Poolbeg Incinerator Could Cost 100,000 man-years of life it its first 15 years

An Incinerator at Poolbeg could
cost 100,000 man-years of life
it its first 15 years (a).

An incinerator can be modelled as a deadly particles generator.

A 70 page PDF report from a credible medical society on the reduced life expectancy caused by incineration and deadly particles(b) is here so you make your own judgments.

Pollution in east Dublin already exceeds the compromised EU standards and is significantly above the more protective US air quality standards. The Bord Pleanala Inspector's report noted the compromised level of air pollution in Poolbeg is already at or above the EU norms but his actions will have been dictated by the politically appointed directors at Bord Pleanala.

The submission to the EPA Oral Hearing by a member of the St Patrick's rowing club in Ringsend illustrates concerns on cancer, ill health and premature deaths in a polluted environment. DCC refuses to run a Baseline Health Study for the area and cynically washes its hands by referring all such requests to the less than inspiring Health Service Executive (where nobody washes hands). The EPA Oral Hearing apparently accepted this Big Lie manouver.

The EPA's directors are political appointees of Fianna Fail - at the EPA it would appear the gamekeepers have turned into poachers, and vice versa. Is the politically dominated EPA any more credible than the Developer's Anglo-Irish Bank, the Dublin Developer's Autocracy (DDDA) or the Developer's Irish Financial Regulator?

In addition to invisible microscopic particles an incinerator in Dublin Bay would pump hundreds of thousands of tonnes of pollution into the air over Dublin each year. The total volume of waste is actually increased by waste-to-toxins incineration and is not reduced as claimed by industry Big Lies. For example, each tonne of waste generates an additional tonne of CO2. This CO2 is pumped up the chimney where it circles the world.

Big Lie Caution: Dublin City Council has spent €19,000,000 to promote its cynical one-sided case for an Incinerator at Poolbeg. DCC has used multiple Big Lies, including the Big Lie of selective witholding of data, it seems. For instance, DCC has apparently not publicly costed nor quantified the serious health impacts in terms of compromised health and premature deaths - apart from spin such as 'you can not prove that'. This is the Tobacco Industry Big Lie in practice.

The Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment (CHASE) has other useful information. The Green-Fianna-Fail government has penalised Corks' citizens by presenting CHASE with a legal bill of €50,000. Contrast this to the €19,000,000 of your money given to the public service patriots in developer-lead Dublin City Council. George Bush would say the DCC fokes are Fair & Balanced.

__________________________________________

June 2008 Estimates by British Society for Ecological Medicine using World Health Organisation Air Quality Guidelines
a) Based on a very conservative estimate of the level of increase that would be expected around large incinerators in a population of 250,000.

There is a reduction of life expectancy of 1.1 years for each 10μg per cubic metre increase in PM2.5 particulates

The US National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM 2.5 particulates was introduced into the USA in 1997 with a mean annual limit of 15μg per cubic metre. This had measurable health benefits.

b) Deadly particles - see pages 15-16.

Incinerator and IGB Spin by Paid-For Consultant

What will N.Brennan do about Arup's cross-directorship with the Developers Autocracy?

A cosmetic resignation from DDDA or Ulster Bank does not suffice to disable the perception of an old-boy network nor the damage to international perceptions.

• N. O’Sullivan is a director of Arup.
• N. O’Sullivan is a director of the DDDA.
• Arup claims DDDA's glass bottle site is fit for humans.

How will N.Brennan educate the taxpayers about perceptions of DDDA credibiity or of Arup's "independence" now Arup is paid to pronounce on pollution at speculators' sites in Poolbeg?


Paid-for Arup Spin on €450 Million Ringsend Glass Bottle Site
Outstanding spin from Arup seems to claim the Ringsend Glass Bottle site lands are in “a satisfactory state” and that space created under(!) car-parking spaces and other services would “create a wide and ventilated physical barrier between polluted lands and the future habitable spaces of the new development“.

Unpaid Expert Opinion
Former EPA expert Malcolm Doak warned that 30 per cent methane gas levels exist on the lands and that “a significant gas risk still remains on-site”.

Paid-for Arup Spin on €350 Million Poolbeg Incinerator
Arup said the environmental impact statement found the Poolbeg waste-to-toxins incinerator would not significantly impact the environment and "no residual negative impacts are anticipated" from the construction or operation of the plant.

Unpaid Expert Opinion
Prof Staines, a medical doctor and academic, said it was "at best careless, and more realistically reckless, to proceed with a major development without considering methods of minimising harm and maximising benefits to the local community" and said the execution of a Health Impact Statement on such projects was common practice internationally.

In relation to the environmental impact statement, undertaken by Arup Consulting Engineers on behalf of the council, Prof Staines claimed that "in no case is there any serious consideration of the actual impacts of the estimated emissions on people in the local community or on human health".

___________

______________
DDDDA has been a poster boy for rampant multi-dimensional conflicts-of-interest. Ex: Seanie and Lar at the Glass Bottle site.

DDDA's newest chairman, N.Brennan, is spun as a governance expert by advertising dependent newspapers. N.Brennan was appointed by Mr J Gormley in a closed-door recruitment process. N.Brennan was a director for Ulster bank when it financed Zoe Developments large Fabrizia site on Sandymount Strand (Zoe now has a negative net value of -€900,000,000, plus or minus an acre of occupied public footpath).

How can Arup not anticipate any negative impacts given operator Covanta's curious record?

The Seanie & Lar culture at DDDA-Anglo was the catalyst for the €490,000,000,000 banker bailout and the proving ground for NAMA's €90,000,000,000 developer bailout. Is there any pattern which shows the rampant multi-dimensional conflicts of interest at the €450,000,000 Glass Bottle site will not be repeated at NAMA?

• Both NAMA and DDDA combine closed-door autocratic control over planning permits.
• Both NAMA and DDDA have the same executive sponsors - the Galway Tent cartel.
• NAMA adds closed-door political distortion of property markets for the next 30 years (in violation of core EU Competition Principles).

See also: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0801/1224251858397.html

Poolbeg Incinerator "Rogue Employer"

The USA's National Labor Relations Board this week issued a comprehensive complaint charging Covanta Energy Corp. and all of its U.S. subsidiaries with violating federal labor law.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/07/01/covanta-complaint-shows-need-for-employee-free-choice-act/


AFL-CIO Local 369 President Gary Sullivan:

The board’s action confirms our first-hand experience that Covanta is a rogue employer with no respect for the rights of its employees.

Dublin City Council has a secret deal with Covanta to run the proposed Poolbeg Waste-to-Toxins incinerator. Possibly to dodge US courts the deal is with an offshore Covanta outfit - a special purpose entity firewalled in secretive Luxembourg (guess why).


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The USA's National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector.

Incinerators Nanoparticles are safe. Trust Us.

Tiny particles from incinerators will reduce your life by up to two years.

Nobody understands the science. That's why we have Fianna Fail.

You can trust your clever politicians to protect you by directing their political appointees, dressed up as scientists, at EPA, Bord Pleanala, and elsewhere.
_________________
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0610/1224248531633.html

Expert challenges risk study for incinerator

LOUISE ROSEINGRAVE

Wed, Jun 10, 2009

TOXICOLOGICAL EFFECTS of nano-particles such as those produced from an incinerator stack can be responsible for exacerbating human health problems including asthma, bronchitis and heart disease, according to a scientific expert who gave evidence on behalf of objectors at a public hearing yesterday.

Prof C Vyvyan Howard described Indaver Ireland’s risk assessment of possible health problems associated with a proposed toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork as “simplistic” and “fundamentally flawed”.

His claims were disputed by Indaver Ireland. Prof Howard, who is in charge of of bioimaging at the University of Ulster, has written and spoken in a variety of forums to draw attention to the threat posed by pollutants to developing foetuses and infants.

Speaking on behalf of anti-incinerator campaign group Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment at a hearing on the proposed incinerator yesterday, Prof Howard, described as a medically qualified toxico-pathologist, claimed there were airborne particles for which there was no known safe level, and that Indaver Ireland’s risk assessment did not cover the emittance of such particles. “The risk assessment in relation to particles that has been undertaken by Indaver is rather simplistic and appears to ignore the very significant contribution made to particulate burdens made by sulphur dioxide and especially nitrous oxide emissions.”

Prof Howard said while effects of individual toxins were known, the effects of multiple toxins in the air was unknown, and research into such effects was difficult.

Indaver Ireland’s risk assessment is based on the effects of individual toxins as per Environmental Protection Agency air quality standards.

“This approach is fundamentally flawed for those emissions like particles, for which no safe level can be demonstrated,” Prof Howard said.

Air pollution levels well within legal limits were killing people, he claimed, “especially older people and those with chronic heart and lung ailments”. Children and foetuses were particularly at risk from airborne pollutant particles, as their immune system and lungs were not fully developed, he said.

“There can be no doubt that children and even the foetus are particularly vulnerable to particle air pollutants, while this has been largely overlooked in setting current standards and controls,” he said.

He cited a review by scientists Joachim Heinrich and Remy Slama showing fine particle pollutants had been associated with infant mortality, impaired lung function and, less consistently, with sudden infant death syndrome.

In his report, Prof Howard claimed Indaver had “completely omitted any consideration of secondary particles and their impacts from their assessments”, which he said can account for a major fraction of the particles emitted by incinerators, despite filtration.

It was claimed that a high proportion of ultra-fine particles emitted through the incineration process evaded filtration systems.

“The subsequent direct uptake of these respirable particles and the ready transfer from the lungs into the bloodstream may be part of the reason that traditional toxicology is at a loss to explain the level of impacts for such apparently low exposures,” he said.

An Indaver Ireland spokesman said Prof Howard’s opinion was “at odds” with views of the World Health Organisation, EU and EPA. “Dioxins are all around us every day. Traffic, home heating and agriculture are among the main dioxin contributors. WHO and EU set safe level limits for dioxin emissions, and expert analysis has shown that the proposed development will have a minuscule effect,” the spokesman said.

The hearing is expected to continue until the end of next week.

© 2009 The Irish Times

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NAMA To Rescue Uneconomic Incinerator?

Perhap's Ireland's National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) can pitch in some of our €90,000,000,000 to help out Covanta, along with the €450 Million NAMA will burn to rescue the IGB speculators down the road in Poolbeg.

Green-FF states the incinerator is now uneconomic - as promised by John The Traitor Gormley. So no doubt Green-FF will next claim NAMA must save the 'uneconomic' waste-to-toxins incinerator. Fair is fair.

Six Degrees of Separation Or Less, at Poolbeg

€450,000,000

€90,000,000,000
€400,000,000,000
A Colony Again.

___________

________________________

Poolbeg Incinerator - Organisational Deception

"Naked deception is perfectly legal in Ireland"

Ireland's legal system, from the point of view of an honest discussion on incineration, is a threat. Ireland's legal system, from the point of view of international investors, is a joke.

The promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator seem to be steeped in Ireland's culture of legal deception. Postulated examples of this are here (a). This deception may cause one hundred thousand man-years of reduced life expectancy. There is no way to be sure as the promoters seem to be curious as regards to protecting the public interest.

An explanation of Ireland's culture of deception is here: Credibility shredded by mess of Anglo Irish. In January 2009 The Financial Times called Ireland a banana republic. The description in 2005 by the New York Times of Dublin as “the Wild West of European finance” was widely revived. The full text is posted in the first comment to this blog posting.

Submission to Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing
Poolbeg Incinerator - April 2007.

________
(a) Check all facts yourself and then form your own opinion.

Dublin Bay Incinerator, Dublin City Council, Poolbeg Incinerator, The Big Lie
The Big Lie, Dublin City Council, Dublin Bay Incinerator, Poolbeg Incinerator,

Big Lie Technique – Property Report - Fianna Fail Connection to CBRE

Did DCC Mislead The Oral Hearing (Poolbeg Incinerator)?





CBRE presented evidence to the Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing in April 2007. CBRE was paid to present this evidence - a property report- by the promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator. It appears to be a fairytale, consistent with Big Lie spin:

1. Hard facts are missing,
   
2. DCC obstructs access to data,
3. CBRE's charts are highly misleading (as a professional researcher would know).

In August 2008 Senator Shane Ross reported (see blue text below) a significant link between CBRE and Fianna Fail. This begs the question: Is CBRE also a member of the Galway Tent? Feel free to email any insights or corrections to galwaytent@gmail.com

CBRE And Fianna Fail

- Peter Malone chairs property company, CBRE Gunne.

CBRE Chairman Peter Malone ticks a few appropriate boxes. He is a well-known hotelier -- not an engineer -- and was the boss of Jurys; but Peter is also a favourite of politicians. Apart from being parachuted into the NRA chair by ministerial patronage, he has served as chairman of semi-state Bord na Mona, was a member of the review body on higher public sector remuneration and chairs property company, CBRE Gunne.

What is interesting about CBRE Gunne is that they gave Fianna Fail generous donations in 2004 and 2005. The NRA annual report tells you none of this.

Read more at “M50 directors unmasked” by Shane Ross, Sunday August 31 2008

Higher Public Sector Remuneration Review

_____________
2)
Phoenix Magazine comments challenge the credibility of the CBRE researcher - the professional who presented the property report under direction of the incinertor promoters.

" .. the players who peddled the property guff for so long - the banks, developers and estate agents - are in shock. At this point a special mention must go to the likes of Marie Hunt of CBRE ... "

The Phoenix Magazine, Annual 2008, page 138.


The Big Lie, Dublin City Council, Dublin Bay Incinerator, Poolbeg Incinerator,

Big Lie Technique – Property Chart - Incinerator Promoters

Big Lie Technique – Property Chart

The promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator appear to use the Big Lie Technique in public communications, either accidentally or otherwise. This property chart is just one relatively simple example.

This chart either accidentally, or otherwise, breaks established guidelines for the visual presentation of information.

Whilst not necessarily designed to be so, the chart is a classic piece of misinformation. This would tend to make the chart consistent with the Big Lie Technique. Having spent €19,000,000 on a team of experts it is reasonable to expect the promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator checked their contractor’s work and actively approved the chart. Thus any possible claims or excuses of honest mistakes are not really credible. If the promoters are not credible on a relatively simple piece of information how can they be trusted to have fully & professionally evaluated Incineration? How can they be trusted to run a dangerously complex incinerator? Any mistakes when running the incinerator will damage people’s health and shorten each life in the city by months to years.

Observations such as the following support the view that the chart is consistent with The Big Lie methodology:

• Misleading: The mixed-up time units on the X axis are unannounced and incredibly misleading. (The red and green lines have been added here in order to highlight the distortion).
• Withheld/Omitted: Raw data is not proactively provided in the report, nor in any supplements, a minimal professional expectation.
• Withheld/Omitted (2007): Data is withheld – even after requests. Raw data for the chart is not available, despite repeated requests in 2007.

• Withheld/Omitted (2008): No raw data was provided in 2008, despite promises made in December 2008. The potential excuse that the data is proprietary no longer applies.

• Withheld/Omitted: Statistical Corrections for the property bubble
• Withheld/Omitted: Professional comments on how the property bubble distorts the report (ex: Japan)
• Withheld/Omitted: The US Census covering a population of 300,000,000 drew directly opposite conclusions to those of the incinerator promoters. This is omitted.

If the data does not actually exist and can not be provided is the chart actually a lie?

If the chart is consistent with the Big Lie Technique can the public trust the promoters?

Is trusting the promoters a bigger risk than trusting Anglo-Irish Bank? The incinerator directly threatens people’s health.

The Big Lie, Poolbeg Incinerator, Dublin Bay Incinerator, Dublin City Council,

Incinerator Promoters Credibility is an $8 Billion Question

Incinerator Promotors vs Anglo-Irish Bank

Poolbeg Incinerator Promoters Credibility is in Question

It is difficult to establish how credible the incinerator’s promoters are. Are the promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator any more credible than the directors of Anglo Irish Bank? Some of the information the promoters have provided to the public, or possibly withheld from the public for whatever reason, combined with other possible elements of The Big Lie Technique do not tend to inspire confidence in the promoter’s credibility.


Why Credibility Matters

Anglo Irish has grievously damaged Ireland’s Global Trust Rating. The peers of the incinerator promoters include Anglo Irish Bank, FAS, The EPA, An Board Pleanala, The HSE, The DDDA developer’s autocracy, the NRA, Dublin Port Company and so forth.

At director level, this group appears to be strongly linked with Fianna Fail. Along with many others this insular group seems to be loosely referred to as the The Galway Tent. The Galway Tent culture associated with some of this group has apparently misdirected national resources for the past eight years, totally wrecking the potential of the economy for perhaps a further ten years.

Only one view on the Poolbeg Incinerator has been presented to the public at a cost to taxpayers of €19,000,000. The promoter’s reports and claims have not apparently been subjected to any due diligence or peer review by a credible independent authority. The EPA, the HSE and An Bord Pleanala appear to be driven at director level by political appointees of Fianna Fail, so it’s naïve to suggest they are independent enough to robustly protect the public interest. Entities within the incineration industry provide further employment to these director-level public officials, a brass-necked conflict of interest denied by the promoters. The industry has also placed its employees into director level positions at some of these bodies – the poacher becomes policeman. The expensive experts used by the promoters were paid by the promoters, so it’s also naïve to suggest they are independent.

A monstrous white elephant implemented in the form of an ugly waste-to-toxins factory sitting in Dublin Bay is a fitting monument to the possibly self-serving members of the Galway Tent.

Trusting the promoters is too big a risk - the Poolbeg incinerator directly threatens people’s health. BSEM and WHO data suggests this is perhaps 100,000 man-years of reduced life expectancy between 2012 to 2027.

America’s EPA prices a human life at about eight million dollars. Technology is rapidly developing – within 10 year it’s likely that health damage will be traceable directly to the specific signatures of the pollution pumped out by the Poolbeg waste-to-toxins incinerator.

The financial risk from incineration health claims(a) could exceed the billions in bad-debt write-offs currently hidden from public view at Anglo-Irish Bank.

Future Court Cases From Traceable Micron Particles: $8 Billion

Nobody Believed Anglo-Irish Either

__________________

a) Financial risk from incineration health claims: For 100 man-years per human life the taxpayer liability is eight thousand million dollars, or $8,000,000,000.

The Big Lie, Waste-To-Toxins, wastetoenergy, Dublin City Council, Poolbeg Incinerator, Dublin Bay Incinerator,

Big Lie Technique – Property Data Is Withheld

Big Lie Technique – Property Data Is Withheld

The promoters of the Poolbeg Incinerator appear to use the Big Lie Technique in public communications, either accidentally or otherwise.

Example: Promotors Report on Impact of Incinerator on Dublin Property Prices.

Institutional Withholding of Data.

Bord Pleanala, Oral Hearing, 2007:

• Requests for raw data used by the promoters were made.
• The data was not provided.

December 2008, Public Meeting in Sandymount:

Senior public employees appeared to state the property report used by the Incinerator Promotors was accurate and not misinformation and not misleading.

• Requests for raw data used by the promoters were made in person to the DCC South East Area Manager and her work-colleague. Promises to supply the requested data were apparently made.

• More than six weeks later these promises to provide the data have not been acted on by either of the two public officials who made the promises. It seems no follow up communication of any type was made to the address they requested.

This appears to support the view that there is an institutional policy of withholding pertinent and material information from the public.

This apparent institutional policy appears to be consistent with The Big Lie Technique.

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Dublin City Council, The Big Lie, Poolbeg Incinerator,

Energy Answers Big Lies

Energy Answers and Big Lies

" Die Engländer gehen nach dem Prinzip vor,
wenn du lügst, dann lüge gründlich,
und vor allem bleibe bei dem, was du gelogen hast! "

"Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik"

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DCC apparently used 19,000,000 Euro and The Big Lie method when acting for Covanta during the Poolbeg Waste-To-Toxins Oral hearings.

Escaping US Law?

The proposed Covanta operation at Poolbeg has its HQ in Luxembourg – presumably to firewall it from public liability for 100,000 premature deaths. Covanta also controls Energy Answers International, the organisation now proposing a Waste-To-Toxins incinerator in West Dublin at Rathcoole. This Energy Answers operation is firewalled in The Virgin Islands, not so far from GITMO. Enron, another "Energy" corporation also had multiple special purpose operations in the Caribbean before it managed itself into one of the largest bankruptcies in history. Why are they all afraid of US Jurisprudence?

Apparently these Waste-To-Toxins proposers are using some of the same Big Lies at Poolbeg and at Rathcoole.

Covanta and Energy Answers employ a 10-year-Ex-EPA-Ireland Director as a “consultant”.

Some informed responses to the cynical Big Lies deployed for the proposed Waste-To-Toxins factory at Rathcoole are below.

The Biodiversity Big Lie - Response

Consultant ecologist Mieke Muyllaert said the site was "of greater biodiversity significance than suggested by the environmental impact statement".

The Transportation Big Lie - Response

Transportation expert Christy O'Sullivan said there were significant dangers posed for traffic on the N7.

The Toxins Big Lie - Response

Biochemist Deborah McDermott was incredulous that the applicant had claimed the boiler ash did not qualify as hazardous waste.

The Landscape Big Lie - Response

Rónán Mac Diarmada, an agricultural scientist, said the drawings in the application were flawed. "The landscape drawing is unsatisfactory in terms of detail and accuracy. The site boundary does not correlate with other consultants' drawings. The site layout does not show levels and does not correspond to engineers' drawings."

REF: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1121/1227137525429.html

No more incinerators should be approved - British Society for Ecological Medicine - June 2008

June 2008
The British Society for Ecological Medicine concludes
that no more incinerators should be approved.

Recent research, including that relating to fine and ultrafine particulates, the costs of incineration, together with research investigating nonstandard emissions from incinerators, has demonstrated that the hazards of incineration are greater than previously realised.

The accumulated evidence on the health risks of incinerators is simply too strong to ignore and their use cannot be justified now that better, cheaper and far less hazardous methods of waste disposal have become available.

http://www.ecomed.org.uk/content/IncineratorReport_v2.pdf

The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators
4th Report of the British Society for Ecological Medicine
Second Edition June 2008
Moderators: Dr Jeremy Thompson and Dr Honor Anthony.

_____________________________________

Executive Summary

· Large 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. A number of smaller epidemiological
studies support this interpretation and suggest that the range of illnesses
produced by incinerators may be much wider.

· Incinerator emissions are a major source of fine particulates, 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.

· Present safety measures are designed to avoid acute toxic effects in the
immediate neighbourhood, but ignore the fact that many of the pollutants
bioaccumulate, enter the food chain and can cause chronic illnesses over time
and over a much wider geographical area. No official attempts have been
made to assess the effects of emissions on long-term health.

· Incinerators produce bottom and fly ash which amount to 30-50% by volume
of the original waste (if compacted), and require transportation 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 postmenopausal
women has confirmed this, showing a 76% increase in cardiovascular and
83% increase in cerebrovascular mortality in women exposed to higher levels
of fine particulates. These fine particulates are primarily produced by
combustion processes and are emitted in large quantities by incinerators.

· Higher levels of fine particulates have been associated with an increased
prevalence of asthma and COPD.

· Fine particulates formed in incinerators in the presence of toxic metals and
organic toxins (including those known to be carcinogens), adsorb these
pollutants and carry them into the blood stream and into the cells of the body.

· Toxic metals accumulate in the body and have been implicated in a range of
emotional and behavioural problems in children including autism, dyslexia,
attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning difficulties, and
delinquency, and in problems in adults including violence, dementia,
depression and Parkinson’s disease. Increased rates of autism and learning
disabilities have been noted to occur around sites that release mercury into the
environment. Toxic metals are universally present in incinerator emissions and
present in high concentrations in the fly ash.

· Susceptibility to chemical pollutants varies, depending on genetic and
acquired factors, with the maximum impact being on the foetus. Acute exposure
can lead to sensitisation of some individuals, leaving them with lifelong
low dose chemical sensitivity.

· Few chemical combinations have been tested for toxicity, even though
synergistic effects have been demonstrated in the majority of cases when this
testing has been done. This synergy could greatly increase the toxicity of the
pollutants emitted, but this danger has not been assessed.

· Both cancer and asthma have increased relentlessly along with
industrialisation, and cancer rates have been shown to correlate geographically
with both toxic waste treatment facilities and the presence of chemical
industries, pointing to an urgent need to reduce our exposure.

· In the UK, some incinerators burn radioactive material producing radioactive
particulates. Inhalation allows entry into the body of this radioactive material
which can subsequently emit alpha or beta radiation. This type of radiation has
low danger outside the body but is highly destructive within. No studies have
been done to assess the danger to health of these radioactive emissions.

· Some chemical pollutants such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and
heavy metals are known to cause genetic changes. This represents not only a
risk to present generations but to future generations.

· Monitoring of incinerators has been unsatisfactory in the lack of rigor, the
infrequency of monitoring, the small number of compounds measured, the
levels deemed acceptable, and the absence of biological monitoring. Approval
of new installations has depended on modelling data, supposed to be scientific
measures of safety, even though the method used has no more than a 30%
accuracy of predicting pollutants levels correctly and ignores the important
problems of secondary particulates and chemical interactions.

· It has been claimed that modern abatement procedures render the emissions
from incinerators safe, but this is impossible to establish and would apply only
to emissions generated under standard operating conditions. Of much more
concern are non-standard operating conditions including start-up and shutdown
when large volumes of pollutants are released within a short period of
time. Two of the most hazardous emissions – fine particulates and heavy
metals – are relatively resistant to removal.

· The safety of new incinerator installations cannot be established in advance
and, although rigorous independent health monitoring might give rise to
suspicions of adverse effects on the foetus and infant within a few years, this
type of monitoring has not been put in place, and in the short term would not
reach statistical significance for individual installations. Other effects, such as
adult cancers, could be delayed for at least ten to twenty years. It would
therefore be appropriate to apply the precautionary principle here.

· There are now alternative methods of dealing with waste which would avoid
the main health hazards of incineration, would produce more energy and
would be far cheaper in real terms, if the health costs were taken into account.

· Incinerators presently contravene basic human rights as stated by the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, in particular the Right to Life under
the European Human Rights Convention, but also the Stockholm Convention
and the Environmental Protection Act of 1990. The foetus, infant and child
are most at risk from incinerator emissions: their rights are therefore being
ignored and violated, which is not in keeping with the concept of a just society. Nor is the present policy of locating incinerators in deprived areas
where their health effects will be maximal: this needs urgent review.

· Reviewing the literature for the second edition has confirmed our earlier
conclusions. Recent research, including that relating to fine and ultrafine
particulates, the costs of incineration, together with research investigating nonstandard
emissions from incinerators, has demonstrated that the hazards of
incineration are greater than previously realised. The accumulated evidence on
the health risks of incinerators is simply too strong to ignore and their use
cannot be justified now that better, cheaper and far less hazardous methods of
waste disposal have become available. We therefore conclude that no more
incinerators should be approved.