The Witches' Caldron: Toxic Pollution

    To date, we humans have synthesized seven million artificial chemical compounds. Most have been noted only once in the chemical literature. Many are released deliberately into the environment precisely because they are toxic -- to kill weeds, trees, and insects. About 70,000 are now in common use, almost all of them toxic. We continue to introduce over 1,500 new chemical compounds each year.

    The number and quantity of chemicals in common use boggle the imagination. Industry produced seven times more goods in 1990 than in 1960, and global production of organic chemicals increased from 1 million tons per year in the 1930s to 250 million tons in 1985. Annual production is now doubling every seven to eight years.

    Because of addictive consumption, the rich countries cause 100 to 1,000 times more pollution per capita than people in the developing world. The US population, a mere 5 percent of the world total, creates half of the world's toxic waste of about 500 million metric tons each year.

    Dangerous chemicals are found in almost every household article. Carcinogens are used to dry-clean clothes, and traces of chemicals often remain on the garments when we collect them from the shop -- you can actually smell them. Paints and thinners are supplemented with toxic chemicals designed to discourage fungal growth or act as quick drying agents. Cancer-causing chemicals are used to kill termites, cockroaches, and insects in homes, offices, schools, hospitals, and restaurants. Cleaners and deodorizers contain toxic chemicals, as do garden pesticides and fungicides. Toxic fumes emanate from synthetic carpets, furnishings, and curtains. Carcinogenic formaldehyde leaches into the air from certain types of insulation and fabrics used in walls and ceilings.

Disposal of Toxics

    What happens to toxic chemicals after we have finished using them? Their disposal poses an enormous problem. Garbage now is dangerous because of the chemicals that go into it. We throw household cleaners, insecticides, spray cans, mothballs, paint thinners, bleaches, ballpoint pens, floor cleaners, plastics, detergents, oil, dry-cleaning chemicals, window cleaners, dioxin contained in white cardboard and paper, batteries containing lead and acid, cars containing heavy metals, plastics, and oil, and refrigerators containing CFC gas, to name a few, into the garbage. The US population each year discards 16 billion diapers, 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razor blades, and 220 million car tires, along with enough aluminum to rebuild the US commercial airline fleet four times over.

    The obvious solution to our dilemma is to use cloth diapers, nondisposable razors, recyclable glass bottles for milk and drinks (bottles that are not melted down and remade but that are washed and used time and again), bicarbonate of soda and vinegar for cleaning, ordinary soap instead of detergent, fountain pens rather than throw-away ballpoint pens, and biologically safe pesticides. We must build mass transit systems and use bicycles. In other words, we need not stay on this treadmill of addiction to hazardous consumption.

Toxic Time Bombs

    Municipal garbage dumps leach toxins into underground aquifers and nearby rivers and streams, thereby endangering wildlife and the human food chain. So dangerous was municipal waste in 1990 that more than half the hazardous waste dumps flagged by the congressionally appointed Superfund were municipal garbage dumps and landfills. The other hazardous sites were filled with toxic chemical waste from industry.

    Eight out of 10 Americans live near a hazardous waste site. There are 15,000 uncontrolled hazardous-waste landfills and 80,000 contaminated lagoons in the United States. The Chemical Corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, also known as "Cancer Alley," with more than 100 chemical plants and refineries, represents the highest concentration of manufacturers, users, and disposers of toxic chemicals in the United States. Millions of pounds of toxic chemicals go directly into the Mississippi river each year.

    The infamous Love Canal toxic dump, a legacy of the petrochemical industry, is but one of thousands of tragedies about to become manifest all over the country. Some 1,275 hazardous waste sites are on the EPA's priority list, which means that they are eligible for "cleanup" under the Superfund legislation using federally allocated funds. The cost of cleaning up these sites is estimated at $40 billion.

    The US government is the nation's chief polluter; federal facilities discharge almost 2.5 million tons of toxic and radioactive waste without having to report a drop. According to the General Accounting Office, 95 percent, or 200 million tons, of all chemical pollution is still unreported because the federal government is exempt from reporting, the EPA is too weak in law enforcement, and the law has too many loopholes. There are also 14,401 potentially contaminated toxic dump sites at Department of Defense facilities and the weapon manufacturing plants scattered around the United States.

    Despite this grave situation, industrial pollution is increasing. In 1987, some 10.5 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the air, water, and soil of the United States, and more than half of the chemicals dumped into the country's waterways are not covered by EPA regulations. In Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," Dow Chemical and other companies are buying out neighboring communities and moving people instead of reducing pollution.

    Huge fuel storage tanks buried at gas stations are also sources of a disturbing amount of underground pollution. Constructed of steel, they rust over time. Of the 1.4 million underground gas tanks, 15 percent are leaking. It takes just two pints of gasoline or oil to contaminate several million gallons of drinking water. According to some estimates, one-third of the underground aquifers of the United States have been polluted with carcinogenic benzene or chemicals from these and other sources.

    Airborne toxins are also a frightening consequence of our modern industrial society. St. Gabriel, a town on the Mississippi river, is host to 26 petrochemical factories, which belch 400 million pounds of chemicals, including carcinogenic benzene, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, toluene, and ethylene oxide, into the air each year.

    Need Christians and churches be concerned about the toxic soup we are in? What more has to happen before the time for active involvement and action is right?

Dioxin: Toxic, Deadly By-Product

    "Dioxin" is a shorthand name for the chemical 2,3,7,8, tetrachloro-dibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD. It is also used as a common name for the entire family of dioxins and furans, which number 210 in total. Seventeen of these can be considered "super-toxic."

    Dioxin is the most toxic anthropogenic substance known to science. It has been the culprit in many of the most disastrous environmental cases, including Times Beach, Missouri; Love Canal, New York; Seveso, Italy; and Vietnam ("Agent Orange"). Dioxin is one of a larger class of compounds known as "organochlorines." Organochlorines are formed when chlorine binds with carbon in organic (carbon-containing) matter, in a reactive environment such as industrial production processes or incinerators. Organochlorines tend to be very long-lived, or persistent, in the environment. This class of chemicals also tends to be toxic, even in very small quantities; organochlorines also tend to bioaccumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms.

    Dioxin, unlike some other 11,000 organochlorines manufactured for commercial sale by the world's chemical industry, is never intentionally produced. It is the by-product of many chemical, manufacturing, and combustion processes. Any use of chlorine in industrial processes, including incineration, chemical and plastic manufacturing, paper and pulp bleaching, or burning hazardous waste in cement kilns, results in dioxin formation.

Sources of Dioxin

    It is only because chlorine chemistry and its products have become so widespread that dioxin formation has become ubiquitous over the last 50 years. Virtually all chlorine-related products and processes are associated with dioxin formation at some point in their life cycle. The many industrial processes in which the formation of dioxins and related compounds has been identified are shown in the box below.

    The three major sources of dioxin are incineration, pulp and paper, and PVC plastic. Garbage and medical waste incinerators are the largest identified sources. Pulp and paper mills form and release dioxin when they use chlorine gas and other chlorinated chemicals to bleach wood pulp white, making the paper industry the largest source of dioxin discharges directly to waterways and one of the largest dioxin-producing sectors overall. PVC, throughout its lifecycle, results in more dioxin formation than any other single product.

    Dioxin is formed in chemical plants when a wide range of chlorinated organic chemicals is manufactured -- including pesticides, solvents, chemical intermediaries, and feedstocks for the plastic PVC. Study the summary of processes (page 4) to get a grasp of the variety of processes that give rise to dioxin and related compounds.

How Are People Exposed to Dioxin?

    Human exposure occurs through diet, with foods from animals being the predominant pathway. Study the diagram on how dioxin enters the body. Over 90 percent of the persistent organochlorines we ingest come from the food we eat. Because these chemicals are stored in body fat and build up through the food chain, the highest levels in our food are found in meats, fish, and dairy products. Fruits and vegetables sprayed with organochlorine pesticides also may contain high levels.

    People then ingest dioxin through the meat, dairy products, fish and eggs they consume. One expert estimates that the average daily intake of dioxin is "at least 50 times greater than what EPA estimates is a virtually safe dose of dioxin."

    People with the highest exposures eat more fish, live near a dioxin source or eat food produced near a dioxin source. Children and breast-fed babies receive the greatest exposure because of the smaller size of their bodies.

Exposure: A Significant Public Health Issue

    EPA released a six-volume, 2,400-page "Dioxin Reassessment" in 1994. This report states that levels of dioxin currently existing in humans have reached a body burden (level of dioxin in the human body) that will cause such adverse health effects as cancer, reproductive and hormonal disruptions, birth defects, impaired child development, diabetes, altered male sexual behavior, and immune system suppression. (For health effects, see page 7.)

Summary of processes that form dioxin and related chemicals

Production of chlorine gas

Chlorine electrolysis with graphite electrodes

Chlorine electrolysis with titanium electrodes

Chemical industry

--use of chlorine gas

Chlorinated aromatic chemicals -- manufacture (chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols, PCBs, others)

Pesticides, dyes, specialty chemicals

Chlorinated solvents -- manufacture (trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride)

PVC plastic --manufacture of feedstocks (ethylene dichloride, vinyl chloride)

Production wastes, effluent, sludge from effluent treatment, air emissions, PVC plastic products

Other aliphatic organochlorines -- manufacture (epichlorhydrin, hexachlorobutadiene)

Some inorganic chlorides --manufacture (ferric and copper chlorides, sodium hypochlorite)

Use of Chlorine gas

--other industries

Pulp and paper -- chlorine bleaching,Mill effluent, mill sludge, pulp and paper products, emissions from sludge incinerators

Water and waste water disinfection

Refined metals -- manufacture with chlorine

Use of organochlorines

Manufacture of chlorine-free chemicals with chlorinated intermediates (nitrophenols,parathion, others)

Degreasing/extraction with organochlorine solvents of alkaline or reactive environments

Oil refining with organochlorine catalysts

Use of pesticides with heat (wood treatment)

Iron/steel sintering with organochlorine cutting oils, solvents, or plastics

Burning gasoline or diesel fuel with organochlorine additives

Use of chlorine-based bleaches & detergents in washing machines and dishwashers

Incineration, Recycling, and Fires (primary dioxin precursor in parenthesis)

Medical waste incinerators (PVC) -- air emissions

Municipal waste incinerators (PVC) -- air emissions, ash residues

Hazardous waste incinerators (solvents, chemical manufacturing wastes) -- air emissions, ash residues

Cement kilns burning hazardous waste (solvents, chemical manufacturing wastes) -- air emissions, cement kiln dust

Accidental fires in homes and offices (PVC)

Fires at industrial facilities (PVC, PCBs, other chlorinated chemicals)

Aluminum recycling/smelting (PVC)

Steel & automobile recycling/smelting (PVC)

Copper cable recycling/smelting (PVC)

Wood burning (pentachlorophenol wood preservatives, PVC)

Environmental transformation

Transformation of chlorophenols to dioxins in the environment

Chlorine: The Everywhere Element

    Chlorine chemistry starts with ordinary salt -- sodium chloride, a stable and natural substance that flows constantly through the ecosystem and our bodies. The chemical industry creates chlorine gas by passing electricity through saltwater, splitting the salt molecule and fundamentally changing the character of the chlorine in it.

    Unlike the chlorine in salt, chlorine gas is an extremely reactive and poisonous substance that rarely occurs in nature. It bonds quickly with organic matter to form a new class of chemicals called "organochlorines."

    Most chlorine gas is combined with petrochemicals to produce organochlorine products, including plastics (especially polyvinyl chloride -- PVC -- or vinyl), pesticides, solvents, and other chemicals. About 15 percent of chlorine gas is sold for use outside the chemical industry, primarily as a bleach in the production of paper. Only one percent is used to disinfect drinking water.

    Over 11,000 different organochlorines are manufactured today, used in products ranging from pesticides and plastics to toothpaste and mouthwash. On top of that, their production and use produces thousands more unwanted organochlorine by-products. For example, dioxins result from the manufacture of PVC.

    The most volatile persistent organochlorines, like the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and some solvents, rise into the upper atmosphere where they deplete the ozone layer. The less volatile chemicals evaporate more slowly, remain airborne for a while, then eventually fall to the surface. Some are deposited near their origins, while others circulate globally, carried by air currents for thousands of miles before depositing onto rivers, lakes, seas, vegetation, and soils. Once they fall to the surface of the planet, some portion enters the food chain.

    Organochlorines deposit to a greater extent in colder regions. This phenomenon, "global distillation," is a factor in the unexpectedly high organochlorine concentrations observed in the air, seawater, plankton, wild animals, and people in the Arctic region.

    Organochlorines dissolve in fat and build up in the fatty tissues of creatures exposed to them. Through a process known as bioaccumulation, fish accumulate levels of organochlorines in their tissues thousands of times higher than levels in the surrounding water. Thus, organochlorines build up through the food chain and reach the highest levels in animals at the top of the chain such as marine mammals and humans.

News from the Eco-Justice Working Group
of the National Council of Churches of Christ

    Climate Change Petition: The Working Group is participating vigorously in the petition drive spearheaded by the World Council of Churches in industrialized nations to collect signatures of church people expressing a concern about climate change. There is now strong scientific consensus that the atmosphere is warming as a result of human activity. This fact implies serious environmental, social, and economic consequences.

    The signatories of the petition in the United States are asking the government to fulfill their promise at the Rio Earth Summit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, to take other measures toward greater reduction in emissions after the year 2000, and to initiate in a more forceful way public debate on the risks of climate change.

    A press conference by Dr. Joan Campbell, NCC General Secretary, in Washington, D.C., on July 16 was the kick-off date for our petition drive. For copies of the petition, contact Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202. Ph. 502-569-5807. Return completed petitions to him by January 1, 1997.

    Endangered Species Act: The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has protected many species in the US since 1972. The act has been under attack in this Congress. The Working Group prepared a bulletin insert and an action alert about the ESA and shared them with congregations before Earth Day Sabbath last April. The letters to congresspersons were influential in stopping the "negative" bills from coming to the House or Senate floor. But it's not all over yet.

    A six-minute video, "Caring for Creation," is available for $4.50 from the Eco-Justice Working Group, Room 572, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115 (checks payable to NCC). The video likens the Endangered Species Act to a modern day Noah's Ark and makes a compelling case for the care of this portion of God's creation. It concludes by asking the audience to contact their senators and congresspersons.

Health Effects Associated with Dioxin

• Metabolic changes: weight loss, wasting syndrome, fetal death, altered glucose and fat metabolism
  
  
• Hormonal changes (including alterations in sex, thyroid, and other hormones)
  
  
• Birth defects
  
  
• Impaired neurological development and subsequent cognitive deficits
  
  
• Male reproductive toxicity: reduced sperm count, testicular atrophy, abnormal testis structure, reduced size of genital organs, feminization of hormonal and behavioral responses
  
  
• Female reproductive toxicity: hormonal changes, decreased fertility, inability to maintain pregnancy, ovarian dysfunction, endometriosis
  
  
• Immune suppression and increased susceptibility to infectious diseases
  
  
• Effects on the liver, thymus, spleen, bone marrow, and skin
  
  
• Diabetes
  
  
• Over the past 50 years, disorders in the male and female reproductive organs have become increasingly common, especially in the industrialized countries. Such increases, scientific evidence now suggests, could be caused by endocrine-disrupting chemicals, many of which are organochlorines. Because most of the organochlorines do not occur naturally, most living creatures have not developed the means to detoxify them.

GLOSSARY

Bioaccumulation:

A substance bioaccumulates if its concentration increases as it moves through the food chain. For example, DDT may be found at one ppm (part per million) in fish and at 10 ppm in fish-eating birds. Thus DDT bioaccumulates.

Endometriosis:

According to the Endo-metriosis Association, endometriosis is a disease in which tissue normally found in the uterus is also found in the abdomen, on the ovaries and abdomen lining, on the bowel and bladder (in rare cases this tissue has been found in the lungs and arms), resulting in internal bleeding, inflammation, formation of scar tissue, and tumors or growths. It causes infertility and chronic pelvic pain.

Persistent toxic substance:

Any toxic chemical that bioaccumulates, or any toxic chemical that has a half-life greater than eight weeks in any medium (water, air, sediment, soil, or living things). The "half-life" of a substance is the time it takes for half of it to disappear. (Example: DDT has a half-life of 20 years in soil.)

Polyvinyl Chloride:

Polyvinyl Chloride: PVC or "vinyl" is the largest single use of chlorine, consuming about 4 million tons of chlorine in the US -- about 30 percent of all the chlorine produced. PVC is used in pipes, flooring, wall coverings, packaging, furniture, automobiles, office products, appliances, cable, and certain medical products. Being the largest user of chlorine, it is not surprising that it results in more dioxin production during its life cycle than any other product (see box on page 4).

Toxic substance:

A substance which can cause death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic mutations, physiological or reproductive malfunctions, or physical deformities in any organism or its offspring, or which can become poisonous after concentration in the food chain or in combination with other substances.

Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) paper:

A paper product manufactured without elemental chlorine or chlorine compounds. The pulp is whitened with bleaching agents, such as peroxide, ozone, oxygen, and/or enzymes. TCF bleaching eliminates the dangers of absorbable organic halogens (AOX), dioxins, and organochlorines from the papermaking process.

Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) paper:

A paper product manufactured using chlorine dioxide rather than elemental chlorine as the main bleaching agent. Bleaching pulp and paper with chlorine dioxide creates AOX, dioxins, furans, and other organochlorines.

What You Can Do

• Write to your Congressional representatives, President Clinton and the National Cancer Institute urging them to support chlorine phaseouts and cancer policies based on prevention. US Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121. White House Comment Line 202-456-1111. NCI 301-496-5583.
  
  
• Buy chlorine-free paper and support efforts to get chlorine out of the pulp and paper industry. Contact Chlorine Free Products Association. 847-658-6104.
  
  
• Contact Citizens Clearing House For Hazardous Waste for information on the Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign. 703-237-2249.
  
  
• Educate yourself about dioxin and how to organize to stop dioxin exposure. Use Lois Gibbs' book, "Dying from Dioxin," as a resource.
  
  
• Know your water. Buy only products that do not add to the dioxin levels in our food and bodies.
  
  
• Workers -- know the identity of every chemical and the makeup of every product you handle. Maintain records of exposure to all chemicals, complete with dates and reactions or illnesses.
  
  
• Join efforts to create PVC-free hospitals.
  
  
• Work for ending all forms of incineration: medical waste, municipal waste, hazardous waste, radioactive waste, military waste, cement kilns, boilers and industrial burners, and sewage sludge.
  
  
• Participate in the National Cancer Industry Awareness Month, usually held in October.
  
  
• Link with public efforts to control pesticide use by contacting organizations such as the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, 202-543-5450.
  
  
• Make your own lawn pesticide-free and encourage your neighbors to do so.
  
  
• Choose soap, steam cleaning, and other natural dry cleaning methods that are available in preference to dry cleaning with chlorinated solvents. Contact Center for Neighborhood Technology, 312-278-4800.
  
  
• Work toward a sustainable society in which there are no dioxin discharges, formation, or exposure.

RESOURCES:

Colborn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. "Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?" -- A Scientific Detective Story. New York: Penguin Books USA, 1996.

Davis, Devra Lee and H. Leon Bradlow. "Can Environmental Estrogens Cause Breast Cancer?" Scientific American, October 1995, pp.166-172.

Gibbs, Lois Marie. "Dying From Dioxin: A Citizen's Guide to Reclaiming our Health and Rebuilding Democracy." Boston, MA: South End Press, 1995.

Moses, Marion. "Designer Poisons: How to Protect Your Health and Home from Toxic Pesticides." San Francisco, CA: Pesticide Education Center, 1995.

Needleman, Herbert L., and Philip J. Landrigan. "Raising Children Toxic Free: How to Keep Your Child Safe from Lead, Asbestos, Pesticides, and Other Environmental Hazards." New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

Thornton, Joe. "Achieving Zero Dioxin: An Emergency Strategy for Dioxin Elimination." Greenpeace Chlorine Free Campaign, Washington, D.C., July 1994.

ORGANIZATIONS:

American Lung Association, 1726 M St. NW, Suite 902, Washington, DC 20036. 202-785-3355.

The Chlorine Free Products Association, 102 North Hubbard, Algonquin, IL 60102. 847-658-6104.

Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste (CCHW), P.O. Box 6806, Falls Church, VA 22040. 703-237-2249.

Greenpeace, 1436 U St. NW, Washington, DC 20009. 202-462-1177.

Natural Resources Defense Council, 40 West 20th St., New York, NY 10011. 212-727-2700.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, P.O. Box 12233, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709. 800-643-4794.

Pesticide Action Network, North American Regional Center, 116 New Montgomery St., #810, San Francisco, CA 94105. 415-541-9140.

Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition, 760 N. First St., San Jose, CA 95112. 408-287-6707.

Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), 845 Third Avenue, 15th Fl., New York, NY 10022. 212-759-7982.

Acknowledgements

    We have drawn upon reports and materials published by Greenpeace and Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste in preparing this issue of our newsletter and wish to express appreciation for their leadership in ridding our world of toxics. -- Editor

Between the Flood and the Rainbow: A newsletter on environmental teaching and action

    This newsletter seeks to encourage congregations to become Creation Awareness Centers and to be actively involved in taking care of the Earth and all of God's Creation. It is based on the conviction that the stewardship of Creation is a matter of faith and that the environmental crisis is a challenge to our Christian faithfulness. The newsletter is published by the World Ministries Commission of the Church of the Brethren General Board. It is produced by the Director, Eco-Justice Concerns: Shantilal P. Bhagat, writer and editor. It is published three times a year. Copyright 1996 by Shantilal P. Bhagat. All rights reserved. No portion of this newsletter may be reproduced in any form or by any process or techniques without the written consent of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.