=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #363
—November 11, 1993—
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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TAKING THE HANDLE OFF THE CHLORINE PUMP
The American Public Health Association (APHA) on October 27,
1993, unanimously passed a resolution urging American industry
to stop using the chemical chlorine.[1] APHA is a professional
society founded in 1872 representing all disciplines and
specialties in public health. Passage of the “chlorine
resolution” by APHA is a heavy blow to the Chlorine Institute (a
trade association for chlorine makers) and to major users of
chlorine, such as the paper industry, the pesticide industry,
and the makers of chlorinated organic chemicals.
APHA members had discussed and argued the merits of the “chlorine
resolution” for the past year, with industrial representatives
working behind the scenes to derail the resolution, and
environmental health advocates urging its passage.
Here, with footnote references deleted, is the resolution:
RECOGNIZING AND ADDRESSING THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL
HEALTH PROBLEMS POSED BY CHLORINATED ORGANIC CHEMICALS
The American Public Health Association,
** Recalling APHA’s long standing commitment to primary
prevention in the reduction of environmental pollution, expressed
recently in Resolution 8912: Public Health Control of Hazardous
Pollutants, which states that the APHA: “will actively support
legislation which establishes prevention as the primary promise
for controlling and managing hazardous air emissions, and
expeditiously reduces emissions, for existing and new sources, of
all substances which are reasonably anticipated to pose hazards
to human health and the environment;”
** Remembering APHA’s understanding that often classes of
compounds must be considered as a group for preventive/public
health purposes, recently expressed in Resolution 8709: Depletion
of Stratospheric Ozone Layer, which supported “a global policy
that calls for a ban on CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) aerosol
propellents, and a timely phase-out of known ozone depleting
substances within 10 years:”
** Noting that chlorinated organic chemicals–including PCBs,
pesticides, dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans, and many other
products or by-products of chlorine based industrial
processes–compromise the majority of identified persistent
xenobiotic substances, whose half lives or those of their toxic
by-products are 8 weeks or more, in the environment and human
tissues and fluids and are also the primary cause of
stratospheric ozone depletion;
** Noting that virtually all chlorinated organic compounds that
have been studied exhibit at least one of a wide range of serious
toxic effects such as endocrine dysfunction, developmental
impairment, birth defects, reproductive dysfunction and
infertility, immunosuppression, and cancer, often at extremely
low doses and that many chlorinated organic compounds, such as
methylene chloride and trichloroethylene, are recognized as
significant workplace hazards;
** Understanding that stratospheric ozone depletion caused by a
relatively wide range of halogenated compounds including
chlorinated compounds is expected to cause millions of additional
cases of human skin cancer, cataracts and immune suppression, as
well as major effects on aquatic and terrestrial food chains;
** Understanding that in the Great Lakes, a vast well-studied
ecosystem which provides an early warning sentinel for
xenobiotic-induced health effects, contamination by a broad
spectrum of chlorinated organic chemicals has caused a wide range
of reproductive, developmental, and behavioral dysfunction
effects in 14 species at the top of the food chain–including
humans;
** Recognizing the subtle and widespread effects on human and
wildlife health attributed to exposure to chlorinated organic
chemicals and our current inability to identify, predict or
control the release of these compounds from manufacturing
processes, the bi-national Science Advisory Board of the
International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes concluded by
the weight of scientific evidence that exposure to all
organochlorines should be presumed to pose a health problem and
that policies to protect public health should be directed toward
eventually achieving no exposure to chlorinated organic chemicals
as a class rather than continuing to focus on a series of
isolated, individual chemicals;
** Understanding, as has the International Joint Commission on
the Great Lakes (IJC), that the only feasible and prudent
approach to eliminating the release and discharge of chlorinated
organic chemicals and consequent exposure is to avoid the use of
chlorine and its compounds in manufacturing processes;
** Clearly realizing that implementation of such a goal, in
general, should proceed initially via an investigation of the
feasibility of phasing out chlorine and chlorinated organic
chemicals by industry category;
** Yet recognizing that specific deadlines for phase outs are
appropriate in industrial categories where alternative processes
have already been developed, such as, for bleaching in the pulp
and paper industry or degreasing in manufacturing as has been
adopted by IBM, GE, and others;
** But recognizing as well, that some uses of chlorine, in
particular its use in residual disinfection of drinking water and
in pharmaceuticals, have no currently available alternatives;
** Further, being aware that the phase out of ozone depleting
chlorinated chemicals in feed stock has been a major reason for
the closure of 5 chlorine plants during the past two years
resulting in substantial layoffs;
** Projecting that further restrictions on the use of chlorine,
or the production of chlorinated compounds, will result in
additional job loss;
** Recognizing that unemployment leads to increases in physical
and mental illness, death, and crime, requires environmental
protection policies that contain provisions for a transition
which insures that displaced workers do not bear unfair societal
costs through the loss of income, benefits, or jobs as has been
the case in the past;
** Understanding that the Job Training Partnership Act serves
only 4% of all eligible workers and that these workers, on
average, are eligible for jobs paying near or below the family
poverty level, and that The Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers Union
proposal for a policy based on the GI Bill of 1944 would allow
workers to maintain their families’ standard of living while
retaining and securing jobs in non polluting industries;
1. Recognizes that chlorine-containing organic compounds are
found to pose public health risks involving the workplace,
consumer products and the general environment;
2. Recognizes that the elimination of chlorine and/or chlorinated
organic compounds from certain manufacturing processes, products
and uses may be the most cost-effective and health protective way
to reduce health and environmental exposures to chlorinated
organic compounds;
3. Recognizes that industry has the capacity and creativity to
undertake a technological transformation of chemical
manufacturing processes, products, and uses to reduce or
eliminate these risks;
4. Concludes that there should be a rebuttable presumption [a
presumption that may be rebutted by other evidence] that
chlorine-containing organic chemicals pose a significant risk,
therefore, before introducing new chemicals into commerce, using
existing chemicals in new applications or continuing to use these
chemicals in manufacturing processes or products beyond some
future date, industry should either:
a. Demonstrate that the risk is not significant for a particular
compound, use or manufacturing process, or
b. Demonstrate that there are no substitutions, product
reformulations or changes in manufacturing processes that will
result in a lower risk,
c. Further, industry should ensure that substitutes for existing
products or changes in manufacturing processes will result in a
lower risk,
5. Supports legislation that will assist workers who are
displaced by resulting technological changes in the chlorine
industry; and
6. Finally, asks for measurable and progressive reduction toward
the elimination of the use of chlorine-based bleaches in the pulp
and paper industry and ozone-depleting chlorinated organic
chemicals. [END.]
Editorial Commentary from Rachel
In 1848-49, long before people knew that bacteria caused disease,
an epidemic of cholera broke out in London. Cholera causes
vomiting and severe diarrhea leading quickly to dehydration,
shock, and death.
A young physician, John Snow, made a map of the city and, on it,
he plotted cases of cholera. Snow’s crude epidemiological study
revealed that 500 cases of cholera were clustered near a public
water pump at the corner of Broad and Cambridge streets. Snow
removed the handle from the Broad Street pump, and the cholera
epidemic in that neighborhood subsided.[2] The bacteria that
causes cholera wasn’t identified until 1884.
The APHA’s “chlorine resolution” of 1993 urges us to remove the
handle from the chlorine pump. We don’t understand all the
mechanisms by which chlorine is harming ecosystems, wildlife, and
humans. From what is known, it seems clear that, if we wait for
conclusive scientific proof, the destruction, which is already
vast, may well become irreversible.
Thus the APHA has defined two principles for a truly modern
approach to chemical contamination: (a) regard chemicals as
harmful until proven safe; (b) don’t try to control chemicals
one-by-one using risk assessment; instead, avoid irreversible
harm by taking precautionary action to ban or phase out whole
classes of chemicals as soon as there is evidence of harm, not
waiting for conclusive scientific proof.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: american publoc health association; apha;
resolutions; chlorine; prevention; preventive medicine;
precautionary action; chlorine institute; skin cancer; cataracts;
immune suppression; ozone depletion; atmosphere; cfcs;
chlorofluorocarbons; pcbs; pesticides; dioxin; furans; toxicity;
chlorinated hydrocarbons; methylene chloride; trichloroethylene;
great lakes; wildlife; ijc; international joint commission; pulp
and paper industry; bleaches; degreasing; ibm; ge; drinking
water; pharmaceuticals; jobs; job loss; workers; economics;
economy; job training partnership act; ocaw; oil, chemical and
atomic workers; regulation; burden of proof; principle of
precautionary action; precautionary principle;