Smoke From Burning Tyres Pumps Dioxins Into Air

Smoke From Burning Tyres Pumps Dioxins Into Air
Melanie Gosling – Environment Writer

The uncontrolled burning of scrap vehicle tyres around Cape Town is pumping toxins into the air, including cancer-causing dioxins and pollutants which can cause genetic mutations and birth defects.

Black smoke from the tyres, set alight by people who recover and sell the handful of scrap metal left behind after burning, is 13 000 times more toxic than emissions from a coal-fired power plant, according to research done by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The pollutants disperse over long distances, meaning Capetonians are exposed to them beyond the spot where the tyres were burned.

The liquids and solids left behind after the tyres have been burnt can pollute the soil, surface water and ground water, and it’s possible that the pollutants can settle on pasture, food crops and in water, and accumulate in animal tissues, including meat, fish and eggs.

Humans, at the top of the food chain, are the ultimate reservoi8rs for these pollutants.

Although burning tyres is illegal, the authorities seem powerless to stamp out the practice, which is particularly widespread in Cape Town’s poorer areas where recovering the scrap metal in the tyres is a way of earning cash.

Residents in Philippi say some tyre-burning is run as “well organised operations”, like the one next to the City Council’s Cleansing Branch in Philippi where large stockpiles of tyres are kept and burned periodically. The metal that is left behind is sold to a nearby scrap dealer, they say.

Now some residents have had enough, and through the Legal Resources Centre, have called on the authorities to take action.

Angela Andrews, from the Legal Resources Centre, has written to the City Council on behalf of the South African National Civics Association, the Mitchells Plain RDP Forum and the Environmental Justice Networking Forum, outlining the health risks and uncontrolled tyre-burning and calling for a meeting to discuss how to deal with the issue.

“This has a much wider effect on Cape Town than people realise.” Dioxins are known to cause cancer from very small amounts.

“In Europe and the US the public know all about dioxins and are scared of them. Here they’re being boiled up right under our noses and no one seems to worry much,” Andrews said.

Hans Linde, head of the Cape Metropolitan Council’s air pollution control, said yesterday: “We’re very, very concerned about the tyre-burning problem, and we’re trying our utmost to get a more environmentally-friendly way of disposing of scrap tyres. We’ve been pushing government and they’ve started a process, but it’s not been as rapid as we would have liked.”

Linde said one of the problems of policing tyre burning was trying to get landowners to control tyres coming on to their land. It is illegal to dump tyres anywhere except at a hazardous waste disposal site.

“In the informal areas we have 14 of 15 landowners and we’ve tried to get them to control tyres on their land, but no one is accepting responsibility,” he said.

He said a committee had been formed under the Department of Environment Affairs to look at acceptable disposal of tyres. One proposal was to set a levy on tyres, which the consumer would pay on purchase, and which would be used to finance an environmentally acceptable method of disposal.

Landfill Sites ‘Will Reach Capacity in Five Years’

Landfill Sites ‘Will Reach Capacity in Five Years’
NOWHERE TO PUT THE RUBBISH IN 2010
Wendell Roelf – Sapa

Cape Town faces a filthy future as the city’s six major landfill sites are expected to reach their capacity in the next five years.

“We have a serious crisis. Imagine what the city will look like in 2010, when refuse trucks collect dirt and have nowhere to put it,” said Saliem Haider, acting head of disposal in the City’s Solid Waste Department.

Of the six landfill sites, at Coastal Park, Vissershok, Bellville, Faure, Brackenfell and Swartklip, two have already been shut down.

After the closure of Swartklip and Brackenfell, hundreds of thousands of tons of waste have been transferred to the remaining sites, considerably shortening their lifespan.

For example, Coastal Park has a recommended lifespan of 15 years and Vissershok six years without a proposed northern extension. But now, with Faure expected to close next year, their lifespan will reduce to five years each.

The city was conducting at least 13 specialist studies, which include the impact of air and ground-water pollution and infrastructure accessibility, on two sites for a proposed regional landfill site – one at Kalbaskraal and another South of Atlantis.

“These sites will only become operational at the earliest in 2011, which means that in 2010 the city won’t have an inch of legal space to put its waste,” said Haider. He said the city needed to buy at least 500ha of land for the new regional site, which would operate for a minimum of 30 years. Compounding the precarious situation was the possible closure in September 2006 of the Bellville South Landfill Site.

The City had successfully appealed against a provincial decision two years ago supporting the closure, but now needed clarity on the way forwarded from environment MEC Tasneem Essop, whose spokeswoman Lynnette Johns said Essop would visit the site next week.

The Bellville South site has also been proposed for a pilot methane extraction project in which methane will be taken from the landfill and sold as carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce harmful emissions and provide an alternative energy source to surrounding industries.

Haider said profits from a successful project – studies show success is likely – could help pay for the rehabilitation of the landfill site, estimated to cost about R75 million.

The community has campaigned for the site’s closure, which besides being an eyesore was also said to have increased health problems in the area.

Haider said the city was against the closure because of the knock-on effect on the Bellville site. He said Cape Town was on average dealing with a 6% annual increase in waste, despite minimisation attempts.

Output specifications for Waste Minimisation PPP Feasibility Studies

6.
Output specifications for Waste Minimisation PPP Feasibility Studies

Waste Minimisation Programmes typically include the following outputs:

􀂾 Preservation of future landfill airspace to avoid massive expenditure forestablishment of new landfill or alternative waste treatment technology as long as possible

􀂾 Identification and quantification of the core contributors to the waste problem (local Waste Information Data System is required)

􀂾 Establishment of WM targets and policies that create the right incentives and drivers for WM for all stakeholders

􀂾 Info/Awareness and Education programs that correspond with the true needs of the community and address the parties that create the main impact (important for both internal and external stakeholders)

Some suggested general and specific ouput specifications for a Waste Minimisation PPP would be to minimise waste through:

• Encouraging the efficient use of materials

• Developing and promoting source reduction and reuse strategies

• Integrating these strategies with recycling

• Reducing the use of nonrecyclable, nonreusable or toxic materials

• Replacing disposable materials and products with recyclables and reusable materials and products

• Reducing volumes of packaging

• Reducing the amount of garden waste landfilled

• Establishing landfill disposal rate structures with incentives to reduce the amount of wastes that generators produce

• Facilitating extended producer responsibility around key problem waste sources

• Increasing the efficiency of the reuse and recycling of paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastic, and other materials

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

Legal Aspects of PPPs and Waste Minimisation

5.
Legal Aspects of PPPs and Waste Minimisation

The National Waste Management Strategy Action Plan for Waste Minimisation & Recycling state:

“Public-Private and Private Sector initiatives: It is essential that there is active participation of the private sector, not only as the principal generators of waste, but also in acknowledgement of their specific technical and entrepreneurial capacity. (NWMS Action plan) “

General legal aspects around PPPs are covered in other sections of this document.

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

Why a PPP for Waste Minimisation

4.
Why a PPP for Waste Minimisation

A Public Private Partnership (PPP) is a partnership between the public and private sector for the purpose of delivering a project or service which was traditionally provided by the public sector. The PPP process recognises that both the public sector and the private sector have certain advantages relative to the other in the performance of specific tasks, and can enable public services and infrastructure to be provided in the most economically efficient manner by allowing each sector to do what it does best. Private sector innovation and technological, financial and management expertise can be gained through using a PPP approach to projects traditionally within the sphere of local authorities. PPP is another element in the general moves to modernise the public service and local government, providing greater efficiency and effectiveness and ultimately a better quality customer service.

The essence of PPP is that they place the risks with the party best placed to manage them thus ensuring best value for money. The long term and integrated nature of PPP service contracts incentivises the contractors to consider the synergies between the generation of waste and its ultimate collection & disposal. This can result in the delivery of public services in a more environmentally sensitive way and without an additional price tag.

Because all members of the community generate waste, local governments often form partnerships with multiple parties to effectively reach their target audience. These partnerships help local governments gain the trust of constituents, and increase community-wide participation in their programs. Because waste minimisation is a shared responsibility, it will only occur through a dedicated partnership between those that manufacture goods, use products and manage discarded materials.

Around South Africa, as a matter of fact (and in direct response to the increasing pressure on remaining airspace and decrease of natural resources) more and more PPPs are entered with specialist consultants and set up as pilot projects to kickstart industrial, commercial and residential waste minimisation initiatives. Some of the most recent PPP examples include various City of Cape Town driven dedicated pilot waste minimisation programmes for sectors of local industry and commerce including shopping centres, hotels, food industry, plastic industry, metal finishing industry (see the Lessons Learned section for more details that have been widely implemented.

These were initiated in response to the actual volumes industry and commerce contribute to the total waste stream landfilled in Cape Town when compared with residential waste generation rates.

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

Strategic Objective of Waste Minimisation PPPs

3.
Strategic Objective of Waste Minimisation PPPs

The strategic and operational benefits of PPPs around Waste Minimisation for a municipality in terms of its strategic objectives would include conforming to the waste management hierarchy in any IWMP, addressing waste overload crises, improving environmental performance and saving operation money and time unnecessarily spent on managing waste that could be avoided in the first place.

Benefits include:
• Reduced amount of waste requiring collection and disposal;
• Extended useful life of landfills;
• Money saved through avoided collection and disposal costs;
• Local businesses provided with a service that helps save them money;
• Improved community understanding of the importance of waste reduction and resource conservation efforts.

Before embarking on any waste minimisation initiative a municipality must clearly realize who creates the largest impact with regards to waste generation in the community and therefore set the right strategic objective for waste minimisation. The American Green Grassroot Network organisation (www.ggrn.org) suggests (if a true Life Cycle Analysis approach is followed to evaluate the waste impact of products) that for 1 ton of domestic consumer waste produced an equivalent of 70 tons of waste are on average made by industry (e.g. through minining, agricultural, manufacturing) to make such goods in the first place.

This correlation speaks for itself and identifies the true problem that needs to be addressed by effective municipal waste minimisation programmes - which is inefficient industrial production/commercial operations (in combination with general overconsumption). Both post consumer and post industrial recycling play an important role to reduce the amount of waste landfilled but those interventions alone will not address the problem nearly sufficiently. As has been famously quoted by a leading “Zero Waste to Landfill Campaigner: “Recycling is an aspirin just alleviating a large collective hangover- overconsumption”.

The strategic objective for PPPs around Waste Minimisation would therefore be to make use of beneficial PPPs in order to minimise the amount of waste generated in the first place, as opposed to simply diverting waste for recycling. This could either be a specific PPP for a specific waste minimization action (e.g. education campaign), or planning towards waste minimisation can be included as an aspect of a general waste management PPP.

The latter is very strongly suggested as waste minimisation should really become the overall objective of any waste management PPP.

Public/Private Partnerships for achieving waste minimisation objectives are needed. A feasibility study would need to determine whether a PPP would be able to achieve the specific waste minimization goals cost-effectively, within technical, legal, political & financial limitations. It is common sense to accept that an effective programme that manages to minimize waste in the first place will have significant cost benefits in the long-term, as the cost for managing the waste is often removed, if not significantly reduced, or even leads to income generation through ‘waste’ reuse. The costeffectiveness
of waste minimization programmes are not always simple to ascertain.

In many cases, the money spent on e.g. an education campaign is not directly turned into minimized volumes of waste, and it my take time to see the results.

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

The Need for Waste Minimisation

2.
The Need for Waste Minimisation

Short answer: There is always a need for a waste minimization programme. Any Waste Management programme will be more feasible in the long-term, if it includes effective waste minimization, and hence any PPP around waste management should include waste minimization in its strategic objectives and outcomes. In addition, specific PPPs can be set up for carrying out specific Waste Minimisation programmes.

Waste that is prevented from being generated in the first place is waste that does not need to be either collected and transported, nor recovered for recycling, treated or landfilled at any cost. Making no waste or as little as possible by clever planning of possible internal service delivery or PPP contract conditions needs to receive the main attention before any further planning is done e.g. to maximize the recovery rate for recyclables, embark in composting of waste, etc.

The City of Cape Town for example currently faces the following scenario:
In 2005 waste volumes landfilled in Cape Town were exceeding 2.1 million tons. The current annual growth of population is around 2 % but waste volumes currently grow at an annual rate of 7%. Volumes from recycled waste (mostly from post-industrial sources with hardly any notable contribution from post consumer waste sources) summed up to a mere 288 000 tons (just 13% of the volumes landfilled. As a result landfill site air space will run out much quicker than the Council anticipated just 5 years ago. As the permission for the development of a new regional landfill site is pending recent estimates are that Cape Town’s remaining landfills might be full in about 6-7 years whereas a few years ago numbers of 15 years remaining airspace were communicated. Initial attempts to address this rapidly growing waste problem exclusively with the conventional “end of pipe” approach of increasing the reuse and recycling rates of post-consumer and post-industrial waste- did NOT solve the problem at all. This is because the core of the problem is not being addressed, which is that too much waste is generated in the first place due to inefficient production and overconsumption.

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

WHAT IS WASTE MINIMISATION?

This section provides guidance on feasibility studies for solid waste minimization PPPs to assist municipalities have an appreciation of what the feasibility study entails. The specific purpose of this section is to share with the municipalities the experience gained and lessons learned by South African Waste Minimisation Specialist consultants related to Waste Minimisation projects and PPPs (including some which have been initiated and supported by the Municipal Investment and Infrastructural Unit (MIIU)) over the last few years. The objective is to combine the knowledge and skills acquired around waste minimisation projects into one document that can assist municipalities when they embark on a feasibility study for a PPP.

1.
WHAT IS WASTE MINIMISATION?

Internationally there have been several definitions proposed for the term “Waste Minimisation” (WMin) as it is a broad term that has different meanings for a variety of stakeholders. This fact continues to create confusion amongst South African communities, business, waste management professionals and Municipalities alike who often do not have a common understanding/opinion of the definition of Waste Minimisation and what activities it entails..

For most South Africans “waste minimisation” is considered to be inclusive and comprises of the reduction of waste (of both volumes and the toxicity) along ALL elements of the integrated waste management (IWM) hierarchy (as listed below).

This is closely in line with DEAT’s definition where “Waste minimisation comprises any activity to prevent or reduce the volume and/or environmental impact of waste that is generated, treated, stored or disposed of”.

There is however also a school of thought that follows the European Waste Minimisation definition which reserves the use of the term only for one specific aspect of the integrated waste management strategy, namely the “Source Reduction” component. Waste Minimisation then also gets a much broader definition and is described as ‘a preventative approach to environmental management through which goods and services are produced with the minimum environmental impact under present technological and economic limits’.

In this case the terms “waste minimisation”, “cleaner production”, “pollution prevention” and “source reduction” mean essentially the same and are aimed at the optimisation of integrated waste management. For the document, the most popular local definition of “Waste Minimisation” will be used: 'Waste minimization comprises any activity to prevent or reduce the volume and/or environmental impact of waste that is generated, treated, stored or disposed of”.

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Sumber: Waste Minimisation Section 2.2

House Plants Not Safe From Pesky Pests

by Kent Higgins

A disease known as "damping off" is a common affliction suffered by plant seedlings in their transition to a new home. A good method to cut down on this is through the use of a sterilized starting mixture, which limits the appearance of this disease. If you notice any of your seedlings have been affected by this, you must remove and discard them to ensure it doesn't spread to other seedlings.

Another common bane of the average house plant is leaf mold, most commonly found on rubber plants and screw pines. This fungus will also spread if not contained, so affected leaves should be immediately removed and burned. If the disease has already spread too far there may be nothing left to throw out the plant, as it could very well lead to the disease affecting other nearby plants as well.

This rule applies in many instances. Pest infestation especially will often require you to throw away the entire plant. The effort to try and rid the plant of the pests and restore it to good health, coupled with the ever present risk of other plants becoming infected really makes this choice an easy one.

Of course this may certainly be a difficult decision, especially when the plant in question is one you've had for a long time, and has become as much a part of your decor as any other piece of furniture or decoration. The good news is that if the pests or disease have not spread overly much, you can still endeavour to save it. The plant should be moved to a new location, away from other plants while you try to bring it back to health. At least in this way you can be certain that no other plants will be infected should the threat continue to grow worse.

Pests, in the form of insects, are one of the most common forms of plant suffering. One of these is the aphid, an insect which usually inhabits the underside of leaves. They come in a variety of colors, which may be difficult to pick up when colored similarly to the leaves themselves. A good spray with water may be enough to remove them, and should be the first step taken in trying to do so. When that fails you can resort to a commercial insecticide instead.

Multiple sprayings will likely be necessary, after which point the remaining few may need to be taken off by hand. This can be accomplished by winding a wisp of cotton around the end of a toothpick and lightly dipping it in alcohol. This creation should easily remove the remaining few who proved resistant to the water or insecticide.

Another form of insects are scale insects, which con in a number of different shapes, sizes and colors. Plants most susceptible to these pests are ferns, rubber plants, citrus fruits, ivy and palms.

These hardy pests have a level of immunity to insecticides that makes other methods of removing them more viable. The toothpick method mentioned above is one of the better ways to get rid of these guys, as you'll be all but forced to remove them by hand one way or the other.
These are just a few of the many pests you may encounter when dealing with house plants. The most important thing is to always keep a watchful eye over your plants to make sure they're in good health, and take action immediately when anything seems to be awry.

About the Author
Kent Higgins understands why so many individuals just like you get frustrated with the topic of ficus tree care. Become acquainted with http://www.plant-care.com grow and increase your education on the subject of houseplants, landscape and lawn.

Say No to Paper or Plastic- Go Green!

by Suzanne Macguire

Environmental degradation is one of the greatest causes of concern spearing up its head these days. A little cooperation on our part can work wonders to save the environment. Cooperation can begin at individual level by ensuring that the articles of daily use are environmental-friendly. Research suggests that almost 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed and discarded annually worldwide! This is alarming indeed as plastic bags are not biodegradable- they break up into smaller toxic particles, contaminating both soil and water. So the next time the clerk at your favorite grocery store asks whether you prefer paper or plastic, give an environmental-friendly answer by choosing "neither".

People, in general, are under the misconception that paper bags are better than the plastic ones. But this alternative carries its own set of environmental problems. According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags- which adds up to a lot of trees! This is no good news for environmental activists who promote afforestation and tree-saving tactics.

The solution to this problem lies in the use of high quality reusable bags, emitting no residue to harm the environment during its production and can be easily reused. These bags are usually comprised of 80% post-consumer waste. Reusable grocery bags have a washable surface and are more spacious. Fashion conscious people can also take their pick of the wide range of eco-friendly bags available in soft and natural hues. These bags use natural fibers, which consume less energy during the production process. For instance, corn-based bags break down in landfills or composters in four to twelve weeks. This way the environment is kept safe of the disastrous hazards of plastic bags.

A number of eco-friendly companies have now come up with unique reusable bags- thereby acting as tools for increasing popular awareness for saving the environment from artificial hazards. These ethical alternatives can thus be a life-saving effort, not just for a few but for the multitude!

About the Author
Suzanne Macguire is an expert writer and an environmental activist, promoting the use of reusable shopping bags.

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