=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #149
—October 3, 1989—
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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SOME CHEMICALS WORTH BANNING
The chemical industry is out of control and is destroying the
planet earth as a place suitable for habitation by humans and
other complex forms of life. This is not an exaggeration.
Consider these facts:
The production of organic chemicals has been increasing for 44
years at a steady 6.5% per year. Any quantity that increases by a
constant fraction of the whole (in this case 6.5%) in a constant
time period (in this case, one year) is growing exponentially.
Once you know something is growing exponentially, you immediately
know some important things about it.[1] For example, to learn how
quickly it is doubling, you divide the rate of growth (6.5%) into
70; thus the annual output of organic chemicals by U.S. industry
is doubling every 10.7 years, which we will round off to 11 years.
Love Canal was discovered 11 years ago. So we know that the
annual chemical production by American industry today is twice as
large as it was in 1978 when Love Canal first came to light.
Another interesting characteristic of things that are growing
exponentially is that, during one doubling-time (in this case 11
years), the total output equals the total output during all
previous time. Thus during the period since Love Canal was
discovered (the period 1978-1989), American industry has produced
an amount of chemicals equal in size to the total quantity of
chemicals produced during all of history prior to 1978. And
during the next 11 years, 1989-2000, industry will again produce
an amount of chemicals equal to all the chemicals produced prior
to 1989.
Another way to look at something that is growing exponentially is
to calculate how much it will grow during one average human
lifetime (70 years). Something growing at 6.5% (actually 6.57%)
per year will grow by a factor of 100 during one human lifetime.
Thus a child born today reaching the end of its normal life span
could expect the American chemical industry to be putting out 100
times as much chemicals per year as it is putting out today.
We have never met anyone who believes that the earth could
sustain a chemical industry 100 times as large as the American
chemical industry is today. AND THESE FIGURES DO NOT TAKE INTO
ACCOUNT GROWTH IN THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY ABROAD.
Industrial chemicals have now spread everywhere. For example, the
scientific journal, ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES in
1977 (the year before Love Canal was discovered) published some
surprising data about the occurrence of industrial chemicals in
the umbilical cords of newborn babies in America. Chemicals
measurable in the umbilical cord blood of newborns in 1977
included carbon tetrachloride (a carcinogen and a mutagen),
acetone, dichloromethane, chloroform (a carcinogen, and a
possible teratogen), benzene (a carcinogen and a mutagen),
styrene (a mutagen), trimethylbenzene, dichlorobenzene,
dimethylethylbenzene, and methyl propyl ketone. More were not
found because more were not looked for. Some of these chemicals
are found at greater concentrations in the blood of newborn
babies than they are in the mothers’, showing that some
industrial chemicals cross the placenta and accumulate in the
fetus during the first 9 months of its growth in the womb. The
authors of this study say correctly, “…the fetus is routinely
exposed to [industrial chemicals] during the critical stages of
development. The impact of such exposure is unknown.”[2]
It is unusual for doctors and scientists to study these matters.
After Love Canal was discovered, the New York State Health
Department looked at birth weights of human babies born to
families whose homes fronted directly on the canal. Among those
families living directly next to the canal (or to swales
[ditches], which carried chemicals away from the canal), the
incidence of low-birth weight infants was 50% higher (12% vs. 8%)
than in a control-group of families living elsewhere in the town.
The NY State Health Department attributed these effects to
chemical exposures of the mothers.[3]
Other studies have shown that low birth weight, which is very
easy to study since all you need to look at is birth
certificates, is strongly associated with severe birth defects,
which are very expensive to study because you need a doctor’s
examination for at least the first five years of a child’s life
to see if a birth defect has become apparent; not all birth
defects are apparent at birth. Somewhere between 1/6 and 1/3 of
severe birth defects are obvious at birth; the remainder become
clear during the first five years of a child’s life. Four percent
of American children are now born with “severe” birth defects and
another 11% have “moderate but not trivial” birth defects.[4]
Industry is conducting chemical experiments on our children
before they are born; after they are born, the experiment
accelerates. Our water supplies are widely contaminated at low
levels.[5] The blood of adults contains hundreds of industrial
chemicals. We will never have the resources to study the effects
of each chemical, much less the effect of combinations of
chemicals. The only hope is to reduce chemical exposures. THIS
WILL REQUIRE US TO PRUNE THE SIZE OF THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. This
generation of Americans is going to have to learn to undo what
our parents have done.
The thinning of the earth’s ozone layer offers us an opportunity
to learn how to manage the banning of chemicals because banning
chemicals is a social activity we need to get good at quickly.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are not the only chemicals destroying
the ozone layer. Good candidates for a total ban are Halon-1211
and Halon-1301, which are growing in the atmosphere at an
astonishing 12% per year and which deplete ozone even more
efficiently than chlorine.[6] Other excellent choices for a rapid
phaseout would be methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride,
both of which must disappear from use if we are to stabilize the
levels of ozone in the earth’s stratosphere.[7] Next in line for
the ax might be a series of industrial compounds known to cause
birth defects in humans: 1,3-butadiene, carbaryl, carbon
disulfide, chloroprene, dinitrotoluene, epichlorhydrin, ethylene
oxide, ethylene thiourea, glycidyl ethers, glycol ethers, and
monohalomethanes.[8] It’s long past time to stem the tide of
toxics flowing over us all. SIXTY THOUSAND AMERICANS DIE EACH
YEAR FROM BIRTH DEFECTS.[9]
Obviously, not all chemicals can be banned, but in almost every
case production can be cut back. This will require scheduled
reductions with verification by outside parties. We must learn
from international weapons treaties: independent verification is
the key to success.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
[71] (December, 1981), pgs. 1333-1341.
[9] U.S. Congress (cited above), pg. 351.
Rachel search terms: bans; chemical production statistics;
chemical industry; developmental disorders; birth defects;
teratogens; mutagens; carcinogens; ozone depletion; atmosphere;
stratosphere.
Descriptor terms: chemical industry; love canal; ny; nydoh;
carbon tetrachloride; carcingens; benzene; acetone; chloroform;
styrene; methyl propyl ketone; birth defects; cfcs; butadiene;
carbaryl; carbon disulfide; ethylene oxide; ethers; ozone
depletion; udmh;