=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #191
—July 25, 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 3: DEJA VU
Deja vu means “already seen,” a French phrase for “I’ve already
lived through this before.” During the early ’70s, we
participated in a noisy national debate over radioactive waste
disposal. Now the debate over toxic ash from garbage
incinerators is replaying those tapes.
Garbage incinerators produce large quantities of ash heavily
laced with toxic heavy metals; for example, lead runs anywhere
from 2500 ppm (parts per million) to 6000 ppm in ash. The main
problem is the duration of the hazard: lead, cadmium, arsenic,
and other toxic metals simply do not degrade as time passes.
They remain toxic, waiting to poison the next generation, or the
generation after that, as soon as the waste “containment” system
breaks down. The hazard is of infinite duration, but human
“containment” systems are all subject to the ravages of time.
Humans have never constructed anything that lasts “forever,” yet
the natural hazards of heavy metals DO last forever. That is the
fundamental problem facing the producers of incinerator ash; it
is the very same problem faced by those who create radioactive
wastes.
The garbage incineration industry–exactly like the nuclear
industry 30 years before it–has gone through several obvious
stages in trying to “manage” the waste issue.
Stage 1. Don’t worry, be optimistic. In 1956, the nuclear
industry put forth “Citizen Atom,” a smiley-faced little fellow
who was going to deliver electricity “too cheap to meter.” No
mention of radioactive waste. In the early 1980s, the garbage
incinerator industry renamed itself “resource recovery” and
“waste to energy” even though it destroyed resources instead of
recovering them, and wasted far more energy than it saved.
Again, no mention of toxic waste ash.
Stage 2. Oblivious to the problem. During this period, the
nuclear industry simply buried wastes in the ground out back
behind laboratory buildings (for example, at Los Alamos, New
Mexico), or wherever it was convenient. Often they did not even
mark the burial sites on maps or in any other way. Today they
are spending billions of our taxpayer dollars to locate the
hazards and confine them the best they can.
The garbage incineration industry went through a similar stage.
For example, at Saugus, Massachusetts, Wheelabrator ran an
incinerator for over 10 years and simply heaped the ash in a
nearby swamp. Today, a $63 million containment program has been
proposed at Saugus to confine the problem, without any assurance
that it will work.
Stage 3. Declare that a technical fix is all that we need. The
nuclear industry for 50 years has declared that all they need is
a new, sturdy barrel, or new type of cement or epoxy, or a glass
block to encapsulate the waste, or some other “engineering”
solution. Likewise, the garbage incineration industry today is
declaring that all they need is a double-lined “secure” landfill
with a leachate collection system, or the addition of some cement
to the ash, or a special secret (“proprietary”) way of
mechanically crushing the ash to “solve” the problem. [1]
Reducing the problem to a “technical fix” means that only
technicians are welcome in the debate; in particular the “public”
should have no say. The social and human aspects of the
problem–for example, do we really need to make this ash?–are
excluded when the problem is defined in terms of a “technical
fix.”
Stage 4. Declare that the waste isn’t a waste but is a resource
in disguise. The nuclear industry started saying this in the
early 1950s and sometimes still says it today. For example, after
World War II, plutonium-238 was proposed as an inside liner for
deep sea divers’ suits to produce perpetual warmth. (This idea
died because of obvious dangers.) In the ’70s, the industry
declared that nuclear waste could be used to irradiate sewage
sludge, to kill bacteria and viruses. Proponents of this
particular technical fix forgot that humans would have to
package, transport, handle, install, maintain, and process the
radioactive wastes and that a commerce in powerfully dangerous
radioactive metals would thus be opened up (with attendant
errors, stupidities, accidents, mismanagement, malice, terrorism
and so forth). In short this “technical fix” ignored the human
“management system” that must accompany any technical system.
(This idea eventually died from citizen opposition bolstered by
technical critiques from groups like Southwest Research and
Information Center in Albuquerque, NM.)
The garbage incinerator industry has just recently entered this
stage. Consulting firms like Roy F. Weston, [2] and independent
consultants funded by the incineration industry, have begun
claiming that incinerator ash shouldn’t be considered dangerous.
On the contrary, they claim, incinerator ash is a resource that
should be “recycled” to make roads and build buildings, and thus
should be distributed throughout the environment. [3]
This is a form of the old argument, “dilution is the solution to
pollution”–spread the stuff around enough and there will be only
a low concentration in any particular place. (At one point,
complete dilution was half-heartedly proposed as a way to “get
rid of” nuclear waste–fly it over the oceans and toss it out,
distributing it thinly everywhere.) These “solutions” ignore the
well-known and well-documented phenomenon called bioconcentration
or biomagnification. When toxic (or radioactive) metals enter the
environment, they enter food chains and they concentrate as they
move up the food chain. Since humans eat from the top of the food
chain, toxic heavy metals (or nuclear wastes) spread throughout
the environment will affect humans most severely. Dilution is
most definitely not the solution to pollution. Once incinerator
ash is put beneath highways, or into the walls of buildings, or
into other construction projects, we will (a) no longer remember
where we put it; (b) no longer be able to control where is goes
next; (c) no longer be able to protect ourselves and our children
from its poisonous effects as it enters food chains.
Stage 5. Develop a “public relations” solution: simply declare
the problem solved by renaming the waste. In the nuclear
industry, this is being attempted now. The proposal is to strip
the name “radioactive” from one-third of the nation’s stockpile
of so-called “low level” radioactive waste. Instead of being
termed “radioactive,” the renamed wastes would be called BRC,
which is short for “below regulatory concern.” BRC wastes would
be allowed to join the stream of household trash and to be put
into landfills, incinerators, recycling programs, compost, or
wherever normal trash now goes. (See RHWN #185.)
A parallel move is underway by the people who produce toxic
incinerator ash. There are bills in Congress now to strip the
name “hazardous” off incinerator ash that has earned that label
by failing the EPA’s decade-old “EP Toxicity test,” which is the
official test for deciding which wastes are “hazardous” and which
are not. Incinerator ash often tests “hazardous” by the EP Tox
test, but if you rename it “special waste” maybe people won’t
realize it’s toxic enough to poison their children. (Do they
really think people are so stupid?)
After two decades of debate, the radioactive waste makers have
now agreed that burial half a mile below ground is the only
reasonable solution to their problem–and even that may not work.
The people who make incinerator ash could perhaps benefit from
studying history.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Keith E. Forrester and Richard W. Goodwin, “Engineering
Management of MSW Ashes: Field Empirical Observations of
Concrete-like Characteristics.” In Theodore G. Brna and Raymond
Klicius, eds., Vol. I of PROCEEDINGS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
MUNICIPAL WASTE COMBUSTION, HOLLYWOOD, FL, April 11-14, 1989, pg.
5b-16. Ottawa, Cn: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1989.
Catalog No. En 40-11/14-1989e.
Descriptor terms: incinerator ash; radioactive waste; waste
repositories; hlw; llw; brc; incineration; wheelabrator; saugus,
ma; roy weston; biomagnification; labeling; nuclear energy;