<- Back

 Close the loop, enforce zero pollution.

by Morgan Bell | 14-Dec-2009 | Comments (3) Tags: CO2, dioxins, environment, pulp mill, pollution  16 ratings. Please log in to rate and comment

Close the loop, enforce zero pollution.

The problem with Australian environmental policies is that there is too much pussy-footing around. To be truly progressive the Government must abandon corporate loyalties, refuse to pander to the commercial interests, and simply lay down the law. It should be illegal to pollute in this country, regardless of the scale of pollution. Full stop.

The PR spin mill for the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in Tasmania runs advertising campaigns in an attempt to put their proposed polluting in perspective. They intend to release dioxins into the air and the waterways. Dioxins, you may recall are the active ingredient in Agent Orange, a chemical which is known to kill plant life and foliage, and cause birth defects in human.

The developers of the Pulp Mill have famously rationalised that the amount of dioxins in their effluent will only be the size of a grain of rice every year, or the size of a child’s marble over the lifetime of the Mill. It’s only a tenth the potency permitted in US drinking water. Less air pollution than a town of people burning open fires. A "negligible impact" on human health. Spin, spin, spin.

Instead of “negligible” pollution, how about none?

There is technology available to reduce emissions to zero. It’s called Totally chlorine free (TCF) and it is currently being employed in Scandinavian Pulp Mills.

Politicians seem satisfied to push through an Elemental Chlorine-Free (ECF) bleaching Pulp Mill on the basis that it’s not polluting too much. Compared to Pulp Mills in the past, and compared to other industries, and compared to how many Dioxins there already are floating around. It’s all relative. Well enough with the comparisons.

Dioxins are endocrine-disruptors with half-lives of decades. Each “grain of rice” released into the environment accumulates. Dioxins are listed by the Stockholm Convention as a Persistent Organic Pollutant. If you are exposed to high levels of Dioxins you will surely get sick, but it also affects your internal make-up, and can affect your unborn children too.

Just because there are already Dioxins in the food chain does not mean we should be apathetic about adding more. None of these projects exists in isolation. Once you add up the “negligible” amount of pollution emitted by each industrial site, and then domestic use, you start to get a problem.

The fact that we are currently consuming Dioxins should not be an excuse as to why we should have more injected into our environment. There has to be a point where we say no. Enough is enough. We are polluting at a rate far greater than what these chemicals can naturally break down.

Similarly the problem with CO2 cannot be fixed by an Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). It is the same flawed theory. The Government tells industry they can pollute, just not too much. Then they tax the consumers. It is just revenue raising and not an adequate solution.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently declared CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases a “threat to human health”. Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity. Should we be pandering to the big polluters? No.

The Government should say there is clean green energy technology available, we are phasing out coal and oil, you have 10 years to come into line with the new standards of zero emissions, or you are no longer allowed to operate in our country.

We did it with leaded petrol. We did it with CFCs in refrigeration, air-con, and aerosols. We did it with Styrofoam cups and take-away containers. We did it with lead paint, asbestos, light bulbs etc.

If something is dangerous and a threat to human health the Government must take charge and ban it. Phase it out. Offer incentives and punishments to convert to cleaner available technology. We should not be asking the corporations, we should be telling them. We should be the authority making the rules based on the science.

Carbon trading and carbon taxes will not stop the rise of CO2. We need to close the loop on our systems and recycle all of our waste. Not just individuals, but large companies. And we need policy that ensures this happens. Strong policy. Strong enforcement. Full stop.

Things to Do

 More Entries

 17 ratings.

 8 ratings.

 12 ratings.