Global
Bin the Burners
Revealed: Unreported harmful emissions from English incinerators
New UKWIN report launched 17th July 2018 at the House of Lords. The Report, ‘Waste Incineration and Particulate Pollution: A Failure of Governance’ launched in the House of Lords with cross-party support from John Grogan MP (Labour), Philip Davies MP (Conservative), and Lord Tyler (Liberal Democrat Peer).
The report reveals:
• Incinerators exceed pollution reporting thresholds for particulates, but do due to a loophole the public is not informed of particulate emissions;
• Levels of emissions of harmful particulate matter and NOx and associated costs to society; and
• A lack of regulation, with official guidance ignored.
The report shows that particulate matter released by English incinerators in 2017 is equivalent to particulate matter emitted by more than a quarter of a million 40-tonne lorries travelling 75,000 miles a year, and the NOx emissions released by English incinerators in 2017 equate to around 80,000 lorries travelling 75,000 miles a year.
The report calls for:
• The development and implementation of accurate systems to measure particulate matter released by incinerators, accompanied by proper enforcement;
• Stricter control of PM1 emissions;
• The introduction of an incineration tax; and
• A moratorium on new waste incineration capacity.
What has been said about the report:
Shlomo Dowen, National Coordinator of the UK Without Incineration Network, said: “For decades incinerators in England have been emitting significant quantities of pollution and greenhouse gasses. There is a substantial cost to society associated with these harmful emissions. This cost should be met by incinerator operators in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Operators should also be required to be more transparent about their emissions and to do more to monitor and control the pollution they cause.”
John Grogan MP said: “The case for a tax on waste Incineration to mirror the Landfill Tax and for a moratorium on new incinerators is now very strong.”
Philip Davies MP said: “Incinerators are being foisted on local communities right across the country and yet the damage that they cause to the local environment is not fully known. There really needs to be a suspension on new incinerators until there is better information available.”
Lord Tyler said: “Clean air is vital to health but the Government seems unconcerned about adequately monitoring the emissions from incinerators and has allowed this monitoring loop hole to go unchecked. We must tighten up monitoring procedures and fully investigate the impact before allowing any further incinerators to be built.
Cleanup as oil hits Hong Kong beaches
Meanwhile, government and community-led beach clean-ups continued to be held in different parts of the city on Wednesday, with dozens of residents filling bags with the sticky grease on Lamma Island’s Power Station Beach.
http://xnewspress.com/2017/08/cleanup-as-oil-hits-hong-kong-beaches/
The spill comes at the height of summer, when visitors, campers and holiday makers throng to beaches and outlying islands, especially at weekends. It has deployed helicopters and nine ships to help find and collect the waste while workers at public beaches are using absorbent blankets and strips to contain the mess.
The impact on the territory’s marine life, which includes the endangered Chinese white dolphins – also known as pink dolphins – was not immediately clear.
Environmental groups said that oil has seeped up to four inches (10 cm) deep into Hong Kong’s sprawling, sandy beaches making it hard to clean.
Hong Kong has sweltered in temperatures of about 33 degrees Celsius for more than a week, with little relief expected soon, which some environmentalists fear could worsen the problem by oxidising the oil.
Apart from beaches which have been shut, the rest of Hong Kong’s verdant shoreline is likely to have been impacted with the feeding capabilities of many sea creatures such as barnacles, crabs and shells affected, Lee said.
The possibility of an algae bloom formed by decaying palm oil, which would compete with fish for oxygen, would be a huge threat.
Palm oil is commonly used in food packaging and cosmetics.
The congealed palm oil resembles clumps of snow or pieces of Styrofoam and has a consistency similar to Play-Doh.
The South China Morning Post reports Hong Kong government departments have picked up more than 93 tonnes of the oil, which has crystallized.
In July 2012, Typhoon Vicente caused six containers, or 150 tonnes, of plastic pellets to be lost at sea, leading to widespread pollution in Hong Kong waters.
Breakthrough research reveals hypoxia can cause transgenerational reproductive impairment
A team led by The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has revealed for the first time that hypoxia, a deficiency in oxygen, can cause transgenerational reproductive impairment in fish. This major breakthrough in environmental science was the result of a four-year joint project with team members from four other Hong Kong universities, and is testimony to EdUHK’s high quality research with global impact.
http://www.qswownews.com/2017/08/08/breakthrough-research-reveals-hypoxia-can-cause-transgenerational-reproductive-impairment/
From 2012 to 2016, the team compared the reproductive ability of marine medaka fish and the subsequent three generations of their offspring raised in seawater under normal and low levels of oxygen (hypoxia).
This important discovery has been published in the authoritative scientific journal Nature Communications. Team leader Professor Rudolf Wu, research chair professor of biological sciences at EdUHK, said that “recent climate change has caused the sea temperature to rise and oxygen level to drop. This, together with the large amount of nutrient-rich wastewater being disposed of in the ocean has caused excessive phytoplankton growth, which has led to hypoxia.”
To determine how the imminent threat of hypoxia would affect marine life, the team put marine medaka fish into two groups: one group kept in seawater with normal levels of oxygen and the other group in seawater with low oxygen (the hypoxic group). The offspring produced by the hypoxic group were then divided into two groups, with one returned to seawater with normal oxygen and the other kept under the low oxygen condition. The team then compared the reproductive ability, epigenetics and protein and gene expression of all three groups.
The team found that the second and third generations produced by hypoxic fish had lower levels of male hormones, poorer sperm quality and lower sperm motility and fertilisation success, despite having lived in seawater with a normal oxygen level throughout their lives. The observed reproductive impairment was associated with relevant epigenetic changes and changes in gene and protein expressions. This transgenerational effect revealed is of particular importance to Hong Kong and China, where hypoxia caused by pollution commonly occurs over large areas.
This breakthrough also has significant implications for humans. There is clinic evidence showing that men suffering from sleep apnea, who experience oxygen deprivation while sleeping, have lower sex hormone levels and sex drives. Other studies have shown that people who live at high altitudes with lower oxygen levels have lower sex hormone levels than those who live in lowlands. “Since the epigenetics and sex hormone regulation mechanisms are highly conserved and similar in both fish and humans, hypoxia may also lead to transgenerational reproductive impairment in male adult humans,” said Professor Wu.
This new finding by Professor Wu’s team shows that the adverse consequences of hypoxia are much more severe than currently perceived. “Despite some people arguing that improvements in environmental quality must be cost-effective,” he said, “we must also take into account that pollution may cause permanent reproductive impairments in future generations.”
The EdUHK-led team’s findings sound a very timely warning note for us all – if appropriate environmental protection measures are not taken now, the damage to both human and marine life may well be irreversible and unbearable.