THE EARTH'S TOXIC BURDEN
Chapter 6. Designing a New Materials Economy
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
(W.W. Norton & Co., NY: 2001).
No one knows exactly how many chemicals
are manufactured today, but with the advent of synthetic chemicals,
most of them organic in nature, the number of chemicals in use has
climbed over 100,000. A random blood test of Americans will show
measurable amounts of easily 200 chemicals that did not exist a
century ago.32
A number of these chemicals are highly persistent and found in remote
corners of the globe, far from their origin. Recent research at
the Norwegian Polar Institute indicates that polar bears living
within the Arctic Circle have high concentrations of persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) in their fatty tissue. One apparent consequence
of the buildup of POPs, some of which are endocrine disruptors,
is that 1.5 percent of all female bears have deformed sexual organs.
33
Most of these new chemicals have not been tested for toxicity. Those
that are known to be toxic are included in a list of 644 chemicals
whose discharge by industry into the environment must be reported
to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The annual publication
of EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) makes public some of the
more dangerous chemicals being put into the air or water or simply
buried underground. Although these detailed data for the United
States, compiled from reports submitted by industrial, mining, and
electrical generating firms, are not readily available for most
other countries, they do provide some sense of the global situation.34
In 1999, some 7.8 billion pounds of toxic chemicals28
pounds for each personwere
released into the U.S. environment. Metal mining accounted for 4
billion pounds and electrical generating facilities for 1.2 billion
pounds. The primary metals industry, which refines metals and manufactures
metal products ranging from steel plates to copper wire and aluminum
cans, released 684 million pounds of toxic chemicals. Compounds
containing copper, zinc, and arsenic accounted for nearly three
fourths of all the toxic chemicals released from these industries.
The chemical manufacturing industry was close behind, with 671 million
pounds. Paper manufacturing was third, with 226 million pounds of
toxics released.35
For the electric utility sector, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric
acid were among the leading toxics released. This does not include
the emissions of sulfur dioxide and various nitrous oxides that
interact with moisture in the atmosphere to form the sulfuric and
nitric acid that damage respiratory systems and produce acid rain.
While gold miners release an estimated 200,000 pounds of mercury
into the Amazon ecosystem each year, coal-burning power plants release
over 100,000 pounds of mercury into the air in the United States.
EPA reports that "mercury from power plants settles over waterways,
polluting rivers and lakes and contaminating fish." The risks to
human health, and particularly prenatal damage to nervous system
development, have led to restrictions on fish consumption in an
estimated 50,000 U.S. freshwater lakes, rivers, and ponds. The 35,000
pounds of mercury deposited in New England each year from coal-burning
power plants led the region's six states to warn children and pregnant
women to limit their consumption of freshwater fish. A report by
the National Academy of Sciences for the United States as a whole
indicates that 60,000 infants may face neurological damage from
mercury exposure before birth.36
The Toxic Release Inventory, now accessible on the Internet, also
provides information on a community-by-community basis, arming local
groups with data needed to evaluate the potential threats to their
health and that of the environment. Since the TRI was inaugurated
in 1988, toxic chemical emissions have declined steadily.37
Unfortunately, few other countries have instituted such comprehensive
reporting procedures. And the U.S. system still has some gaps, such
as on pesticides, which are released into the environment by farmers,
homeowners, and golf course managers.
Some chemicals that are used in large quantities are lethal even
in small quantities. For example, swallowing one teaspoonful of
arsenic leads to death in less than a minute. Exposure to varying
levels of toxic chemicals and in various combinations can lead to
birth defects, impaired immune systems, damage to the central nervous
system (including mental retardation), respiratory illnesses, a
disruption of endocrine systems and hormonal balances, and cancer
of almost every kind.38
Pollutants also damage the environment. Acid rain from sulfur dioxide
emissions, for example, has damaged forests in industrial regions,
including Europe, North America, and China. A 2000 survey reports
that one quarter of Europe's forests are damaged. A nickel smelter
in Norilsk, Siberia, has killed all the trees in a 3,500-square-kilometer
area. Thousands of lakes in the northern tier of industrial countries
are now lifeless because of acidification from acid rain.39
In some countries, environmental pollutants have accumulated to
the point where they are reducing life expectancy. In Russia, the
combination of a breakdown in the health care system, a dramatic
rise in poverty over the last decade, and some of the world's highest
pollution levels has helped reduce male life expectancy to less
than 60 years. Horror stories of the health effects of uncontrolled
industrial pollution in Russia are commonplace. For example, in
the industrial town of Karabash in the foothills of the Ural Mountains,
children routinely suffer from lead, arsenic, and cadmium poisoning.
This translates into congenital defects, neurological disorders,
and cancer. Pollutants also disrupt metabolic systems and impair
immune systems.40
Developing countries, too, are beginning to suffer from uncontrolled
pollution. Payal Sampat of Worldwatch Institute writes that the
largest city in the agricultural state of the Punjab in northern
India, Ludiana, is now paying the price for industrial pollution.
A combination of industries, ranging from textiles to metal electroplating,
has left the underground water supply contaminated with cyanide,
cadmium, and lead. The well water on which the city's residents
depend is no longer safe to drink. Other cities in India, such as
Jaipur, and in China, such as Shenyang, that once depended on local
groundwater supplies must now also seek water from elsewhere.41
Scientists analyzing underground water pollution quickly point out
that thus far we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg, because
it takes time for water-soluble toxic chemicals to percolate through
the soil and eventually pollute underground aquifers. The toxics
in underground aquifers today may be the product of industrial activities
from a generation ago.42
The dispersal of some toxics is relatively new. This is the case
in Japan, for example, where the incineration of municipal waste
is discharging dioxins into the air. Dioxinswhich
are so toxic that their presence is measured not in parts per million
but in parts per billionare
a product of burning plastic. Tokyo has become the dioxin capital
of the world. Although Japan's emissions of dioxin, the highest
of any country, total only 4 kilograms per year, they are at a level
that could cause cancer or other maladies.43
One of the big challenges the world now faces is how to detoxify
the earth. How do we make the air safe to breathe, the water safe
to drink, and the soil safe for producing food? One important step
was taken in December 2000 when delegates from 122 countries meeting
in Stockholm approved a landmark agreement banning 12 of the most
toxic chemicals now in use. These 12 persistent organic pollutants
included pesticides, such as DDT, aldrin, endrin, chlordane, and
dieldrin, as well as industrial chemicals like hexachlorbenzene
and PCBs. Once 50 countries ratify the treaty, a process expected
to take at least three years, then implementation will begin. Swedish
Prime Minister Goeran Persson observed, "Dangerous substances do
not respect international or national borders. They can only be
fought with common strategies." Most countries have already banned
the use of lead in gasoline, a common source of mental retardation
in children.44
If we restructure the energy economy to stabilize climate (see Chapter
5), then the burning of coal for electrical generationthe
source of the mercury that is making fish unsafe for human consumption,
and the hydrochloric and sulfuric acids that are destroying forests
and impairing respiratory systemswill
largely disappear.
If recycling industries replace mining industries, the flow of pollutants
will be greatly reduced. If countries ban the use of nonrefillable
beverage containers, as Denmark and Finland have done, then both
the amount of energy and the materials used in manufacturing beverage
containers will be sharply reduced. In building an eco-economy,
many of the goals are mutually reinforcing.45
ENDNOTES:
32. Anne Platt McGinn, Why Poison Ourselves? A Precautionary Approach
to Synthetic Chemicals, Worldwatch Paper 153 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch
Institute, November 2000), p. 7; 200 chemicals in the body from
Pete Myers, plenary discussion on Emerging Environmental Issues,
at U.S. Agency for International Development Environmental Officers
Training Workshop, "Meeting the Environmental Challenges of the
21st Century," Airlie Center, Warrenton, VA, 26 July 1999.
33. Alister Doyle, "Bears Take Brunt of Toxic Chemicals as Ban Looms,"
Reuters, 22 May 2001.
34. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Toxic Release Inventory
1999 (Washington, DC: 2001).
35. Ibid.
36. Mercury in the Amazon in "Mercury Poisoning Disease Hits Amazon
Villages," Reuters, 4 February 1999; mercury emissions from U.S.
coal plants in EPA, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards
and Office of Research and Development, Mercury Study Report to
Congress Volume II (Washington, DC: December 1997), p. ES-4; mercury
in rivers and lakes in Glick, op. cit. note 30; "EPA Decides Mercury
Emissions from Power Plants Must Be Reduced," press release (Washington,
DC: 15 December 2000); New England in Robert Braile, "Mercury Danger
Rising, Group Says," Boston Globe, 19 September 2000; newborns in
National Academy of Sciences, Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury
(Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000).
37. "EPA Issues New Toxics Report, Improves Means of Reporting,"
press release (Washington, DC: 11 April 2001); TRI available on
Internet at www.epa.gov/tri.
38. McGinn, op. cit. note 32, pp. 6-12.
39. European forest damage in U.N. Economic Commission for Europe
and European Commission, Forest Condition in Europe 2000 (Hamburg,
Germany: 2000); Norilsk from Koko Warner, An Emissions Tax in Siberia:
Economic Theory, Firm Response and Noncompliance in Imperfect Markets
(Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis, 7 July 1997), pp. 1, 32, 37.
40. Sharon LaFraniere, "Mother Russia's Poisoned Land," Washington
Post, 22 June 1999.
41. Payal Sampat, "Groundwater Shock," World Watch, January/February
2000, pp. 10-22.
42. Ibid. 43. "Japan Emits Most Dioxin Among 15 Nations: Study,"
Japan Times, 22 June 1999.
44. "Governments Agree to Ban or Limit 'Dirty Dozen' POPs," Bridges
Weekly Trade News Digest (International Centre for Trade and Sustainable
Development, Geneva), 12 December 2000; Persson quoted in "Toxic
Chemicals Outlawed," Cable News Network, 22 May 2001.
45. Denmark and Finland in Brenda Platt and Neil Seldman, Wasting
and Recycling in the United States 2000 (Athens, GA: GrassRoots
Recycling Network, 2000).
Copyright
© 2001 Earth Policy Institute
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