PVC a dioxin culprit?

Press, 21 July 1984, Page 19

PVC a dioxin culprit?

After the dioxin scare which led to the closing of a Hamburg chemicals factory late last month comes another horror story which could have worldwide implications. An investigation by the Hamburg Environment Ministry has shown that two domestic garbage incinerators are giving out dioxin, called by scientists the most poisonous substance ever produced by man. The amounts are minuscule, but they still exceed official limits by a factor of 700. As the incinerators deal only with household rubbish, ministry officials have virtually ruled out industrial waste as the culprit. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) the übiquitous plastic which makes up a significant proportion of domestic rubbish is a much more likely 1 culprit

Investigations are now going on in other states of West Germany as to whether their rubbish incinerators have the same problem. The cause has been known for some time: heating halogenated hydrocarbons — of which PVC is one — to around 600 degrees Celsius destroys the basic substances, but gives off various dioxins, amongst them 2,3,7,8-TCDD. To destroy the dioxins themselves, a temperature of around 1300 degrees C. is necessary. If incineration of household rubbish is to be retained, 44 plants will have to be rebuilt to run at the higher temperature. The cost is estimated to be in the thousands of millions of deutschmarks. The alternatives, as Hamburg’s Environment Minister, Mr Wolfgang Curilla, sees them, are either

to close down the incinerators or to ban the production of PVC. He would take the first course in Hamburg if nothing else could be done, and he also said he had asked the Federal Government to investigate the latter possibility. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Bonn, however, said no such request had been received, and nor was the Ministry concerning Itself with the problem. Although the Interior Minister, Mr Friedrich Zimmermann, has made a name for himself in attempting to clean up air pollution generally — to save West Germany’s dying forests — the shock to the economy involved in virtually killing off a major part of the chemical industry would be immense. (Copyright — London Observecj Service). -y