China Daily: Five injured in plant explosion (Jan 2010)

Dec 28th, 2013
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by Qin Quanlin, reporting for China Daily:

GUANGZHOU – Five people were seriously injured when a water-cooling pipeline cracked at the city’s major garbage treatment plant yesterday, local authorities said.

Those who have been protesting the building of more garbage incinerator plants said the accident gives them even stronger convictions that the facilities are not safe. Meanwhile, plant officials still maintain the incinerators are safe and eco-friendly.

A large amount of boiled water and steam leaked from the pipeline after the accident, causing the injuries, according to a statement from the Guangzhou urban planning and administrative committee.

The five were immediately sent to a nearby hospital for treatment, said Li Tinggui, the committee’s director, adding all were in stable condition.

Initial investigations indicated that the accident was caused by a sudden burst of the No 1 water-cooling pipeline at the controversial Likeng garbage incinerator, which was put into operation in 2005.

“I saw a huge stream of mushroom-shaped smoke and heard a terrific noise following the burst,” said a villager who lives near the plant.

Other facilities at the incinerator, located in Baiyun district of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, ran smoothly after the accident, according to the government release.

“We will repair or replace the pipeline as soon as possible to ensure its normal operation,” Li said.

Following the accident, local authorities stopped the operation of the plant.

Francois Guyon, general manager of Veolia Environmental Services, the France-based operator of the Likeng project, said the accident had nothing to do with technology and facilities.

“This garbage incinerator has been operating very well since 2005. It was designed as an environmental-friendly project,” he said.

The general manager was not in Guangzhou yesterday, but he told China Daily in a telephone interview that the accident also had no relation to the freezing weather as the city witnessed a sharp drop in temperature.

Following the accident, netizens said the local government should more strictly supervise the garbage treatment project to ensure that it runs smoothly.

“We don’t trust the so-called state-of-the-art facilities for garbage incinerators,” said a netizen at the city’s popular online forum of dayoo.com.

“No one can ensure the incinerator’s safety in operation, let alone the great damage it poses to people’s health and the environment,” the netizen said.

At the end of last year, local authorities suspended construction of another planned large garbage incinerator in Panyu district due to a wide range of protests from local residents over fears of health and environmental damages.

In addition to Guangzhou, major Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are also planning to build incineration plants to tackle the huge amounts of garbage.

8 Jan 2010

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