=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #189
—July 11, 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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INCINERATOR ASH–PART 1: LEAD POISONING EPIDEMIC IN CHILDREN.
Lead is a soft, gray metal that humans have used for 4,000 years
because it is easy to mine and easy to shape into useful objects.
Unfortunately, lead is also toxic. It is now thought that the
Roman empire collapsed partly because Roman nobility failed to
appreciate the toxicity of lead; they drank wine from leadlined
goblets, they caught rainwater in lead-lined cisterns, and they
transported their drinking water through lead pipes. Examination
of the remains of ancient Romans reveals damaging levels of lead
in their bones. [1]
At very low levels, lead is poisonous to the central nervous
system, causing mental retardation and learning disabilities. It
causes sterility (which probably decimated Roman nobility), it
stunts physical growth in children, it causes high blood
pressure, it causes hearing loss, and it “probably” causes
cancer, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In high enough concentrations, lead causes brain seizures and
death, but such high exposures are rare. Lower, more insidious
exposures are very common. Children are particularly susceptible
to damage from lead.
Lead offers no dietary benefits to humans or animals. Therefore,
the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the only
desirable amount of lead in humans is zero. This is hard to
achieve in a society that injects 44,000 tons of lead into the
atmosphere each year. [2] It is now recognized that lead injected
into the atmosphere settles out onto the soil and contact with
soil is the chief means by which children ingest lead. Young
children regularly put their hands in their mouths and whatever’s
on their hands ends up in their stomachs. If there’s lead in soil
anywhere near where children play, outdoor dust and indoor house
dust become contaminated with lead and the children end up
ingesting lead from their hands. This has now been confirmed and
reconfirmed by medical studies.
Since the 1970s, awareness of lead contamination has been
growing. As a result, in the 1970s, the federal government
dramatically reduced the allowable use of lead in gasoline (from
2 grams per gallon to 0.1 grams per gallon) and outlawed lead
entirely for use in indoor paint.
However, even these measures have not solved the lead problem
because lead does not degrade or go away. Once lead is mined out
of the earth and put into commercial use, it becomes a permanent
part of the environment, until slow, natural forces of soil
erosion bury it again. It has been estimated that the “half life”
for lead in the environment is between 1000 and 2000 years. This
means that lead introduced into the atmosphere, or buried in a
shallow grave such as a landfill, today will remain accessible to
humans for 10,000 to 20,000 years. For this reason, lead
introduced into the environment is cumulative–the problem grows
larger each year as the nation’s soils become more contaminated.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in
Atlanta, the major source of lead in the environment used to be
lead smelters and automobiles. Now these sources have been
overshadowed by a new major contributor of lead to the
environment: municipal solid waste incinerators. While Congress
has put the brakes on lead in gasoline, the incinerator industry
has been expanding; incinerators spew lead into the air in large
quantities, and incinerator ash buried in the ground introduces
additional massive amounts of lead into the nation’s soils.
For example, a consultant funded by an incineration company
recently estimated that, by the year 2000, the U.S. will be
producing 17 million tons of incinerator ash each year. [3]
Incinerator ash contains an average of about 3000 ppm [parts per
million] of lead, so 17 million tons of ash contains 102 million
pounds (51,000 tons) of lead. Note that 51,000 tons is greater
than all the lead now being put into the atmosphere by all
sources in America today (44,000 tons). This means that municipal
solid waste incineration promises to more than double the amount
of lead entering American soils each year.
How much is too much?
In the field of toxicology (the science of poisons), the
traditional view says that all poisons have a threshold–some
amount above which people get sick and below which people are not
harmed. Now, however, a consensus has developed among medical
specialists who have studied the effects of lead on children;
these physicians now agree that there is no threshold for lead
damage. Any amount of lead interferes with a child’s normal
patterns of growth (physical and mental). This recognition is
turning the old way of setting standards on its ear.
Lead is measured in the bloodstream, usually as micrograms per
deciliter (mcg/dl). [A microgram is one millionth of a gram, and
there are 28 grams in one ounce; a deciliter is 100 milliliters,
or a tenth of a liter; a liter is about a quart.]
Throughout the 1980s, the amount of lead in blood considered
“safe” has declined steadily. Doctors used to define “lead
poisoning” as 50 mcg/dl; then they dropped it to 30 mcg/dl. But
starting in the late 1970s, medical study after medical study has
revealed that infants with less than 10 mcg/dl show
neurobehavioral abnormalities. Children with only 5 to 7 mcg/dl
show hearing damage, damage to the central nervous system and
stunted growth–they are shorter, lighter, and have smaller girth
in the chest. Furthermore, these impairments in infants have been
shown to be permanent. Once poisoned, the children’s nervous
systems never recover. Basically, their IQ has been reduced, and
they will live with this disadvantage for the rest of their lives.
Reduced intelligence (a 5 to 10-point reduction in IQ, and other
subtle damage) is measurable in young children with 10 mcg/dl to
15 mcg/dl lead in blood. The U.S. National Center for Health
Statistics in 1984 revealed that 88% of American children under 6
years old have blood lead levels of 10 mcg/dl or higher. The
average in American children under 6 years old today is 16
mcg/dl. As Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a lead specialist with
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has written, [4] “Clearly, an
epidemic of excessive lead exposure exists in the United States.”
Under such circumstances, with lead levels in our children
already dangerously and unacceptably high, and with soils known
to be the most important source of the problem, it seems entirely
inappropriate–morally wrong–to be doubling the amount of lead
injected into the nation’s soils via an expanded solid waste
incineration industry. For the sake of our children’s health, we
should be going the other way, shutting down existing
incinerators, even if taxpayers have to sacrifice to do it. Which
is more important, our children’s health or our pocketbooks? This
seems an easy choice.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Much has been written on this subject. See, for example,
S.C. Gilfillan, “Lead Poisoning and the Fall of Rome,” JOURNAL OF
OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE, Vol. 8 (February, 1965), pgs. 53-60.
Descriptor terms: lead; children; incinerator ash; incineration;
ellen silbergeld; edf; cancer; heart disease; children; air
pollution; soil pollution; heavy metals; health effects; mental
illnesses; gasoline; msw; cdc; toxicity; risk assessment;
infants; studies; developmental disorders;