Air Pollution Causes Cancer Garbage Incineration Ups Death Rate
Metro Vancouver is looking to locate a garbage burner away from the city. Will your town fall for the promises?
A new study published in this month’s Lancet Oncology
confirms what many of us have suspected – dirty air causes lung cancer. Our
lungs are the interface where oxygen passes into our bodies and carbon dioxide
passes out. Other substances can move across the lungs’ membranes as well. Many
things are suspended in the air besides oxygen and some of them can harm you.Lancet’s study specifically looked at particulate matter in nine European
countries.
Particle sizes ranged from large – soot to the very tiny –
less than 10 microns(less than 10/1000 of a metre).
We have many sources of particulate matter in our air. Wood,
coal smoke, pollen, dirt, bacteria, viruses. Our bodies are very good at
dealing with these unwanted bits. We usually simply breathe them out again or
our immune cells destroy them. We cope less well with ultrafine particles. It
makes good sense to keep the air we breathe as free from particulates as
possible.
Over the past few decades our societies have recognized both
the health and economic benefits of clean air. Steps have been taken to ensure
that our motor vehicles are cleaner burning. In British Columbia the burning of
wood waste in ‘beehive burners’ is a thing of the past. Many years ago, the
local garbage dump used to set fire to garbage, leaving a stinky, thick smoke
in the area. Pollution controls have been placed on many industries, limiting
their emissions.
Which bring me back to burning garbage. Metro Vancouver is
looking for a community willing to host a massive garbage burner. One of the
greenest cities in the world proposes to deal with its garbage crisis by
burning it. While we are years away from setting the waste alight in a pit, all
garbage burners spew fine particulate matter out of their stacks. The size of
the installation that Metro Vancouver is proposing would contribute over ten
metric tonnes of particulates to the air shed every year. That’s without any
expansion of the plant.
Fine particulate
matter is associated with a broad spectrum of acute and chronic illness, such
as lung cancer and cardiopulmonary disease. Worldwide, it is estimated to cause
about 9% of lung cancer deaths, 5% of cardiopulmonary deaths and about 1% of
respiratory infection deaths. Particulate matter pollution is an environmental
health problem that affects people worldwide, but middle-income countries
disproportionately experience this burden. WHO
Disposing of garbage by changing it into tiny particles and
releasing it into the air kills people.
Further reading: The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators
Comments
Post a Comment