INCINERATOR FREE – Lake County

Reason #1: Harmful to public health

Reason #2: Regulations don’t ensure safety

Reason #3: A track record plagued by malfunctions, explosions and shut-downs

Reason #4: Not compatible with waste prevention, reuse, recycling and composting

Reason #5: Expensive and financially risky

Reason #6: Waste-to-energy is a waste of energy

Reason #7: Deplete resources and permanently damage the natural environment

Reason #8: Contribute to climate change and undermine climate-friendly solutions

Reason #9: Require large investment, but create few jobs compared to recycling and composting

Reason #10: Incineration is avoidable and unnecessary.

Excerpted from  An Industry Blowing Smoke  JUNE 2009
AUTHOR:  David Ciplet
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
1958 University Avenue  Berkeley, CA 94704
510-883-9490 • www.gaiaglobal

Any part of this report can be reproduced and distributed in unaltered form for non-commercial use with proper acknowledgement.  Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). All rights reserved.

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These are some Excerpts from:

The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators; 4th Report of the British Society for Ecological Medicine

• “Large studies have shown higher rates of adult and childhood cancer and also birth defects around municipal waste incinerators: the results are consistent with the associations being causal. A number of smaller epidemiological studies support this interpretation and suggest that the range of illnesses produced by incinerators may be much wider.”
• “Incinerator emissions are a major source of fine particulates, of toxic metals and of more than 200 organic chemicals, including known carcinogens, mutagens, and hormone disrupters. Emissions also contain other unidentified  compounds whose potential for harm is as yet unknown, as was once the case with dioxins.  Since the  nature of waste is continually changing, so is the chemical nature of the incinerator emissions and therefore the potential for adverse health effects. “
• “Present safety measures are designed to avoid acute toxic effects in the immediate neighborhood, but ignore the fact that many of the pollutants bioaccumulate, can enter the food chain and can cause chronic illnesses over time and over a much wider geographical area. No official attempts have been made to assess the effects of emissions on long-term health.”