Incineration ≠ Incineration

Dipl.-Ing.(TU) Werner P. Bauer

When waste deposited in a landfill burns - for whatever reason - pollutants such as dioxins, furans, heavy metals and particulate matter are released. As incineration is not monitored, chemical substances and particles are released that pose a serious risk to public health and the environment.  If you want to know more, you can read in the meta-study by Costas A. Velis and Ed Cook that there are eight groups of substance emissions: brominated flame retardants, phthalates, potentially toxic elements, dioxins and related compounds, bisphenol A, particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

It also states that this tends to be the norm when dealing with waste. "One of the main self-disposal strategies of 2 billion people, who have no garbage collection, is to burn their discarded plastic waste in open, uncontrolled fires.”

The meta-study overwhelmingly found a high risk of harm for all those who work closely with waste. These are primarily more than 11 million waste pickers and informal entrepreneurs. They usually live with their families on or right next to landfills. I can only imagine that their approach to preparing their food is similar to that of the workers in the industrial kitchens of Indonesia's Indonesian tofu production (see The Tofu Tragedy).
Are the people in the "kitchen” aware of the danger? Probably yes - but certainly not those who buy these products, because the chemicals (dioxins, phthalates, etc.) released when plastic is heated can also pass into food and be harmful to health when consumed.

I now come back to the topic of "Incineration is not equal to incineration”:
Of course, open incineration of waste is not equal to incineration of waste in a modern plant in which sophisticated filter systems remove pollutants from the exhaust gases with a high degree of transparency (constant measurements).

---

Comments: