“Options to...”

Dr P. D. Sunavala appears to justify the importance of incinera­tors on the basis of the cities that operate them or the compa­nies that donate them ("Options to...” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, February 2003). If London, Munich and Los Angeles use incinera­tors it is to their peril.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — part of the World Health Organization (WHO) — announced on February 14, 1997, that the most potent dioxin, 2, 3, 7, 8-TCDD, is now considered a Class 1 carcinogen, meaning a "known human carcinogen.” According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only 50 percent of dioxin sources are known. Of these, 95 percent comes from combustion processes. Garbage and medical waste incinerators are the largest identified sources. The major source of dioxin in the environment (95 percent) comes from incinerators.

The US EPA report is full of new information on dioxin including information on how dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals damage the body.

Virtually all dioxin releases are preventable. Environmen­talists all over the world are calling for an immediate halt to the incineration of municipal, hazardous, medical and radioactive waste, and any such wastes incinerated in cement and/or aggregate kilns, or other devices including crematoria for disposing human or animal corpses.

As recently as January 2003 it was reported that the New Rochelle city council has banned apartment building incinerators. "This is an important public health measure,” said councilman Noam Bramson who spearheaded the legislation. "All the evidence suggests that the pollution produced by incinerators constitutes a public health hazard.”

The American Lung Association (ALA) has been actively pus­hing local governments to halt their refuse burning ways. The New Rochelle ban was initiated by Bramson after representatives of the New York chapter of the ALA encouraged him to push the ban through.

In fact, a national trend to ban garbage burning has been underway for more than a decade now and recent legislation in many communities throughout the United States are attempting to clamp down on this health hazard. According to a recent study by the American Medical Association, there is an eight percent increase in lung cancer deaths and a six percent increase in cardiopulmonary deaths resulting from toxins released by trash-burning incinerators.

And Sunavala has the nerve to state "Dadrawala is behind times.” The fact is Sunavala is behind the times as a consequence of not keeping abreast of the latest scientific trends, thinking and legislations in the western world, of which he seems so enamored.

While concluding I can do no better that quote Bramson: "We will all be able to breathe easier when incinerators are phased out.”

NOSHIR H. DADRAWALA