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| Sunday, 15 May 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Beware of POPs by Shanika Sriyananda
Dioxin, classified as a 'dirty dozen' among a gamut of chemical polutants is an unintended by-product of combustions and industrial processes and is identified as one of the highly carcinogenic 'Persistent Organic Pollutants' (POPs). According to findings, the dioxin in eggs can easily get into the human body. Lack of proper garbage disposal system has resulted in a rapid accumulation of dioxin and furan in the environment. Waste, especially hospital waste needs burners with a temperature of over 1200 celsius to burn dioxin and furan. But, all the hospital waste burners in the country have much less than the required temperature and consequently a high amount of dioxin and furan enter the atmosphere daily. Dioxin may also be released into the environment through the production of pesticides and other chlorinated substances, while furan is a major contaminant of Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), a by-product often bonded to dioxin. Apart from the burning of garbage in open spaces, these two chemical compounds can also be released into the environment from vehicle emission, coal and wood combustion, metal smelters, refineries and cement kilns. Other toxic chemical in the dirty dozen are the pesticides aldrin, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, mirex, toxaphene, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor. PCBs, which are a synthetic organic chemicals now sold under various trade names and popular due to their chemical stability and heat resistance can be found in dielectric fluids in electrical equipment such as transformers, capacitors, heat transfers, hydraulic systems, pesticide extenders, sealants, in carbonless copy paper, industrial oils, paints, adhesives, plastics and flame retardants. Meanwhile, according to Hemantha Witanage, Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice, the PCBs in old transformers of the Ceylon Electricity Board are a threat to the environment and the people living in the areas where these transformers are installed. He said that though the country signed the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2002, the POP Implementation Plan which gives guidelines to eliminate POPs in the country has not been finalised yet. " Until such a Plan is finalised no one can take action. We do not know the POP hot spots. A proper garbage disposal system to eliminate POPs is another vital aspect that the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, which is the focal point to prepare the Plan, needs to look into", he pointed out. Witanage said that importation of nine toxic pesticides had been banned by the Registrar of Pesticide (RoP) since 1996. "But we suspect that old stocks are being still sold", he claimed. However, he stressed the necessity of commencing a detailed research about POP and also the need of educating the public about the 'dirty dozen'. Scientists have found that the POPs or the 12 toxic pollutants commonly known as the 'dirty dozen' accumulated in the air, water and soil pose a serious threat to human health and the eco systems. They easily bio-accumulate in the fatty tissues of exposed animals and humans. According to health experts, the 'dirty dozen' toxic pollutants can cause cancers, birth defects and fertility problems. The most vulnerable are the foetus and infants. People will become susceptible to diseases and loose their intelligence due to long term exposure to POPs. A high level of exposure to PCBs can also cause skin rashes, itching and burning, eye irritation, skin and finger nail pigmentation changes, disturbances in liver function and the immune system, irritation of the respiratory track, headaches, dizziness depression, memory loss, nervousness, fatigue and impotence. The population of marine mammals, common seal, barber porpoise, bottle nosed dolphin and beluga whale have already dropped due to exposure to POPs. Another ground breaking scientific discovery carried out by Prof. Alexander Giwercman of the Malmo University, Sweden had found that exposure to POPs could change the sex chromosomes in sperms. They found that Swedish fishermen exposed to high levels of Organochlorine - dioxin, DDT and PCBs- pollutants have a higher proportion of the male Y chromosomes in their sperm. The alarming risk of POPs resulted in the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on POPs by the United Nations Environment Programme on February 18, 2001. Meanwhile, the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol to phase out green house gases, is also considering signing the Convention to phase out the world's most hazardous pesticides and chemicals, next year. The US and Russia, which are the biggest industrialised countries are yet to ratify the Stockholm Convention.Assistant Director POP Unit of the Ministry of Environment, Chandani Panditharatne said that Sri Lanka was legally bound to control POPs and is in the process of preparing a National Implementation Plan (NIP) with the assistance of the experts in the pesticide and other chemicals. " We have formed individual groups and they have to submit their final reports. "The major task of the Unit is to find the amount of toxic chemicals that come under 'dirty dozen' that are available in the country", she said. According to Panditharatne, a proper waste disposal system is vital to control POPs, especially, hospital waste which should be properly incinerated. " At the moment, the country lacks proper incineration facilities and the present system of burning clinical waste will generate more dioxin and furan", she said. "But there is no alternative and burning of clinical waste is better than land filling as the risk of contaminating ground water resources and spreading diseases are high", she pointed out. The CEB and the Lanka Transformers Ltd (LTL) are the main institutions that deal with PCBs but they lack the facilities to detect PCBs in transformer oil. Testing transformer oil for PCBs is done at the Industrial Technology Institute. The LTL has taken steps to import transformer oil free of PCBs. Under the Stockholm Convention, Sri Lanka needs to eliminate PCBs before 2028. According to Panditharatne, several benefits were given to developing countries which signed the Convention. "Financial assistance to adopt best environmental technologies to control POPs will be given by the developed countries to least developed countries like Sri Lanka", she added. Awareness campaigns to educate the CEB engineers, the public and school children have been launched by the Ministry together with the CEJ, Green Movement of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Environment Exploration Society. Panditharatne said alternatives to POPs can be encouraged through public awareness campaigns and pollution can be minimised through cleaner technologies. Powered by pachyderm dung The Rosamond Gifford Zoo will be the first zoo in the US to be powered by its own animal waste - particularly the prodigious piles produced by its pachyderms. The zoo - world prominent for its Asian elephant breeding program - is studying how feasible it would be to switch to animal waste as an alternative energy source to reduce its $400,000 (euro311,000) annual heating and electricity bill. The zoo's six elephants produce more than 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds) of dung per day, said Zoo Director Anne Baker. "Zoos are about conservation and stemming the loss of animals and habitat," Baker said. The zoo sends most of its animal waste to a local farm, where it is composted. It spends about $10,000 (euro7,775) a year on animal-waste disposal. Because the elephants eat mostly hay, they are the ideal waste producers for the project, Baker said. Additionally, they are inefficient digesters, which makes their faeces higher in energy content, she said. The zoo also will look at using the manure from its domestic farm animals, its other hoof stock, such as its bison and caribou, and even its lions and tigers, she said. Depending on the process, the zoo animal waste could be used to produce methane or hydrogen for powering a fuel cell or generator. In the United States, a number of farms have used animal waste to produce power, so the technology is available to apply at the zoo. The study will start by evaluating the energy-producing potential of all the animals' dung. Source: AP Did animals really know the tsunami was coming? by Tharuka Dissanaike Looking back at of December 26, people living by the coast remember the morning as being very ordinary. One eye witness account described the sea as being very calm and serene. There were no danger signals - not the kind understood by the coastal villagers. There was no bad weather, no high winds or rough seas- nothing at all out of place until minutes before the first wave struck and caused immense destruction along the eastern coastline. But by then, it was too late for many. After the tsunami, shocked over the destruction that was brought upon by a hitherto un-heard-of natural phenomenon, people began to wonder at the lack of warning. Natural disasters that we are familiar with - cyclonic winds or landslides or floods- always come with some kind of identifiable indication from nature, days or at least hours before the event. That such a deadly wave came out of what appeared to be a calm blue sea was too much for most to comprehend. Then as the wreckage of the disaster was being cleaned up, strange stories began to emerge. Stories of animals who sensed the disaster, who saved their masters, of the lack of animal deaths etc...that made one wonder if there were indeed signs of impending calamity, which were transmitted over frequencies beyond human comprehension- or was it merely that we humans had lost touch with nature that we could not see or sense the arrival of so great a phenomenon, when animals, apparently did. The strongest of such stories came from Yala National Park. The park, located in the south eastern corner of the island suffered greatly from the tsunami. But the most obvious damage was to vegetation, buildings- hotels and guest houses, and vehicles that were plying the park that day and to human life. Initial reports from the badly hit Park indicated that there were no animal casualties in Yala (later this was proved a fallacy). In stark contrast over 200 people died there while enjoying a post-Christmas holiday. The international media was quick to latch on to the story of animals and their 'premonition' of the disaster. There were reported stories of elephants running away from beach areas in Yala, of dogs refusing to go for their morning run, Zoo animals hiding in their enclosures and flamingoes abandoning nesting sites. Animals were endowed with a 'sixth sense' or a paranormal ability to foresee natural hazard. This was a popular idea, and not entirely abnormal since strange animal behaviour has been observed before, prior to certain natural disasters, especially earthquakes. But did animals really know or sense the approaching tsunami? Did they use this knowledge to escape the disaster? A group of scientists from the Centre for Conservation and Research (CCR) who have been studying elephant behaviour in Yala for several years before the tsunami, think otherwise. "We have two radio-collared elephants in Yala- one male and one female. These animals showed no abnormal behaviour before the tsunami. In fact, the female who was ranging quite close to the beach at the time of impact, travelled towards the coast in the hours before waves struck" says Dr. Prithiviraj Fernando, an elephant ecologist. Both elephants were outfitted with GPS-satellite collars that were programmed to collect points at 4 hourly intervals. One, a juvenile male, in a herd that ranges within six kilometres of the coast, has been tracked since late October. The other, an adult female, and its associated herd, range along the coast, and was collared in early December. The female, as mentioned before walked towards the beach in the hours before the tsunami and then moved away from the coast- but not abnormal distances- finally at the end of the day, she was back by the beach. The male, six kilometers inland, did not show any abnormal movements at all; in fact his movements were less extensive that day. Since female elephants and juvenile males move in family groups- the movements of these two elephants approximate the movements of their herds of 8-10 individuals. "These movements suggest that neither elephant reacted in an extreme manner prior to or even during the tsunami. The movements preceding the tsunami were also less than the average exhibited by the elephants during other times," says Dr. Eric Wikramanayake another CCR scientist. In contrast, previously, tracked elephant herds have displayed movements of over 10 km in one night, in response to human disturbance. "Thus, our data does not indicate any behaviour among these elephants that would indicate flight in response to the impending tsunami, or of the geological events that gave rise to it." So then what of the strange stories and reports? Dr. Fernando says CCR has followed up many of the stories and claims and found them to be plain wrong or to have drawn unjustified associations between events at best. "It is hard to attribute animals with supernatural powers or a 'sixth sense'," says Dr. Fernando. "There were many stories and a lot of exaggeration. But the satellite tracking data is irrefutable. If there was panic among some animals, it would have been felt by all, especially animals like elephants. We think therefore that there was no early warning that kept animals away from the beach areas. In fact we found a number of dead animals in the park afterwards, during surveys of tsunami damage." However, in contrast to the high human casualties, few large animals died. This is because of the rapid response of animals once the tsunami struck-most animals can run much faster than humans, and few animals live on or very close to the beach, rather than due to any pre-warning. CCR scientists are not the only ones who doubt the claims of animal's 'sixth sense' in their reaction to natural disasters and geological events. Japanese and United States Geological Survey scientists have been studying animal behaviour for decades attempting to formulate an early warning system for earthquakes and seismic occurrences. But so far, no predictable pattern of behaviour has emerged from these studies. There is yet no real way of using animal behaviour as a tool to forewarn of such unpredictable disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.
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| Produced by Lake House |
The recent detection of dioxin in eggs sold in European markets have led
local eco-groups to ring the alarm bells and caution local authorities which
import eggs, to be 'more vigilant' about their imports. 
