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GAIA CAMPAIGNER Volume 2 Issue No. 2 | |||||||||||||
BREAKING NEWS |
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In a historic demonstration of global rejection of waste incineration, public interest groups and affected communities on six continents took action on 17 June 2002, challenging their governments to stop the deadly practice of burning waste and move their societies towards sustainable waste management systems. Over 130 groups in 54 countries participated in the first ever day of protest against incineration coordinated by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives/Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA). Participating groups in Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, India, Israel, Lebanon, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Spain and Taiwan urged their governments to reject incineration and shift to sustainable waste solutions. Protest assemblies took place in Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, UK and US, including caravans in Argentina, Canada and Italy. Non-violent direct actions were staged in Chile, New Zealand, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and UK. A member in Germany filed a legal complaint against an incinerator company. Groups in Bangladesh, Brazil,China, Czech Republic, France, Georgia, Guam, India, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Sierra Leone, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, Uruguay and Zimbabwe carried out various information-education activities to mark the Global Day of Action.The globally coordinated actions coincided with
the first day of the sixth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee
(INC 6) meeting on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants (POPs) in Geneva. The Convention, adopted by 151 countries
in 2001, aims to eliminate the most persistent toxic substances
known to science, including the cancer-causing dioxins and furans,
notorious by-products of waste incineration. GAIA believes that
the objectives of the said Convention render incineration as an
untenable waste management option particularly for countries that
have signed the treaty. |
BREAKING NEWS Citizens Worldwide
say No to Incineretion Another
Victory in Brazil BURNING
ISSUES
EDITORIAL STAFF Co-Editors: Writers/ Contributors:
For comments and suggestions, please
e-mail Archive Volume 2
The opinions and views expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect the official views of GAIA.
A Warm Welcome to New
GAIA Members
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On the
Road to Victory in Mexico
< back to contents> The Mexican Chamber of Deputies approved on 26 April 2002 a law that virtually bans the incineration of different types of waste. It will now be up to the Senators to endorse and approve the law, which the deputies unanimously supported. The law was passed after intense lobbying by Greenpeace Mexico and other public interest groups in the country. If approved by the Senate, the law will prohibit the incineration of 13 items, including lubricating oil, car batteries, electric batteries, solvents, rubber, fluorescent and vapor mercury lamps, tires, chlorinated paper, chlorinated plastic, brominated materials, waste containing heavy metals, pesticides and persistent, bio-accumulative organic compounds. The law further bans the burning of other materials which, upon incineration, generate by-products more dangerous to human health or the ecosystem than the original materials. Mariana Boy Tamborell is Toxics Campaigner of Greenpeace
Mexico. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another Victory in Brazil
<
back to contents> Citizens foiled a plan to site a waste incinerator
in Paracambi, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Residents, led by teacher
Leonardo Toledo, manifested their objection against the proposed
SAISA incineration facility, citing compelling health, environmental
and socio-economic concerns. Convinced that the project will be
detrimental to the interests of his constituents, the local mayor
disapproved the company's application. The citizens' action, supported
by Associação de Combate aos POPs/ Associação
de Consciência à Prevenção Ocupacional
(ACPO), led to the amendment of a law, which now restricts the operation
of companies in the city dealing with storage and incineration of
industrial waste Jeffer Castelo Branco is President-Director of ACPO. |
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BURNING ISSUES Fighting
Waste Burners in Canada and South Africa
< back to
contents> Plans to build hazardous waste incinerators in Kirkland Lake, Ontario and Sasolburg, Free State are facing vigilant opposition from both local and global communities - a testimony to the widespread citizens' condemnation of the polluting and wasteful disposal technology. Canadian and South African communities chosen as sites for the rotary kiln incinerators have joined hands with public interest groups in raising their objection to the highest levels. Timely support from the worldwide anti-incineration movement has been well received. Respect the North "Over the last century and a half, our people
have lost too much," said Grand Chief Carol McBride of the
Algonquin Nation. "We are not willing to risk losing any more.
We have aboriginal title to this land. It cannot be infringed upon.
This project will never go ahead," declared the indigenous
leader in a public rally held in a hockey arena in Ontario on 28
April 2002. PCT also opposes the planned expansion of Trans Cycle Industries in Kirkland Lake. Between the Bennett and Trans Cycle facilities, PCT estimates that there will be 30,000 trucks annually traveling the highway system to deliver the waste, and to haul the residual waste to secure landfill sites in Sarnia and Quebec. PCT complains that neither projects are being subject to public hearings or independent reviews of safety and health issues. If the projects get the go ahead it would mean Ontario highways would be faced with nearly half a million tons of toxic waste being shipped along the roads every year to be burned in Kirkland Lake. This poses a grave threat to the Temiskaming people's health and security and their C$100 million a year agricultural industry. The Bennett proposal is currently undergoing an Environmental Assessment (EA). Under the rewritten EA rules brought in by the Tories in 1995, no public hearings are planned. No independent reviews will be conducted on company claims. The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) in a damning report criticized the scoped EA process. According to the report, Ontario's EA process has stripped the rights of citizens to determine the safety of toxic waste proposals. Reacting to this flawed process, representatives from 80 public interest groups in 29 countries signed a petition to Premier Ernie Eves, circulated by the GAIA Secretariat, condemning the Ontario Conservative plan to open Northern Ontario up to PCB import and burning. The petition draws particular attention to the woeful state of Ontario's Environmental Assessment process. Monica Wilson, spokesperson for the GAIA network,
says the proposed Bennett incinerator is an issue that people everywhere
need to be concerned about. "As a violation of the Canadian
Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) guidelines, and of
basic common sense, we urge the Ontario government to turn down
the application for the Bennett toxic waste incinerator. Instead
of building new incinerators for toxic waste from other places,
the government of Ontario should push for safer, non-incineration
technology to treat PCBs and to prevent other toxic waste at the
source." For more information, log on to http://members.fortunecity.com/toxic/
or
The proposed incinerator for stockpiled hazardous waste by Peacock Bay Environmental Services (PBES) has drawn strong criticisms from various stakeholders in South Africa and elsewhere. Environmental justice action groups and community associations are concerned that the project will only exacerbate the air pollution in Sasolburg, which is already causing serious health impacts due to citizens' long-term exposure to high levels of toxic pollutants in the environment. "Since we first heard about the proposal we have been in continuous contact with the various decision makers pleading with them to oppose the project in favor of alternative technology which would not demand such high a cost to human health and the environment," said Linda Ambler of the environmental justice group groundWork. If approved, the incinerator will be the largest hazardous waste burner in South Africa and will open opportunities for hazardous waste to be imported for destruction in Sasolburg. Environmentalists also fear that it might set a precedent for the construction of more waste incinerators in the African continent, contrary to the purpose of the Stockholm Convention on POPs. In a submission made to the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in May 2001, groundWork stressed that the government should take the lead in ensuring the safe treatment and disposal of the stockpiled POPs. "The South African government is abdicating its constitutional responsibilities to its citizens, as well as its international responsibilities by allowing the private sector to take the lead on this project in the pursuit of financial gain at the expense of human health and the environment," groundWork said. In an unprecedented expression of concern, over a hundred environmental and civil society groups wrote an urgent appeal to President Thabo Mbeki on 9 May 2002 to reject the proposed incinerator. The groups, most of which are members of GAIA and the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN), warned that incineration generates toxic by-products, among them the ultra-toxic dioxins and furans which have been linked to extensive health problems including cancer, birth defects, reproductive disorders and the suppression of the immune system which could accelerate the inception of full blown AIDS in people already suffering from HIV infection. The groups also pointed out that dioxins travel vast distances and accumulate in the food chain. Their environmental and health effects may therefore extend well beyond Sasolburg and the whole of South Africa and even to neighboring African states. The groups appealed to the South African government to opt for alternative, non-combustion destruction technologies instead that do not generate POPs, in keeping with the pollution elimination objectives of the POPs treaty. According to Bobby Peek of groundWork, "GAIA's support of local communities in South Africa has brought the anti-incineration struggle to the attention of our President Mbeki. Mr. Mbeki now knows the concerns of the people against incinerators, and we hope that his response will lead to a phase out of incinerators in South Africa." Community leader Nicholas Kasa, Chairperson of the Sasolburg Environmental Committee (SEC), welcomed the initiative by GAIA to petition the South African authorities. "Their letter to Pres. Mbeki reinforces our legitimate opposition versus the PBES incinerator project. We are not alone in defending our constitutional right to a safe and healthy environment," he said. Please see www.groundwork.org.za
for additional information. The Great
Landfill in the Sky
South Africa is a signatory to the Stockholm Convention,
which it is hoped we will ratify this year. This requires us to
reduce the production of persistent organic pollutants, often referred
to as "the Dirty Dozen". They are highly toxic emissions
known to cause harm to all life. Dioxins and furans are included
in the list. In the gap before such reductions become law, technology
purveyors from the North, denied markets at home, are rushing to
sell us "the ideal solution" to our waste problems. Forget
for a About 58 of the 70 incinerators in Gauteng are currently operating, with only 25 registered. None has air pollution control equipment (one has, but it does not work) and none works as it was designed to. If we implemented our national guidelines on air pollution they would fail the test. And still, there are a slew of applications for new incinerators. When will this stop? The truth is that incineration is not the only,
nor the safest, means of handling waste. Incineration goes against
all the basics we should be implementing to attain sustainable development
- it creates a market for waste, so all attempts to minimize waste
will be vigorously fought; the energy lost (even if we "capture"
some of the energy from incinerators - a dubious sales pitch) will
never be made up; and will simply mean fewer resources for all.
Of all the material used in the US (and here in South Africa), only
1% is still being used in products six months after their sale -
the rest is waste. Further, 64 kg of waste is created for every
1kg of finished product. An untenable state of affairs, yet we are
unable to stop Forget the horror factor for a second and consider this: 99.99% of infection from medical waste is from "sharps" (needles and blades) not from the rest of the waste. So, what if we approached medical waste like this? Separate at source, so we can minimize the volumes that require special treatment (this cuts costs); grind up all that is left and pass it through an "autoclave" (sterilizing unit); then drop this (now safe to handle) waste into water so that plastics can float to the surface and be recycled. What is left is safe and would make, for example, very good cover for landfill sites. Elegant, but too simple for the purveyors of failed technologies of the North (and, it seems, many South Africans). The solutions are simple. Stop creating unnecessary
wastes, and apply full cost accounting to all products, so that
we no longer subsidize harmful practices. By producers not bearing
the full cost of their processes, you and I are paying, both in
money terms and in our health. A worrying trend, Our law is simple: the polluter must pay. If we
could implement this simple law properly, we would be on the road
to real sustainability, and discard all these technologies, products
and processes that harm our people and the economy, and funnel money
into the pockets of the elite few, who are usually Muna Lakhani is a volunteer member of the Earthlife
Africa (Johannesburg) Toxics Group. PUTTING OUT THE FLAMES  <
back to contents>
Austria. Recycling of packaging materials saves Austria nearly 270 million Euro per year. (http://www.edie.net/gf.cfm?L=left_frame.html&R=http://www.edie.net/news/Arch) Belgium. Vlabraver cancelled its plan to
build a 200,000-ton waste in Drogenbos near Brussels after a Belgian
court in April 2002 overturned the environment license. Local groups
fought against the project for over five years.
(info@milieugezondheid.be) Japan. More than 300 waste disposal facilities
nationwide must be taken off-line by the end of 2002 when tighter
dioxin emission standards take effect. An Asahi Shimbun study indicates
339 outdated incinerators must be deactivated by December this year.
The government has also instituted stricter dismantling guidelines
for the aging incinerators following a serious accident in Osaka
and Some municipalities. New Zealand. A controversial proposal to build a high-tech incinerator to burn animal and human waste at Kennington has been scrapped. The proposed double-chimney-stack incinerator by Specialist Incineration Services was to have been situated on land leased from the Kennington Vet Centre. Kennington residents formed an environment group to oppose the incinerator project. (The Southland Times, 10 June 2002) UK. The Government
has decided not to allow the expansion of Edmonton Incinerator,
which burns one per cent of Barnet's rubbish even though Enfield
Council and the Environment Agency had approved the move. Energy
minister Brian Wilson, said that the decision to reject the extension
had nothing to do with pollution it just wants the North London
Waste Authority (NLWA), to focus on recycling and composting instead
of incinerations. (UK Newsquest, 30 May
2002) Brazil. Espirito Santo state capital Vitoria is looking into the possibility of implementing waste-to-energy technology, which proponents claim would save money on waste disposal and provide the city with power, Mayor Luiz Paulo Vellozo Lucas said. Mayor Lucas, along with the mayors of Porto Alegre and Aracaju, last year presented a proposal to Brazil's power crisis management committee to create an alternative energies bill/program, including waste-to-energy. (Business News Americas, 22 April 2002) China. Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, will have its first waste-burning power plant operational by mid-April, city officials said. The $17.6 million power plant is part of the "green aid" program signed by the Chinese and Japanese governments in 1992, by which Japan pledged to accelerate environmental technology transfers to China. (Chinese Mining News, 8 April 2002) Costa Rica. The health ministry has green-lighted state power distributor Compania Nacional de Fuerza y Luz's application to build a $3.6 million waste-to-energy project in Rio Azul, San Jose city. Local waste management company WPP Continental operates the 27-year old Rio Azul landfill, which takes in some 1,200 tonnes per day of waste. (Business News Americas, 15 April 2002) France. The European Court of Justice condemned
France for failing to apply strict environmental controls to larger
waste incinerators by legal deadlines set in two 1989 European Union
directives. The breaches were still not fully resolved by early
this year, while the country now faces new problems regarding smaller
incinerators (Environment Daily, 20 June
2002) Ireland. The Belgian company Indaver, which
is proposing to construct a 90 million Euro hazardous waste incinerator
at Ringaskiddy, Cork Harbour, will apply to the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for a waste license under the Waste Management Act.
(Dick Hogan, The Irish Times, 28 June
2002) Mexico. Czech companies may soon be able
to launch three specific economic Sweden. Plans are underway to construct 24 new incinerators over a five-year period due to a landfill directive that came into force in January 2002, which prohibits the landfilling of "burnable" waste. (Emma Oberg) Thailand. A Senate panel on waste management
recommended that the government build more incinerators to dispose
of the country's solid waste, provoking an outcry from local environmental
groups. Among the most controversial projects is the planned construction
of a $107 million integrated waste management facility for the Bangkok
metropolitan area, comprising of recycling and
Armenia. The video spot "Do Not Burn
the Trash," produced by the Armenian Women for Health and Healthy
Environment (AWHHE) with support from GAIA, was shown on Prometevs
TV channel on the occasion of the Global Day of Action. The AWHHE
also distributed the booklet "Why You Should Not Burn Garbage
in Your Backyard" to inform the public about the dangers of
open burning."
China. Greenpeace activists slammed plans
by Hong Kong authorities to dispose of potentially cancer-causing
contaminated mud at the future site of the territory's Disneyland
theme park. The group accused the government of neglecting the environment
and the health of its residents for the sake of economic benefit.
The protest coincided with a meeting in the Legislative Council
on 19 April 2002 in which lawmakers discussed a proposal to allow
the burning of 30,000 cubic meters of polluted soil dredged from
a shipyard near the planned Disney theme park site. (Allen
Chan) Russia. The NGO "Maria", a Health
Care Without Harm partner, met hospital administrators, healthcare
professionals and key decision makers in Volgograd to discuss the
treatment and disposal of the city's medical waste. The NGO delegation
emphasized that the Stockholm Convention on POPs identifies incinerators
as primary sources of by-product POPs such as dioxins and furans,
and calls for the continuing minimization and ultimate elimination
of POPs. "Maria" also spoke about the possibility of hospitals
shifting to sustainable non-burn alternatives to safeguard public
health and the environment. South Africa. groundWork, together with GAIA
and HCWH, organized a three-day civil society workshop on health
care waste and incineration on 5-7 April 2002, with participants
from Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland. A day-long dialogue
with government officials followed the workshop on 8 April where
civil society representatives from Southern Africa called for a
ban on incineration to be implemented by 2006. The workshop led
to the adoption of the Isipingo Declaration on eliminating the harmful
impacts of health care waste and incinerators in Southern African
communities. South Africa. The Anti-Incineration Alliance/Habitat Council based in Cape Town sent a letter to President Thabo Mbeki asking the government to ratify the Stockholm Convention on POPs and urging his office to intervene to block the Sasolburg hazardous waste incinerator proposal. (Marie Lou Roux) South Africa. groundWork has taken government and a private waste company, Compass Waste Services, to court in a bid to have the poorly operated Ixopo incinerator closed down. The NGO took legal action after attempting for two and a half years to get government to take decisive steps to protect the health of the surrounding community and the broader public. (Linda Ambler) South Korea. The Korea Waste Movement Network
(KWMN) sponsored a symposium on 17 June 2002 to discuss the role
and right of residents to monitor the construction and operation
of waste incineration facilities. Some 30 people, including government
officials, residents and experts participated in the deliberation
on the proposed revision of a 1995 law on waste disposal and the
local community. Participants resolved to submit a petition to the
government recommending amendments to the said law. Also, the Korea
Federation for Environmental Movement of Masan/Changwon held a protest
on 16 June 2002 against the incinerator construction in Masan. (Suyol
Hong) Thailand. Greenpeace activists put a huge
"cancer factory" billboard and posted 40 other signs with
the message "stop incineration - stop cancer factory"
at the On Nut garbage transfer station - one of the biggest waste
disposal sites in Bangkok. Toxics Campaigner Tara Buakamsri urged
the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to reject the proposed construction
of a large incineration plant to handle the growing waste of the
metropolis "If the incinerator is built, it will release massive
amounts of toxic chemicals over the people of Bangkok," said
Buakamsri. (Tara
Buakamsri) United Kingdom. About 100 environmental activists invaded the site of a new incinerator in Basingstoke, climbed a crane, chained themselves to machinery and staged a protest on the roof of a building. Activists who took part in the occupation were from incinerator action groups in Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Essex, Kent, London, Surrey, Wales and Yorkshire. Greenpeace incineration campaigner Mark Strutt said "People from across the country have come here to say enough is enough. We don't want more incineration to poison our food with cancer causing chemicals. We must ban incinerators now." Sheffield Against Incineration campaigner Andy Booth said "This is a clear message to the Government and councils throughout the UK, not to mention the rest of the world. Incineration is simply not an option in the modern world and the global feeling against them is growing all the time, as today proves." Members of the Communities Against Toxics, Friends of the Earth Derby, Friends of the Earth Essex, Hull Against the Incinerator, London Against Incineration, No Incinerators For Europe, Sandwich Action Group for the Environment, Swerve the SWERF, Residents Against Bernard Incinerator Damage and Zero Waste Fingal also organized activities to urge authorities to move away from waste incineration. (Mark Strutt, Phil Scott, Dorothy Skrytek, Nikki Clarke ) USA. Essential Action launched an e-mail/postcard
campaign to the US Congress to prevent waste incineration from being
considered "renewable energy" in the upcoming Energy Bill.
The campaign urges the lawmakers to include only truly renewable
clean energy sources such as wind and solar power in the final legislation,
and not to support burning garbage, which destroys valuable resources
and releases dioxins, heavy metals and other toxic chemicals. (Monica
Wilson) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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REPORT REVIEW |
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"Learning Not to Burn, A Primer for
Citizens on Alternatives to Burning Hazardous Waste," by
Elizabeth Crowe of the Chemical Weapons Working Group and Mike Schade
of the Citizens' Environmental Coalition. The primer is intended
to fill the gap in information on non-incineration technologies
for hazardous waste disposal, and present strategies that can be
used in parallel with clean production and zero waste efforts to
bring about sustainable solutions and environment justice. To illustrate
the potential for implementation of non-burn technologies, the primer
looks at the experiences of the Chemical Weapons Working Group and
the movement for safe chemical weapons destruction, and the Citizens'
Environmental Coalition and the Kandid Coalition's campaign to stop
the burning of hazardous wastes produced by Eastman Kodak at their
headquarters in Rochester, New York. |
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"Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," a 23-minute hard-hitting video documentary on imported computer waste scrapping in China. Produced by the Basel Action Network (BAN), the video is the film version of BAN's investigative report by the same name that sent shock waves around the world upon its release on 25 February. Write to Jim Puckett for copies. Health Care Without Harm's report "Stericycle: Living up to its Mission?" evaluates the environmental performance of Stericycle, the largest medical waste disposal company in the U.S. The report questions Stericycle's continued use of incineration despite the availability of cleaner and safer medical waste disposal technologies. The full report is available on the Health Care Without Harm website: www.noharm.org. The New York City Waste Prevention Coalition released
a report "Why Waste the Future? Alternatives to the
Mayor's Proposed Waste Prevention, Composting and Recycling Cuts,"
which details ways in which the city can retain current programs,
by outlining budget savings and revenue generating ideas - to the
tune of more than $35 million. To see the report, log on to Subscribe to E-Bits, which highlights the Waste to Wealth Program of the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR), from creating jobs and recycling-oriented enterprises, to recycling policies that close the loop locally, to model waste reduction initiatives. For more information, visit http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/index.html or write to ilsr@igc.org Fact sheet entitled "Waste-to-Energy. Indian Garbage: Should Energy be the Driving Concern," which explains the fallacies of thermal waste-to-energy processes. Published by Toxics Link (website: www.toxicslink.org) A three-page report on "Incineration and Gasification: A Toxic Comparison" by Louis Zeller of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, North Carolina, USA. Available at http://www.bredl.org/pdf/gasification-massburn.pdf The "Incineration and Food - The Deadly Connection. Where Does Your Food Come from Now?, a map of Europe showing the sites of approximately 300 operating incinerators, is available from Aine Suttle. Visit http://www.otzo.most.org.pl/en/docs/pops_milk-poland.pdf to view the study made by Waste Prevention Association "3R" on dioxin contamination of milk in Poland. |
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