TL: TILBURY'S TOXIC PLANS FOR DELTA SO: Save Georgia Strait Alliance, Greenpeace (GP) DT: March 17, 1995 Keywords: environment greenpeace groups bc canada toxics incineration / Tilbury Cement is proposing to make an application to burn hazardous waste as fuel at its Delta, BC kiln. The company, which has made a number of appearances on the province's non-compliance list of top polluters, is located at the mouth of the Fraser River, in the middle of valuable farmland and on the banks of our major salmon river. Although the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reached no final conclusion on the health risks associated with cement kilns burning hazardous waste, it has established that the risks are significantly higher if the kiln is located near food sources, such as farming or fishing. (EPA has placed an 18-month moratorium on permitting hazardous waste incineration.) For over a decade, the cement industry in the United States has burned billions of pounds per year of toxic waste in their kilns and sold cement containing chemical residues to an unsuspecting public. Recent evidence confirms that cement products from facilities which burn hazardous waste are contaminated with extremely toxic chemical residues, such as dioxin and lead. The effects of these chemicals include cancer, birth defects, infertility, neurological impairment, immune suppression, and other health effects. In addition, waste burning kilns emit millions of pounds per year of these chemicals into the air, posing major threats to the health of neighbouring communities. About one third of the 100+ US cement and aggregate kilns burn more than 1.3 million TONS of toxic waste every year - more than double the amount burned in commercial hazardous waste incinerators. These wastes (including pesticides, industrial solvents, and the byproducts from chemical, paint and plastic manufacturing) are sprayed or dumped into the large rotating kilns in which minerals are transformed at high temperatures into cement "clinker". The clinker is then ground, mixed with other materials, and sold to contractors or retailers. For cement companies, the motive is financial: by commanding large disposal fees from toxic waste generators and simultaneously reducing their fuel costs, kiln owners can earn millions of dollars annually. However, the fact that the majority of US cement makers continue to use traditional fuels like natural gas and coal shows that burning waste is not necessary to the industry's viability. In September 1994, the EPA released the findings of its five-year dioxin reassessment. The study, which was the work of over 100 scientists, revealed that exposure to dioxin (measured in picograms or one TRILLIONTH of a gram) poses a serious cancer risk to humans, along with a host of reproductive, developmental and immune system problems. The EPA cited incineration of bio- medical, municipal and hazardous waste, including cement kilns burning hazardous waste or tires as fuel, as the number one source of dioxin and furan emissions. (Tilbury Cement is already burning tires.) Cement kiln emissions were estimated to be 10 times higher than commercial hazardous waste incinerators. Tilbury, which retained the services of US advertising colossus Burston-Marsteller in the summer of 1994, portrays itself as a good environmental and corporate citizen, claiming it is protecting the environment by burning waste instead of non- renewable fuels such as coal and natural gas. US critics, including a large number of state health boards which oppose waste burning in cement kilns, point out that kilns can charge substantially less, because they do not have to meet the same standards as hazardous waste incinerators. Some US kilns make more money from burning waste than from making cement. In the spring of 1994 Tilbury Cement established the "Tilbury Community Advisory Committee" (TCAC) to conduct a full evaluation of the types of wastes it may burn at its kiln and the potential health risks involved. Nearly a year later, no such evaluation has taken place, as Tilbury has been unable to provide the committee with the information they need. Many individuals and groups have refused to participate or resigned from what they see as an industry top heavy PR exercise. The non-industry representatives remaining on the committee are increasingly frustrated by the process. Tilbury claims Burston-Marsteller is long gone. This may be true, but their deft damage control touch permeates the mountain of printed material with which committee members are inundated on a monthly basis. For example, it is very difficult to find the words "hazardous waste" in any Tilbury material. Instead one finds it is the company's seemingly benign intention to use "certain alternate fuels" in order to meet its objective to: "CONTINUE TO BE A LEADING COMPETITIVE MANUFACTURER AND MARKETER OF QUALITY CEMENT PRODUCTS WHILE PROVIDING AN EFFICIENT AND SAFE ALTERNATIVE FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT". (Emphasis theirs.) THINGS TILBURY ISN'T TELLING THE TCAC There are some rather glaring gaps in the information provided to the TCAC by Tilbury and Cemtech, the hazardous waste broker, which was, until its January takeover by waste giant Safety- Kleen, planning to provide Tilbury with its "alternate fuels". For example, there is no mention of the fact that cement kilns are designed to be heat transfer units, NOT combustion units. Kilns have too little oxygen for proper combustion - zero to 3% on average. Commercial hazardous waste incinerators, which are designed and built for the sole purpose of destroying toxic organic molecules in hazardous waste, have 7 to 11% oxygen. Cement kilns make much of the fact that they burn at a higher temperature than incinerators, neglecting to mention that these high temperatures combined with a low oxygen environment can and will enhance the formation of products of incomplete combustion (PICs), including dioxins and furans. Hazardous waste incinerators are designed to "fail safe". If there is a process or combustion malfunction, the system is designed to "close" and thereby hold PICs in an afterburner until they are considered "safe" to go into the stack. Cement kilns, on the other hand, must keep operating through combustion upsets - common place occurrences in kilns - in order to save the clinker. Ash from US hazardous waste incinerators must be landfilled in specially designed and licensed facilities. Ash or cement kiln dust (CKD) from cement kilns burning hazardous waste, which demonstrate the same toxic properties as incinerator ash, can be dumped in quarries next to cement plants, often contaminating aquifers and groundwater. Intensive lobbying by US cement manufacturers and hazardous waste brokers such as Cemtech and Safety-Kleen recently led to an EPA decision not to differentiate between the disposal requirements for CKD from traditional facilities and those burning hazardous waste. This is a victory for hazardous waste generators and brokers and cement manufacturers. It is a crushing blow for the hundreds of communities throughout the US which have been fighting against cement kilns using hazardous waste as fuel. With cement kilns, unlike a state-of-the-art incinerator, all the toxic heavy metals (including lead, cadmium, chromium and mercury) are distributed into the environment - out the stack, in the dust or in the cement product itself. In the US there are pending resolutions to force the labelling of hazardous waste cement and some suppliers, including Home Depot, have decided not to sell cement products produced with hazardous waste-derived fuel. WHAT INCINERATION DOES AND DOESN'T DO It must be clearly understood that incineration, whether it is in a commercial incinerator or a cement kiln, does not prevent pollution, as the "rush to burn" crowd would have the public believe. Incineration merely alters the form of pollution. When the EPA finished burning 25,180 barrels of dioxin- contaminated pesticide waste from the production of Agent Orange (at a cost of $33 million), they were left with 38,000 barrels of dioxin- contaminated salt and ash. They were then forced to construct two $300,000 buildings in which to store the increased volume of waste indefinitely. What hazardous waste incineration does do is perpetuate the creation of hazardous waste by providing the generators of hazardous waste with a relatively cheap solution to their disposal problem. The true cost of hazardous waste is borne by communities, which are put at risk from transport and storage accidents, before the incineration itself even begins. Burning hazardous waste as fuel allows cement manufacturers to undercut the competition, who then demand the right to also burn hazardous waste. (There is a Lefarge Cement plant right across the river from Tilbury.) Incineration is the 3 for 1 pollution option, contaminating air, land AND water. The food contaminated by incineration is consumed by people who become sick. When they realize why they have become sick, they discover that the presence of an incinerator or a hazardous waste-burning cement kiln in their community has caused the value of their home to deteriorate to the point that they cannot afford to move away. Incineration of hazardous waste is a bad idea. Incineration of hazardous waste in cement kilns is a particularly bad idea. WHAT YOU CAN DO * Contact BC Environment Minister Moe Sihota and voice your opposition to any proposal by Tilbury Cement to burn hazardous waste. Write: Parliament Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4. Phone: (604) 387-1187. Fax: (604) 387-1356. * Voice your opposition to your mayor and MLA. * Write letters to the editor. * Make Tilbury Cement aware of your opposition. Contact Allan Moore, Tilbury Cement, PO Box 950, Delta, BC V4K 3S6. Phone: (604) 946-0411. WHAT YOU CAN READ PLAYING WITH FIRE: HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATION, Greenpeace. SHAM RECYCLERS: HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATION IN CEMENT AND AGGREGATE KILNS, Greenpeace. SMOKESCREEN: THE MYTH OF INCINERATOR NEED, Washington Toxics Coalition. For more information, contact: Save Georgia Strait Alliance, (604) 251-4953, or Greenpeace, (604) 253-7701.