Deadly by-products of incinerators
Letter published in Dundee Courier - http://beta.thecourier.co.uk/Views/Readers-letters/article/1016/may-3-causeway-could-be-the-ideal-solution-for-forth.html
Sir,-I am glad to see The Courier is keeping a wary eye on plans to build a biomass burner in Dundee (April 26, leader column).
Forth Energy has not said how many tonnes of biomass will be burnt each year but a 100MW biomass burner in Texas is expected to require more than a million tonnes of fuel each year.
There are many questions over the safety of even the most modern incinerators, which can breach emission limits for dioxins, furans and metals.
Breaches can go undetected for months because government guidelines only require inspections twice a year.
Forth Energy will no doubt claim that wood and other types of biomass are clean fuels that aren't harmful to human health.
However, wood waste often contains hard-to-detect contaminants such as chromated copper arsenate (CCA), pesticides, preservatives, lead paint, black liquor, copper, creosote and chlorine, which can result in harmful emissions.
Visual sorting can miss at least 10% of wood contaminated with chromated copper arsenate.
Additionally, there is the problem of ultrafine particulates. Dr Jeremy Thomson of the British Society for Ecological Medicine has calculated that an incinerator burning 400,000 tonnes of materials each year will emit 8kg of particulates per hour, mostly 2.5 microns and smaller.
The filters in incinerators aren't very good at capturing these and so they escape into the environment. From there they enter the lungs and have been linked pulmonary disorders. They may carry dioxins, metals and chemicals through the lung membranes into the body via the bloodstream.
Michael Gallagher.
Green Alternatives to Incineration in Scotland,
33 Precinct Street,
Coupar Angus.
Sir,-I am glad to see The Courier is keeping a wary eye on plans to build a biomass burner in Dundee (April 26, leader column).
Forth Energy has not said how many tonnes of biomass will be burnt each year but a 100MW biomass burner in Texas is expected to require more than a million tonnes of fuel each year.
There are many questions over the safety of even the most modern incinerators, which can breach emission limits for dioxins, furans and metals.
Breaches can go undetected for months because government guidelines only require inspections twice a year.
Forth Energy will no doubt claim that wood and other types of biomass are clean fuels that aren't harmful to human health.
However, wood waste often contains hard-to-detect contaminants such as chromated copper arsenate (CCA), pesticides, preservatives, lead paint, black liquor, copper, creosote and chlorine, which can result in harmful emissions.
Visual sorting can miss at least 10% of wood contaminated with chromated copper arsenate.
Additionally, there is the problem of ultrafine particulates. Dr Jeremy Thomson of the British Society for Ecological Medicine has calculated that an incinerator burning 400,000 tonnes of materials each year will emit 8kg of particulates per hour, mostly 2.5 microns and smaller.
The filters in incinerators aren't very good at capturing these and so they escape into the environment. From there they enter the lungs and have been linked pulmonary disorders. They may carry dioxins, metals and chemicals through the lung membranes into the body via the bloodstream.
Michael Gallagher.
Green Alternatives to Incineration in Scotland,
33 Precinct Street,
Coupar Angus.
Loading...
| Powered by Nabble | See how NAML generates this page |
