Today's Topics:
when hazardous wastes are recycled...
Send Replies or notes for publication to: <greenyes@UCSD.Edu>
Send subscription requests to: <greenyes-Digest-Request@UCSD.Edu>
Problems you can't solve otherwise to postmaster@ucsd.edu.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 10:03:25 -0500
From: "Susan K. Snow" <sksnow@1stnet.com>
Subject: when hazardous wastes are recycled...
When legally hazardous and other toxic wastes, such as from printer
cartridges, used oil, are recycled do they ultimately go into
fertilizer?
I know that some so-called recycling companies are recycling paint and
other such wastes by mixing them with crankcase oil to be sold to cement
kilns. Cement kilns, in turn, are apparently recycling their toxic ash
residue (containing dioxins and other persistent organic pollutants;
lead and other toxic metals) to fertilizer companies.
These and other toxic wastes are a real problem. Along with
fertilizers, they are apparently producing a <cell from hell> along the
North Carolina and the East Coast, according to an article entitled
<Mysterious `cell from hell' ravaging fish along East Coast> by Joby
Warrick of the Washington Post and copyrighted by the Seattle Times.
This was in the National News: Wednesday, June 11, 1997.
http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/search.html
Therefore, we don't want to dump them into the waters. But don't they
still runoff when spread on the farmers fields, and on yards and
gardens? There is a fear in the fields from hazardous wastes that are
recycled into fertilizers.
http://www.seattletimes.com/todaysnews/special.html#fields
With or without regulations, all life on earth is being poisoned by
these consumer products. Seems to me that one of the reasons for
recycling is to prevent pollution. This sham recycling is contributing
to pollution by spreading it over the earth and into our food. We are
beyond the point of dilution. Chemicals are building up in animal
tissues and contributing to lots of dangerous effects.
Seems to me that we need to promote the prevention rather than recycling
of some wastes by avoiding the purchase, in the first place.
Susan Snow
------------------------------
End of GreenYes Digest V97 #173
******************************