Solid waste treatment and disposal: effects on public health and environmental safety.

Hamer G.

Source

Biofocus Foundation and Chemical Engineering Department, University College Dublin, Belfield,
Dublin 4, Ireland. chemical.eng@ucd.ie

Abstract

The safety and acceptability of many widely used solid waste management practices are of serious
concern from the public health point of view. Such concern stems from both distrust of policies and
solutions proposed by all tiers of government for the management of solid waste and a perception
that many solid waste management facilities use poor operating procedures. Waste management
practice that currently encompasses disposal, treatment, reduction, recycling, segregation and
modification has developed over the past 150 years. Before that and in numerous more recent
situations, all wastes produced were handled by their producers using simple disposal methods,
including terrestrial dumping, dumping into both fresh and marine waters and uncontrolled burning.
In spite of ever-increasing industrialisation and urbanisation, the dumping of solid waste, particularly
in landfills, remains a prominent means of disposal and implied treatment. Major developments
have occurred with respect to landfill technology and in the legislative control of the categories of
wastes that can be subject to disposal by landfilling. Even so, many landfills remain primitive in their
operation. Alternative treatment technologies for solid waste management include incineration with
heat recovery and waste gas cleaning and accelerated composting, but both of these technologies
are subject to criticism either by environmentalists on the grounds of possible hazardous emissions,
failure to eliminate pathogenic agents or failure to immobilise heavy metals, or by landfill operators
and contractors on the basis of waste management economics, while key questions concerning the
effects of the various practices on public health and environmental safety remain unanswered. The
probable and relative effects on both public health and environmental safety of tradition and
modern landfill technologies will be evaluated with respect to proposed alternative treatment
technologies.

PMID: 14623044 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

THE BIGGEST GLOBAL HEALTH THREAT OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Posted: 04/ 8/11 06:04 PM ET

Climate Change, Global Warming, Climate Change Health, Climate Change Health Problems, Climate
Crisis, Health and Climate Change, Green News
Recently a commission run by The Lancet named what they called the biggest global health threat of
the 21st century. HIV and AIDS? Nope. Heart disease? Not at all. Cancer? Keep trying. To get your
head around the biggest health threat of all, you might have to change how you think about health
entirely. That's because the biggest threat of all, in the view of this blue-ribbon panel, was climate
change.

In the last few years, leading medical professionals have begun to speak out about the extraordinary
threats climate change poses to human well-being. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated in
Pediatrics, its professional journal that "children are likely to suffer disproportionately from both
direct and indirect adverse health effects of climate change." The American Nurses Association
described the challenges of global climate change as "unprecedented in human history" and called
for nurses to "speak out and advocate for change." Cecil Wilson, MD, the president of the American
Medical Association, stated at a congressional briefing that climate change could cause "devastating
events with serious human health implications."

How can our warming climate affect our health? In some surprising ways, as we describe in our new
book, Changing Planet, Changing Health.

Warming temperatures allow disease-carrying mosquitoes to spread out of the tropics and higher
into the mountains, bringing malaria, dengue fever, and other currently tropical diseases with them.
And we're not immune in North America: Dengue fever (breakbone fever) has moved from central
America northern Mexico, and warming climate has brought Lyme disease to New Hampshire and
Maine, is more than eight-fold as common than it was a decade ago.

Devastating heat waves like the one that baked Chicago in 1995 and the one broiled Moscow in 2010
will become more common. Climate models project a blistering heat wave like the one that killed
739 people in Chicago in 1995 every summer, on average, by the 2040s.

Extreme rains and snows will be even more common, like the deluge in 2010 that swamped
Nashville with 13 inches of rain in a day. Health risks of flooding include drowning, respiratory
diseases from mold and diarrheal disease from poor sanitation.

Red tides and other harmful algae blooms in the warming coastal ocean can cause severe nausea,
vomiting, and even paralysis and brain damage to swimmers, surfers, and those who eat
contaminated shellfish. In 1987, for example, 150 people on Prince Edward Island who ate
contaminated mussels were poisoned by domoic acid, an algal toxin that kills brain cells. All suffered
vomiting, cramps and diarrhea; some suffered serious memory loss and seizures; nineteen were
hospitalized, and four died. In Florida, emergency room visits already rise during red tides.

A warmer, drier West is melting the snowpack early and turning forests become tinder. Bark beetle
infestations that wipe entire stands of trees worsen the risk. Forest fires can kill, and smoke
inhalation from forest fires heighten the risk for heart attacks, asthma and respiratory problems in
susceptible people. In one study following severe wildfires in Florida, complaints of chest pain
increased by 37 percent, asthma by 91 percent and bronchitis by 132 percent.

In Changing Planet, we also describe a full set of technology and policy solutions, each carefully
vetted to provide maximum benefit for human health and the environment. We need a smart
electrical grid that will increase efficiency, reduce demand and use renewable sources like wind,
solar and geothermal at many homes and businesses rather than get power solely from a centralized
power station. We need to move away from nuclear, coal, even with carbon capture and storage,
and corn-based ethanol, all of which harm human health and the environment. These choices are
based on extensive studies called life cycle analyses that look at the true costs of a technology or
energy source from cradle to grave.

Policies must change as well. We need to rejigger the international financial system to encourage
countries to invest in measures that protect their environment and the health of their citizens. To
promote good health in the 21st century, we need to become resilient and adaptable.

Global public health threats in the 21st century

Today’s highly mobile, interdependent and interconnected world provides myriad opportunities for
the rapid spread of infectious diseases, and radio-nuclear and toxic threats, which is why updated
and expanded Regulations are necessary. Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much
faster than at any time in history. It is estimated that 2.1 billion airline passengers travelled in 2006;
an outbreak or epidemic in any one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an
imminent threat somewhere else.

Infectious diseases are not only spreading faster, they appear to be emerging more quickly than ever
before. Since the 1970s, newly emerging diseases have been identified at the unprecedented rate of
one or more per year. There are now nearly 40 diseases that were unknown a generation ago. In
addition, during the last five years, WHO has verified more than 1100 epidemic events worldwide.

The categories and examples given below illustrate the variety and breadth of public health threats
confronting people today.
Epidemic-prone diseases

Cholera, yellow fever and epidemic meningococcal diseases made a comeback in the last quarter of
the 20th century and call for renewed efforts in surveillance, prevention and control. Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza in humans have triggered major international
concern, raised new scientific challenges, caused major human suffering and imposed enormous
economic damage. Other emerging viral diseases such as Ebola, Marburg haemorrhagic fever and
Nipah virus pose threats to global public health security and also require containment at their source
due to their acute nature and resulting illness and mortality. During outbreaks of these diseases,
rapid assessment and response, often needing international assistance, has been required to limit
local spread. Strengthening of capacity is imperative in the future to assess such new threats.

Gains in many areas of infectious disease control are seriously jeopardized by the spread of
antimicrobial resistance, with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) now a cause of great
concern. Drug resistance is also evident in diarrhoeal diseases, hospital-acquired infections, malaria,
meningitis, respiratory tract infections, and sexually transmitted infections, and is emerging in HIV.

Foodborne diseases

The food chain has undergone considerable and rapid changes over the last 50 years, becoming
highly sophisticated and international. Although the safety of food has dramatically improved
overall, progress is uneven and foodborne outbreaks from microbial contamination, chemicals and
toxins are common in many countries. The trading of contaminated food between countries
increases the potential that outbreaks will spread. In addition, the emergence of new foodborne
diseases creates considerable concern, such as the recognition of the new variant of Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease (vCJD) associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Accidental and deliberate outbreaks

As activities related to infectious disease surveillance and laboratory research have increased in
recent years, so too has the potential for outbreaks associated with the accidental release of
infectious agents. Breaches in biosafety measures are often responsible for these accidents. At the
same time, opportunities for malicious releases of dangerous pathogens, once unthinkable, have
become a reality, as shown by the anthrax letters in the United States of America in 2001.
In addition, the recent past has been marked by disturbing new health events that resulted from
chemical or nuclear accidents and sudden environmental changes, causing major concerns in many
parts of the world.

Toxic chemical accidents

West Africa, 2006: the dumping of approximately 500 tons of petrochemical waste in at least 15
sites around the city of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, led to the deaths of eight people being attributed to
exposure to the waste and to nearly 90 000 more people seeking medical help. Other countries were
concerned that they could also have been put at risk as a result of dumping elsewhere or as a result
of chemical contamination of trans-boundary rivers.

Southern Europe, 1981: 203 people died after consuming poisoned cooking oil that was adulterated
with industrial rapeseed oil. A total of 15 000 people were affected by the tainted oil and no cure to
reverse the adverse effects of toxic oil syndrome was ever found.

Radio-nuclear accidents

Eastern Europe, 1986: the Chernobyl disaster is regarded as the worst accident in the history of
nuclear power. The explosion at the plant resulted in the radioactive contamination of the
surrounding geographical area, and a cloud of radioactive fallout drifted over western parts of the
former Soviet Union, eastern and Western Europe, some Nordic countries and eastern North
America. Large areas of Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation were badly
contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336 000 people.

Environmental disasters

Europe, 2003: the heat wave in Europe that claimed the lives of 35 000 persons was linked to
unprecedented extremes in weather in other parts of the world during the same period.

Central Africa, 1986: more than 1700 people died of carbon dioxide poisoning following a massive
release of gas from Lake Nyos, a volcanic crater lake. Such an event requires rapid assessment to
determine if it is an international threat.

This Overview summarizes some of the above examples, which, together with the lessons drawn
from them, are more widely discussed in the report. The report emphasizes that the international
response required today is not only to the known, but also to the unknown – the diseases that may
arise from acute environmental or climatic changes and from industrial pollution and accidents that
may put millions of people at risk in several countries.