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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Friday March 30, 2007 - 3 Scientist stresses three R's --reduce, reuse and recycle Continued from page 1 Connett says that despite improvements to incinerators over the years, they still cause great harm to the environment. "Simply by burning household trash we produce the most toxic substances that we've ever made in a chemical laboratory," said Connett. In particular, Connett fears dioxin emissions, which come from the burning of medical waste, municipal waste and hazardous waste. These dioxins escape incinerators and enter humans in low levels through contaminated food. Once inside a person, they accumulate in fat tissue increasing the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes, he warned. "The woman has a way of getting rid of them by having a baby," said Connett. "When she has a baby the dioxins that she stored in her body for 25 years or so move from her fat to the fetus, which means that the fetus gets the highest dose of dioxin of any human being and it gets more if it's breast fed." As bad as dioxins can be in adults, in a fetus they can be much worse, said Connett. "Dioxins interfere with hormones, and hormones are substances which send messages around the body and control growth differentiation, which is critical for fetal development, and dioxins are thought to interfere with both sexual and mental development." In 2003, America's Institute of Medicine recognized this problem and recommended that women limit their exposure to dioxins years before becoming pregnant by switching to skim milk and other foods that are low in animal fat. "I don't know about your definition of a crisis, but when you have to Dr. Paul Connett tell half the population in a country the size of the United States that they should be changing their diet to accommodate the sloppy waste handling methods of the last 20 years, I think we have a crisis," said Connett. "We should learn from that crisis. Our task now is not to tell young girls to stop eating the food that their parents want to give them, but to stop governments from permitting these damn producers of dioxin." When Halton Region announced its plans for an Energy From Waste plant last summer, Commissioner of Planning and Public Works Peter Crockett said the thermal methods range from high-tech incineration to gasification, plasma arc or thermal cracking technologies, which he described as "non-burn" methods. It's not known at this point which technology the region would adopt. At the announcement, Crockett stated any emissions would be well within provincial guidelines and that the most modern pollution control equipment would be used. While Connett admits that some incinerators operating around the world have demonstrated an ability to control dioxin emissions, he notes that this requires tough regulations and tough enforcement. He doubts the Ontario government has the will to deliver either. "Your monitoring of dioxins in Canada is absolutely pathetic and your health regulations on dioxins are the least stringent in the world," he said. To make matters worse, measuring dioxin emissions is far from an exact science, says Connett. "In most countries dioxins are only measured once or twice a year with the company getting advanced notice. These are measured under ideal conditions," he said. "If you think that the numbers you are given mean anything, then I've got a bridge to sell you." Dioxins are not the only byproducts of incinerators, as extremely toxic fly ash is also created during incineration. This ash acts, as the incinerator equivalent of toxic waste and disposing of it has been a problem in other countries. "In Switzerland, Austria and Germany, they put the fly ash into nylon bags and send them to salt mines. In Japan many of the incinerators vitrify the fly ash and make it into glass. That's probably the safest thing to do with it, however, this takes a great deal of energy to do so it's not looked on very kindly by the industry," said Connett. He also discussed the problems with toxic nanoparticles, which are so small they evade environmental control devices in incinerators. Connett said these are particularly worrying because they are so small that when inhaled they enter the bloodstream and eventually "Your monitoring of dioxins in Canada is absolutely pathetic and your health regulations on dioxins are the least stringent in the world." Dr. Paul Connett, toxicologist and environmental chemist reach the brain. "Here is an electron microscope slide of a nanoparticle in brain tissue, and they've used the same microscope to scan to see what elements are in this, and there is lead, barium, chromium, iron, silicone in this tissue," he said. "These are not elements you really want in your child's brain." Connett says both incinerators and landfills can be made obsolete through concentration on reducing, reusing and recycling. He pointed to the Xerox Corporation in Europe as a prime example of how it is possible for industry to recycle, while at the same time creating jobs and making money. "They are recovering old copy machines from 16 countries and taking them to huge warehouses in the Netherlands, stripping them down, recovering 95 per cent of the material, either as reusable parts or recyclable materials, and it's saving the company $76 million a year." Intensified recycling is one area Oakvillegreen leader Liz Benneian believes Halton Region should explore before resorting to an incinerator. "Halton region has not even begun to tap into reduce, reuse and recycle. For example, in our region you can put six bags of garbage out while many other municipalities across Canada have bag limits of one or two bags, and they have tags, so if you want to put out more bags of garbage you have to buy tags," she said. "Many municipalities in Ontario have Green Bin Programs (for organic waste). Halton has just begun to test the Green Bin Program. So let's not talk about incineration now. Let's leave that for a time and a place where we've exhausted all other opportunities." Increased truck traffic as other communities send their garbage to be burned in Halton is another downside Benneian sees to the incinerator. "According to the Halton Region they're looking at incinerating up to 25 per cent of the Greater Golden Horseshoe's waste at this centre," she said. "That's a lot of trucks bringing waste from all around the Greater Golden Horseshoe to Oakville." The price tag of between $300$800 million to build the incinerator in Halton was also questioned. Brian Burton, a cost analyst, calculated the return Halton will get for its multi-million dollar investment will in fact be minus 4.4 per cent when all the attached annual costs are factored in. At the end of the presentation Benneian called on the audience to engage their neighbours and local politicians in finding other ways to solve Halton's trash problem. As the Halton Region is believed to be making its business case to the Regional Council at some point in April time for people to object is running out. Whatever route is chosen, Halton's garbage will not go away unless action is taken with the current landfill site expected to be full by 2030. Mock cemeteries try to drive home `Grave Reality' message about tobacco Local students learned the `Grave Reality' about smoking this week through a dramatic display from an antitobacco group. Crave -- a group of 18 high school students from the Halton area -- hit Georgetown High School and Iroquois Ridge High School in Oakville Wednesday with its mock cemetery of 16 tombstones. Each tombstone displayed the flags of different countries and their respective death tolls due to tobacco products. "Our group wants to inform the community that the tobacco industry is not just a problem in Canada -- it's a problem across the world," said Shawn Crawford, a member of Crave. Youth from across Ontario are organizing similar events in their communities to celebrate Kick Butts Day, which promotes youth advocacy, leadership and activism. Crave is urging local youth to learn more about the manipulative tactics of the tobacco industry by joining its Facebook group online and volunteering with the group. Visit www.facebook.com and search for `Crave the truth'. The group's mission is to inform youth about the tobacco industry's deceptive marketing practices. It works to engage youth in action-oriented activities that teach skills and provide leadership opportunities, help prevent tobacco use among youth, reduce second-hand smoke exposure and increase awareness of tobacco issues. "Halton Region is really benefiting from the energy and ideas that Crave is bringing forward," said Regional Chair Gary Carr. "Who knows better how to reach youth than other youth?" For more information contact Halton Region at 905-825-6000 or visit www.halton.ca. 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