SCMP.com - Dioxin goal threatened by loose monitoring

SCMP.com - Dioxin goal threatened by loose monitoring: "SCMP.com - Dioxin goal threatened by loose monitoring"

Stephen Chen Nov 09, 2010 Beijing set a target to reduce dioxin emissions by 10 per cent by 2015, according to a guideline released last week. The problem is: how can they tell if the goal is reached? All new waste incinerators will be required to use the best proven technology. This is good news for European and Japanese incineration companies with undisguised interest in the Chinese market, the surface of which has only been scratched, but it also frees the incinerators from continuous monitoring. A waste-burning plant needs to be checked only once a year, and as part of the drill plants are usually informed beforehand. Jointly set by nine central government agencies including the National Development and Reform Commission, the target dictates China's international responsibility as a member of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (Pops). Dioxin is one of the deadliest Pops, according to the World Health Organisation. Long-term exposure leads to the fatal breakdown of the immune, nervous, reproductive and endocrine systems, and it causes several types of cancer, depending on the level of dioxin present in the environment, which is usually very small. Material that contains chlorine, such as ore, plastic and even paper, will release dioxin when burnt. But the dioxin breaks down when waste gas is heated to more than 850 degrees Celsius, a theory highlighted by incineration promotion brochures. However, few acknowledge that when the waste gas cools the dioxin will reappear and, if some highly expensive and energy consuming absorbing methods are not applied, will go straight into the food chain. Any dioxin of more than one billionth of a gram within one cubic metre of the waste gas discharged is considered dangerous. And that's the standard of China, the most tolerant in the world. In Europe and many other developed countries, the benchmark is one-tenth of that. China discharged more than 10 kilograms of dioxin in 2004, according to official statistics. It is estimated this increased exponentially in recent years due to the construction of many small, low-tech, poorly run incinerators. As the guideline pledges to scrap and replace those incinerators with larger ones with proven technology, "that's good news for companies from countries such as Japan and Germany", said Jiang Jianguo, professor of Tsinghua University's department of environmental science and engineering. Some domestic companies claim they can absorb as much dioxin as their overseas competitors at only a tenth of the cost. "They lie," Jiang said. The government could not verify the result by checking once a year. Continuous monitoring would not only prevent major environmental hazards, but also ease public concern about waste incineration. It is expensive and technically challenging, but possible, according to a researcher at the Laboratory of Dioxin Detection under the National Research Centre for Environmental Analysis and Measurement. To collect enough samples an inspector must clamber on top of a chimney more than 60 metres high and spend hours capturing waste gas with a netting device, a task that could not be completed without the plant's assistance, said the researcher, who refused to be named because of her employer's media policy. The analysis of the sample would take 1-1/2 months and cost tens of thousands of yuan. Repeating the task each month would require a substantial input of labour and money, she said. "But it's not impossible if it is a concern of 1.3 billion people."