Image via WikipediaHealth impact assessment of waste management facilities in three European countries (48 page pdf, , Francesco Forastiere, Chiara Badaloni, Kees de Hoogh, Martin Krayer von Kraus, Marco Martuzzi, Francesco Mitis, Lubica Palkovicova, Daniela Porta, Philipp Preiss, Andrea Ranzi, Carlo A Perucci, David Briggs, Environmental Health 2011, 10:53, June 2, 2011)Today’s review article assessed the health impacts for people living close to a landfill or incinerator in three European countries, which are generally classified as cancer incidence and premature or malformed births. The main health threat for mortality comes from elevated levels of NO2 near incinerators.
Key Quotes:
“The current health impacts of landfilling and incineration can be characterized as moderate when compared to other sources of environmental pollution, e.g. traffic or industrial emissions, that have an impact on public health”
“A total of 49 (Italy), 2 (Slovakia), and 11 (England) incinerators were operating in 2001 while for landfills the figures were 619, 121 and 232, respectively..about 1,000,000, 16,000, and 1,200,000 subjects lived close to incinerators in Italy, Slovakia and England, respectively.. additional contribution to NO2 levels within a 3 km radius was 0.23, 0.15, and 0.14 ug/m3, respectively.”
“cancer incidence and adverse reproductive outcomes (congenital malformations and low birth weight) are the main health effects possibly related to incinerators and landfills, respectively”
“the additional contribution to the PM10 and NO2 background in proximity of incinerators estimated with air dispersion models is relatively small and roughly equivalent in the three countries”
“maximum impact of incinerators on the overall mortality of the resident cohort will be from exposure to NO2”
“For incinerators, there was a variety of emissions from the stacks of these plants, including particles and gases, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, heavy metals and dioxins for which a link with cancer can be easily Justified”
“Damage costs for incineration range from about 4 to 21 EUR tonne waste....For landfills the costs range from about 10 to 13 EUR tonne waste; it is dominated by greenhouse gas emissions because only a fraction of the CH4 can be captured”
Related articles
- Are There Health Impacts from Incinerators? (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
- [In the web] Climate Action and Justice Groups Vow to Block "Waste-to-Energy" Incinerators - ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com (hronlineph.wordpress.com)
- Landfill success story (atmedu.wordpress.com)
- HK Waste Management Story (gracel129.wordpress.com)
- Bury it or Burn it? An Environmental Dilemma (energyrefuge.com)
- Making Better Trash Decisions (pubs.acs.org)
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