=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #107
—December 12, 1988—
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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WHAT WE MUST DO–PART 11: REDUCING THE USE OF TOXICS.
The use of toxic chemicals is more common and more unnecessary
than most people think. The names are familiar: carbon
tetrachloride, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, benzene, and
so forth. These chemicals are useful and relatively cheap.
Unfortunately, they are also hard to contain and, when they
escape, dangerous. Many of these chemicals cause cancer, but they
also cause deterioration of the central nervous system,
headaches, lethargy, seizures, and a wide range of other
nonlethal but serious effects.
A startling array of American industries are now using such
chemicals. We recently compiled a 288-page book entitled WHAT
CHEMICALS EACH INDUSTRY USES, which lists, industry by industry,
what toxic chemicals each type of industry has reported using.
(The reporting occurred under the New Jersey right to know law,
but NJ industries are no different from industries elsewhere, so
the NJ reveal something about industry everywhere.) Industries
are designated by “standard industrial classification” (SIC)
codes. The most benign-sounding industries now use toxic
chemicals. For example, the manufacture of dolls and stuffed toys
(SIC 3942) uses substantial quantities of 1,1,1-trichloroethane,
dichloromethane, trichloroethylene, toluene, and
tetrachloroethylene. The “chocolate and cocoa products” industry
(SIC 2066) uses carbon tetrachloride, diethyl ether, acetone,
chloroform, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, xylenes, toluene, lead
acetate, and a long list of other toxics. And so it goes,
industry by industry. These lists do not even include the use of
plastics because plastics themselves are not reportable under
right to know laws; they are not considered particularly
dangerous to humans. The impression that one gets from these
lists is that American industry is saturated with toxics. One
wonders, did we have stuffed toys and chocolate bars before we
had toxic chemicals to make them with? Of course we did.
Barry Commoner has argued that, with few exceptions, the entire
petrochemical industry, at least on its present scale, is largely
unnecessary. The consumer products created with petrochemicals
have replaced earlier items made with naturally occurring
materials. Products made from cotton, wood, leather, paper, glass
and metal have now been replaced by synthetic materials made from
petroleum. We could still return to these earlier kinds of
products with little or no loss in “quality of life.”
Industry may argue that we do not need to reduce the use of toxic
materials, we simply need to manage them better and discharge a
smaller fraction of them to the environment. This is what “waste
reduction” is all about–use the same amount of toxics but dump
less of them into the environment.
Unfortunately, waste reduction will not suffice. The production
of synthetic organic chemicals is increasing by a factor of 10
every 35 years; American industry produced 50 billion pounds in
1950 and 500 billion pounds in 1985. There is no sign of a letup
in this steady rate of growth. At this growth rate, the use of
synthetic organics will grow by a factor of 100 within one human
lifetime (70 years). It must be obvious to everyone that the
earth cannot sustain such an increase.
Even aggressive waste reduction will not do the job. In an
eye-opening move, the Monsanto Chemical Corporation recently
announced that they plan to reduce their toxic discharges to the
environment by 90% in the early 1990s. (NY TIMES Nov. 13, pg.
F3). Monsanto is saying that, by the mid-’90s, its waste
production will be only 10% of what it was in 1987. This a
laudable waste reduction goal. Unfortunately, even if all
industries could achieve Monsanto’s goal quickly, which is very
unlikely, within 35 years we would be right back where we are
today because total output will have grown by a factor of 10.
Thirty-five years later our situation would be 10 times worse
than it is today, which would clearly be intolerable. Therefore,
we can see that simply restricting discharges, even by drastic
cuts like 90%, will not solve our problems. We will have to
reduce the total use of toxic materials, not just their discharge
into the environment at manufacturing sites. Thus we can see that
waste reduction is the wrong goal. We must aim to reduce the use
of toxics.
Reducing the use of toxics is going to require new approaches. We
have already discussed two. In RHWN #102 we advocated a tax on
toxics; in #106 we advocated zero discharge, or “no dumping
allowed” (an idea already embodied in the Clean Water Act of 1972
[33 U.S.C. 1371(b)] which stated the goal as, “discharge of
pollutants into the [nation’s] navigable waters will be
eliminated by 1985”).
If industry wants to argue that zero discharge is not achievable,
that some fraction of all toxics will always be released into the
environment, then our only remaining option is to reduce the use
of toxics.
How can we reduce the use of toxics?
The use of certain chemicals will have to be banned. As Barry
Commoner has pointed out (RHWN #30), the only time we have seen
significant reductions in environmental contamination by
individual chemicals is when they have been banned. An
international treaty banned atmospheric dumping of strontium-90
through weapons tests; DDT use has been banned in the U.S.; PCB
production has been banned. Now the levels of these toxins in
air, water and human tissue are decreasing markedly. Banning
chemicals is effective. Furthermore, the legal authority for
banning chemicals already exists in federal law: the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA; 15 USC 2601; P.L. 94-469), Sections
6 and 7.
We can offer industry a wide range of carrots and sticks to force
reduction in the use of toxics. However, no matter what approach
we take, we will have to measure the production and use of
toxics. No matter what we do, we will have to measure success or
failure. Furthermore, it is essential to measure toxics in
relation to a plant’s overall production. If we don’t measure
toxics in relation to overall production, we won’t know whether a
measured reduction in toxics is due to efficiency (fewer toxics
used per pound of useful product), or whether the plant simply
had a bad year and produced less useful product. Measuring
chemical production and use is the most fundamental step for
learning whether any toxics use reduction program is achieving
its goals. Such measurement could be required by local, state, or
federal law. Our new report, WHAT CHEMICALS EACH INDUSTRY USES
(Princeton, Nj: Environmental Research Foundation, Dec., 1988),
is available for $25.00; among its 288 pages is a section on how
to find the SIC code that covers your local industry; then, for
each SIC code operating in the state of New Jersey (which is most
all of them), a list of toxic chemicals they reported using,
including the quantities reported. For each chemical, we give the
name, and we give the Chemical Abstract Services (CAS) number so
you can learn more about the characteristics of each chemical
through standard sources such as the REGISTRY OF TOXIC EFFECTS OF
CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES (rtecs). Rtecs is sold by the U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington, Dc 20460; phone (202) 783-3238. Ask
for USGPO No. 017-033-00431-5. Rtecs is 7 paperback volumes: a
$68.00 bargain.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: sic codes; waste reduction; toxics use
reduction; pollution prevention; waste avoidance; waste
minimization; zero discharge; goals; agendas;