=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #207
—November 14, 1990—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATION–PART 4: REAL ALTERNATIVES TO
INCINERATION.
Why is there so much technical disagreement about the
incineration of hazardous waste? It is because different people
emphasize different aspects of the problem. A combustion
engineer, who appreciates how difficult it is to burn things
completely with an open flame, is button-bursting proud that any
large machine can successfully destroy 99.99% of the chemicals
fed into it (even if for only one day, the day it’s all tuned up
for its trial burn, the outcome of which will determine whether
or not it gets licensed to operate). On the other hand, a
biologist looking at the same machine sees something completely
different. A biologist is concerned about keeping strange
chemicals out of the natural environment because such things tend
to accumulate and concentrate as they travel through the food
chain. Creatures that live at the top of the food chain become
contaminated the most, and, in general, humans eat high on the
food chain. This is why human breast milk is so contaminated with
PCBs and pesticides that, if it were bottled, the sale of human
breast milk would be subject to ban by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). [See RHWN #193.] The breast milk of
American women no longer meets minimum FDA health standards for
human food. This is a direct result of releasing toxic PCBs and
other chemicals into the natural environment. A biologist looking
at the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) plan to
incinerate as much hazardous waste as possible sees not a
remarkable combustion achievement but a real danger to humans and
to the planet.
The U.S. presently produces at least 580 million tons of
hazardous waste each year (and possibly 5 times as much as
this–the EPA still doesn’t actually know, according to the
American Chemical Society [see RHWN #148]). If we assume that the
smaller number (580 million tons) is true, and if we assume
99.99% of this were destroyed through incineration, the remaining
0.01% that wasn’t destroyed (and which would inevitably enter the
environment through air emissions or through disposal of residual
ash) would amount to 116 million pounds of hazardous waste
entering the environment each year, or about half a pound for
each man, woman, and child in America. Since many of these
chemicals are long-lived and are toxic in milligram or microgram
quantities, half-a-pound per person released into the environment
is substantial. Naturally, these toxics would not be evenly
distributed; people and communities near incinerators would be
exposed far more than the average.
It is worth pointing out that the 99.99% destruction goal is only
assumed by optimists, such as officials in charge of incinerator
permits at the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). James
Welch, a scientist employed by the U.S. National Bureau of
Standards, studied the testing process whereby EPA decides that
99.99% destruction has been achieved in an incinerator. His
conclusion: the same numbers that give the result 99.99% could
with equal validity be shown to achieve only 79.23% destruction.
As every scientist knows, no measurement is exact. Every
measurement is approximate and has an upper boundary and a lower
boundary; the true value lies somewhere between the two
boundaries. To achieve a result of 99.99% you have to make an
optimistic assumption at every step in the trial-burn process; if
you simply change your viewpoint and make a pessimistic
assumption at every point, you can conclude that the very same
test burn achieved only 79.23% destruction of wastes. Thus, Welch
concludes, the actual destruction of chemicals in an incinerator
falls somewhere between 99.99% and 79.23%.[2] If all 580 million
tons of U.S. hazardous wastes were incinerated and only 79.23%
were destroyed, incinerators would emit nearly 21% into the
environment, or 243 billion pounds (about 1000 pounds for every
man, woman and child in America). Whatever number is correct
(between 116 million pounds and 243 billion pounds), to many
people, such a dousing of the planet with exotic toxic materials
would simply be unacceptable, especially because it is not
necessary. They reject incineration and they favor alternatives.
What alternatives exist?
There are so many alternatives to the incineration of hazardous
wastes that it is hard to know where to begin. The scientific and
engineering literature is bulging with descriptions of existing
technologies, available today, for managing wastes by means other
than incineration.
The production and release of wastes into the environment is a
direct result of inefficient management, careless housekeeping,
and obsolete technology. Naturally, the most desirable option is
to stop making toxic wastes in the first place. Is such talk
merely the stuff of dreams? Hardly. The technical analysis unit
of the U.S. Congress [the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)]
in 1986 looked carefully at the production of hazardous wastes in
the U.S. and concluded that it would be possible for American
industry to cut its production of hazardous wastes by 50% within
5 years using existing technologies.[1] To put it bluntly, half
of all toxic wastes are produced only because our captains of
industry are too unimaginative and too lethargic to do things in
a new way. If OTA’s ideas had been acted upon in 1986, the 50%
cut could be well along at this point and the nation would need
no new waste treatment capacity today.
But let’s assume that America’s industrial leaders will remain
unimaginative and lethargic and will not reduce waste production
using techniques that are readily available today. How could
wastes be handled if not by incineration?
As with household waste, the key to successful management is
source separation. Keep the wastes separate from each other, to
keep them as pure as possible, and you’ve got a decent shot at
being able to reuse them or recycle them through waste exchanges.
Once they are mixed together, no one can find any use for them
and then they can only be discarded or incinerated to recover
their heat value (assuming everyone is willing to accept the
environmental degradation inherent in this approach).
But let’s assume that industry is run by people too unimaginative
or too lethargic to keep their wastes separate so they might be
reused or recycled through waste exchanges. What alternatives do
such people have available to them, other than incineration?
There are four major classes of waste treatment processes besides
incineration: phase separation, component separation, chemical
transformation, and biological treatment; within each of these
broad categories there is a large number of workable approaches;3
in addition, there is spectrum of high-temperature processes that
are not, technically speaking, incineration but which achieve the
same goal as incineration (breaking molecular bonds via heat),
though a lot more cleanly.
What are phase separation techniques? Filtration, sedimentation,
flocculation, centrifugation, distillation, evaporation,
flotation, ultrafiltration, and precipitation, to mention only
the better-known ones. Component separation techniques include
ion exchange, liquid ion exchange, freeze crystallization,
reverse osmosis, carbon adsorption, resin adsorption,
electrodialysis, air stripping, steam stripping, ammonia
stripping, ultrafiltration, solvent extraction, reverse osmosis,
distillation, and evaporation. Chemical transformation processes
include neutralization, precipitation, hydrolysis, oxidation,
reduction, ozonolysis, calcination, chlorinolysis, electrolysis,
and microwave treatment. Biological methods of treatment include
too many possibilities to list: there are microorganisms in
nature that can break down anything into its constituent elements
and thus detoxify it (unless of course the elements themselves
are toxic, such as mercury or thallium). Finding and cultivating
such organisms is a matter of putting knowledgable and competent
investigators to work with clear goals and adequate resources to
accomplish those goals.
[More on alternatives next week.]
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: hazardous waste incineration; human breast
milk; toxic waste; james welch; health; us national bureau of
standards; studies; chemical waste industry; waste treatment
technologies; alternative treatment technologies;