Environment:

Dioxin

Dioxins are highly toxic, very persistent and highly bio-accumulative by-products of industrial activities and products. More than 90 percent of human exposure to dioxins comes from our food, particularly meat, fish and dairy products. Our food supply is contaminated by industrial "fallout" that travels thousands of miles before ultimately bio-accumulating in vegetation, animal products and people.

According to the U.S. EPA, dioxins in vanishingly small amounts, even at existing background levels, can cause cancer and birth defects. Dioxins are even more potent at disrupting the human hormone system, potentially leading to endometriosis, diabetes and immune suppression, among other problems.

EPA has also found that the sources of dioxin are a wide variety of industries ranging from waste incinerators, vinyl producing factories and paper mills to other human activities involving the burning of chlorine compounds. Dioxin emissions began to accumulate in the environment in the early part of the 20th century, peaking in the 1970s prior to rudimentary environmental regulations. As with many other forms of pollution, dioxin exposures tend to be higher among poor and politically marginal people, especially people of color. But current dioxin background levels exceed any margin of safety, meaning that we are all at risk from dioxins, and that any additional emissions can be expected to cause real damage to human health.

The implications of global dioxin contamination have ranged from last year's dioxin contamination of chickens in Belgium to the growing concern about dioxin emissions from garbage incinerators in Japan. Until now, dioxin contamination has largely plagued industrial countries. However, with the spread of polluting technologies such as incinerators and products containing PVC plastics, there is compelling evidence that dioxin emissions are set to increase in developing countries, unless a UN treaty aimed at eliminating dioxins is adopted.

Currently the U.S. uses "end-of-the-pipe" regulations, which attempt to reduce dioxin without fundamentally changing industrial practices. To begin reducing dioxin contamination to near pre-industrial levels, we must instead emphasize prevention: not permitting new dioxin sources, and eliminating existing sources.

As long ago as 1992, the International Joint Commission (IJC), a bi-national body of the US and Canada, recommended a prevention-oriented approach to reducing dioxin exposure–including changing industrial processes and phasing out chlorine chemistry–in the Great Lakes region. Given the new evidence in EPA’s dioxin reassessment, these recommendations should now be applied to both US national and global UN dioxin policies.

We should immediately:

Stop issuing new permits for incinerators or combustion facilities that burn chlorinated chemicals, or any form of hazardous waste or mixed waste.

Stop issuing new permits for PVC plastic manufacturing facilities, and ban short-life uses of PVC plastics, including packaging, toys and non-essential medical supplies.

Stop issuing new permits for paper mills that use chlorine bleaching. Alternative bleaching technologies are available.

Allow U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp, which is now imported in modest amounts but cannot be grown here; hemp-based paper products can be produced easily without the use of chlorine.

Modify the U.S. policy at current UN treaty negotiations to reject chemical-industry pressure and support the "elimination" rather than unspecified "reductions" of human-produced dioxin.

In the longer term, we should:

Phase out the use of chlorine-containing compounds as industrial raw materials. This would imply phasing out all manufacture of PVC plastics.

Phase out all industrial processes which create dioxins and other persistent organic pollutants.

Phase out all incinerators and combustion facilities that burn chlorinated compounds, or any kind of hazardous or mixed waste.

Require existing paper mills that use chlorine bleaching to adopt new technologies.

Although the dioxin reassessment confirms that dioxins are a human-caused problem which endangers the health of the general population, the dioxin problem is almost entirely preventable. According to EPA's reassessment, the levels of dioxin in ancient human tissue were 2 percent of what they are in people living in the US today. By pursuing policies of prevention and precaution, the formation of new dioxins can be eliminated and background levels, now threatening the general US population, can be reduced as dramatically as they were increased over the last century.