The poor shall inherit the earth . . . and all the toxic waste thereof.
Greenpeace slogan to support the Waste Trade Project, 1991
New Cotton Clothes Are Healthier
Breakthroughs by textile scientists will soon give consumers cotton fabrics that can protect against insecticides or stay wrinkle-free without using harmful formaldehyde-based reagents. The researchers described their innovations on 22-23 March 1999 at the American Chemical Society's national meeting, held in Anaheim, California. Chemist Gang Sun and graduate student Louise Ko created cotton fabrics with built-in pesticide detoxifiers in their laboratory at the University of California at Davis. The cotton is for use in jeans and shirts to be worn by agricultural workers, particularly harvesters, who are exposed to low levels of pesticides. Most harvesters wear no protective clothing because such garments are currently made from uncomfortably hot, impermeable materials. "It's like wearing a plastic bag," says Sun. The protective cotton is not intended to be worn by sprayers, however, who are exposed to high levels of pesticides during spreading; such work still requires impermeable gear.
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Protective clothing. Innovations in textile science have produced cotton fabrics that can protect against pesticide exposure and that are wrinkle-free without the addition of harmful formaldehyde. |
Sun and Ko grafted the chemical hydantoin onto the surface of common cotton/polyester blends to act as a detoxifying agent. When pesticides collide with the chemical, they're broken down into smaller, safer compounds through oxidative reactions. "Grafting is a very common textile wet-finishing process," says Ko. Hydantoin has a proven safety record through its use as a disinfectant in swimming pools. Hydantoin is safe when it contacts the skin, says Sun. The detoxifying agent is easily recharged by washing the fabric in chlorine bleach. In laboratory tests, the treated textiles took less than five minutes to degrade carbamate pesticides by up to 99%.
In 1995, a University of California survey found that carbamates, which include aldicarb and methomyl, were the most commonly used pesticides on fruits, vegetables, and cotton. The hydantoin-treated fabrics have not been tested against organophosphate pesticides such as malathion because some organophosphates may be oxidized into more toxic compounds. "Carbamates were simpler to test first, and [they] proved the concept," says Sun.
Perfecting the technology to include organophosphate protection may be unnecessary, however. Growing concerns about the long-term health consequences (such as neurodegenerative disorders) that are posed to workers through exposure to organophosphates suggest that these chemicals are going to be replaced by carbamates in the near future, predicts microbiologist Jeff Williams, chief technical officer at Halosource Corporation in Seattle, Washington. The start-up firm licensed the hydantoin technology to make comfortable, functional clothing. The company's goal is to produce clothing that will protect agricultural workers against pesticides and medical personnel against bacteria and viruses (preliminary studies show that hydantoin works as an antibacterial and antiviral agent on fabric).
In a related development in cotton technology, a new environmentally friendly method for making wrinkle-free cotton was developed by polymer chemist Charles Q. Yang at the University of Georgia in Athens. His goal was to find a replacement for formaldehyde, which has been used extensively to make wrinkle-free fabrics since the 1970s. Because of concerns about formaldehyde vapors adversely affecting the health of textile workers, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has established safe levels for formaldehyde in the workplace.
Researchers seeking a replacement for formaldehyde developed butanetetracarboxylic acid (BTCA), an organic acid, in the 1980s. However, BTCA's exceedingly high production cost prevented its application on a commercial scale. Yang began studying the cheaper and safer citric acid in the 1990s. By itself, citric acid performs inadequately against wrinkles, so Yang used Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to study the effect of mixing other inexpensive acids with citric acid. This technique showed that when citric acid is mixed with a polymer of maleic acid containing a molecular structure similar to that of BTCA, they "form a branched system that cross-links cotton fibers," says Yang. The cotton fabric samples finished with the maleic/citric acid combination showed superior wrinkle-free performance, good laundering durability, and high strength retention.
Calloway Chemical Company in Columbus, Georgia, and FMC Corporation in Chicago, Illinois, have joined forces to commercially produce and market the formaldehyde-free finishing system. The chemical process, which is under evaluation by some manufacturers, is not quite as cheap as formaldehyde. But, says David Shank, product development manager at Calloway Chemical Company, "We're trying to promote it as the right thing to do."
The Plane Truth about Disinsection
To most people, "fear of flying" means an aversion to traveling by aircraft because of a fear of its crashing. For some people, however, there is another safety fear posed by air travel--the fear of adverse health effects from exposure to pesticides used in aircraft in a process called "disinsection."
The United States stopped requiring that inbound flights be disinsected in 1979 following a decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that it was an ineffective method of preventing insect pests from being introduced from other countries, as well as a possible health risk for the people on board. Disinsection is usually performed by one of two methods: the cabin may be sprayed with an aerosol pesticide (sometimes while passengers are still on board) or treated with a long-lasting residual pesticide that is applied to the interior surfaces of the empty cabin every 6-8 weeks. Disinsection is still required by a few nations for incoming flights--including, in some countries, flights from the United States.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) posts a list of countries that require disinsection on the World Wide Web at http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/policy/safety/disin.htm. Countries that require disinsection may do so for one of three reasons: threats to public health, threats to agriculture, or threats to the native ecosystem. Australia and New Zealand, for instance, along with many of the island nations that still require disinsection, are highly protective of their unique systems of flora and fauna, which they maintain could be devastated by the importation of alien insect species.
According to the 1998 report Flyers Beware: Pesticide Use on International and U.S. Domestic Aircraft and Flights, released by the Eugene, Oregon-based Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, the pesticides used on airplanes may include synthetic pyrethroids or organophosphates. Exposure to synthetic pyrethroids can cause skin irritation and, in more serious cases, incoordination, tremors, vomiting, diarrhea, irritability to sound and touch, and migraine. Organophosphate exposure can cause headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, tightness in the chest, and coughing. Acute organophosphate exposure can cause unconsciousness, convulsions, and respiratory failure. For passengers with asthma or allergies, the respiratory effects from even low exposures to such pesticides can be uncomfortable at best--and dangerous at worst.
In 1994, in response to public concern, the DOT and the International Civil Aviation Organization launched a campaign to convince other countries to cease disinsection. According to Bill Mosley, a public affairs specialist with the DOT, the campaign has been considered a success, with some 20 nations agreeing to stop disinsection to date.
Travel expenses? Despite a movement to cease the practice, passengers may still be exposed to potentially dangerous pesticides during aircraft disinsection on some international flights.
Also in 1994, after receiving reports of potential health problems associated with aircraft disinsection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked manufacturers of products registered for use in disinsection to submit additional information to the agency outlining the potential risks to passengers and crew from exposure. Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the EPA may request additional information at any time from pesticide manufacturers if there is reason to suspect that use of a product may pose unreasonable adverse effects to human health or the environment. If the potential risks cannot be mitigated by such means as modified labeling, the EPA may pull the product from the market. Following the EPA's request for additional information, a few manufacturers chose to pull their products for this use.
In 1995, the DOT proposed a rule requiring that airlines and travel agents notify prospective passengers if the flight they are considering is to be sprayed while passengers are on board. Because so many countries were no longer requiring disinsection, the rule making was terminated. Some saw the dropping of the rule as the DOT dropping the ball. Becky Riley, author of Flyers Beware, says that report was produced to meet the flood of public and media inquiries following the DOT's decision to drop the proposal.
In 1996, the EPA issued Pesticide Regulation (PR) Notice 96-3, "Pesticide Products Used to Disinsect Aircraft." The notice gave manufacturers of products registered for use in occupied aircraft the choice of either successfully demonstrating the products' safety when used in that setting or removing any labeling that indicated that the products might be used in that setting. In response, the remaining registrants chose not to support disinsection as a use for their products. Airlines that had existing stocks of these disinsection products on hand when the notice was issued were allowed to use them up, however.
According to Antonio Bravo, the special assistant for pesticides at the EPA, there are currently no pesticides that are registered in the United States for use in disinsection of occupied aircraft cabins. Furthermore, says Bravo, "The EPA does not endorse the practice of disinsection and will not register any new products for use in occupied aircraft cabins unless the agency can determine that their use will not pose unreasonable adverse effects to passengers and crews. The potential risks to human health from routine disinsection seem to outweigh any perceived benefits."
So where does that leave U.S. flights headed for nations that still require disinsection? India is one such nation. Northwest Airlines (NWA), which flies to India from Amsterdam, uses a product that its alliance partner, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, developed and uses on its international flights. The active ingredient, d-phenothrin, is specifically required by many countries as the pesticide of choice. The World Health Organization has found that d-phenothrin is not likely to pose a threat to human health when used properly, and does not cause allergic, sensitizing, or other known health reactions. "We are required by the Indian government to spray our flights before descent and produce empty cans upon arrival," says Kevin Florence, NWA's manager of loss prevention. "Failure to do so could result in the airplane being impounded, sent back to the city of origin, or treated by local authorities." Florence says that NWA has also adopted the integrated pest management approach, which emphasizes more sustainable and environmentally healthier solutions for controlling pests in the company's fleet.
Today, chemical companies are exploring new pest-control options for use on aircraft. Possible solutions include bait traps, the use of ultraviolet light, and integrated pest management.
The Coast Is Cleaner
Beach buffs had something to celebrate on 22 April 1999, the day that the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed H.R.999, the Beaches Environmental Awareness, Cleanup, and Health Act of 1999. The bill was designed to establish national standards for testing and monitoring coastal recreational waters and for notifying the public of the pollution status of those waters. The legislation allocates $150 million over the next five years to aid local water officials in developing or updating their monitoring programs.
The bill, introduced by Representative Brian Bilbray (R-California), is an amendment to the Clean Water Act. The bill addresses four problems identified by local public health officials and beach users: inconsistent state water quality standards, outdated water quality criteria, lack of any coastal water quality monitoring in some areas, and unavailability of consistent public information on local beachwater quality. According to Bilbray, one of the main thrusts of the bill is to give the public the power of choice in deciding whether it's safe to go in the water. It will also create a collaborative, rather than punitive, environment in which local officials can establish water quality criteria. "This makes the federal government a partner rather than a taskmaster," says Bilbray.
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This law's a BEACH. The Beaches Environmental Awareness, Cleanup, and Health Act of 1999 aims to establish national beach monitoring and public notification standards.
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Under the bill, any state bordering the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, or one of the Great Lakes has three and a half years to adopt water quality criteria and standards for the pathogens and pathogen indicators included under the Clean Water Act. These standards must be at least as protective of human health as the Clean Water Act's water quality criteria. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will establish water quality standards for any state that fails to do so by the deadline. This provision will set a benchmark of quality for beaches across the country. The bill also directs the EPA to conduct research on beachwater pathogens and to issue updated pathogen criteria within the next four years, with subsequent reviews every five years in order to keep the knowledge base as current as possible. Upon the EPA's publication of new or revised water quality criteria, states will have three years to update their own criteria.
By providing funding and federal assistance to coastal areas, the bill aims to decrease the number of beaches that have no monitoring programs in place. It also encourages local officials to tailor local programs to local needs. Factors such as water temperature and salinity, for instance, can affect which pathogens are apt to turn up on a given beach. Bilbray, a former county supervisor in San Diego, California, notes, "One of the problems we've had with standards in the past is that local officials have been required to test for pathogens that haven't ever been detected in their waters. The bill strives for uniform levels of protection across the country versus uniform standards for all beaches." The bill's final provision is for a database to be made available to the public via the World Wide Web. The database will track the occurrence of water pollution in the nation's coastal recreational waters and indicate any areas that choose not to initiate a monitoring and notification plan, as well as areas that are not achieving their water quality goals.
According to a 1998 Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report titled Testing the Waters VIII: Has Your Vacation Beach Cleaned Up Its Act?, there were 22,892 beach closings in the United States between 1988 and 1997, some lasting over 12 weeks. According to the report, 69% of beach closings and advisories in 1997 were due to bacteria levels that were found through regular monitoring processes to exceed beachwater quality standards. The other closings were due to pollution events such as sewage line breaks and oil spills, or to heavy rains, which are known to carry runoff pollutants into coastal waters.
Swimming-related illnesses include gastroenteritis and diarrhea. They are usually not life-threatening, but for certain populations, such as children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems, swimming-associated diseases can be more serious. These diseases may cause dehydration, vomiting, and, in extreme cases, death. The NRDC report cites a 1995 research project by the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project in which over 15,000 beachgoers were interviewed to study the adverse health effects associated with swimming in ocean waters contaminated by urban runoff. The study found an overall 44% increase in risk for fever, chills, ear discharge, vomiting, and coughing with phlegm associated with swimming near flowing storm-drain outlets in Santa Monica Bay as compared to swimming 400 yards or farther away. The NRDC report also states that pathogens responsible for more serious diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever have also been found in beach waters. But according to Alfred P. Dufour, director of the EPA's Microbial and Chemical Exposure Assessment Research Division, the risk of illness due to such pathogens is very low. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not reported any outbreaks of swimming-related illness linked to Vibrio cholerae or Salmonella typhi in at least 15 years," he says. All the same, maintains Bilbray, a lifelong surfer, the fact that beachgoers can contract any disease at all just from going in the water is reason enough to get national standards into place.
The next step for the bill is to pass the Senate, which may happen as soon as this summer. Dufour supports the bill, saying, "It's going to promote the monitoring of beaches, hopefully in places where it hasn't been done in the past--and that's good for the public." Adds Bilbray, "This bill empowers local officials and communities to be a part of developing solutions to address local problems."
Protecting Schools from Pesticides
Laws regulating the use of pesticides in and around schools vary widely throughout the United States. In a series of reports that review state laws and regulations regarding pesticide use, the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP), a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, DC, examined regulations addressing pesticide use and schools. The results of these reviews have raised concerns that children are not being adequately protected in one of the places they frequent the most--their schools.
On 28 January 1999, NCAMP issued a report, The Schooling of State Pesticide Laws, that found that just over half of all states have regulations that provide some level of children's health protection by addressing pesticide use in, around, or near schools. Only 16 states address the indoor use of pesticides. "Every state is different," says Kagan Owens, information coordinator for NCAMP and coauthor of the study. "Across the board, the level of protection is uneven."
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Pesticide report card. A new report on state regulation of the use of pesticides in, near, and around U.S. schools shows that many states aren't making the grade when it comes to protecting children and school workers. |
When examining each state's pesticide laws, the report looked at five safety measures to determine whether the laws addressed children's health protection. These measures included the presence of restricted spray (buffer) zones to address chemicals drifting into school yards and school buildings from nearby applications, the posting of signs for indoor and outdoor pesticide application, prior written notification of pesticide use, prohibitions against application of pesticides in certain places and at certain times, and requirements for a strong integrated pest management (IPM) program to limit the use of certain toxic materials. Thirty states have policies that include at least one of these measures. Some local governments have their own pesticide policies in place for schools, but these also vary greatly.
According to the report, six states restrict the application of pesticides in areas neighboring schools. The spray restriction zones range from 300 feet to 2.5 miles. Ten states require posting of signs for indoor application at schools, which NCAMP says allows students and staff to avoid exposure. Texas has the most stringent regulation, requiring that warning signs be posted at least 48 hours before application.
Twenty-two states require that signs be posted when pesticides are applied on school grounds. The report says that such postings are especially important for notifying children who play sports or spend time on school lawns. Nine states require written notification for students and/or school employees before pesticides are applied.
The report says that only seven states restrict the type and timing of pesticides that may be used in schools. Thirteen states define, recommend, or require IPM in their state pesticide statutes. Of these, five states require IPM and four recommend it.
NCAMP is pushing for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Secretary of Education to establish a national standard to set a level of protection for children against exposure to pesticides. "There should be a minimal standard that includes [the public's] right to know, IPM, and restrictions on use," says Owens. The group stresses that a national standard should be passed to provide uniform protection throughout the country. "No matter where you live, you should be informed about what is being sprayed in your children's schools," says Owens.
Whether or not a national regulation will be issued remains to be seen. Following the release of the report, the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to NCAMP stating that officials are looking into the issue. In the meantime, Owens says, NCAMP encourages people to work in their local school districts to pass policies that inform parents about pesticide spraying.
Currently, there are over 400 nuclear power reactors operating in 25 countries around the world. Handling the thousands of tons of waste generated by these facilities has become one of the most contentious environmental problems of this century. Accordingly, many companies, research firms, regulatory agencies, and advocacy groups have become involved with seeking a solution to the radioactive waste problem, and many of these groups post data and information on the Internet. The task of cataloging the thousands of sites related to radioactive waste production and disposal has been undertaken at RadWaste.org, home of the WasteLink index, available on the World Wide Web at http://www.radwaste.org.
The WasteLink index organizes all the radioactive waste-related sites on the Internet into a hierarchical directory scheme, much the way companies such as Yahoo! and Netscape attempt to organize all Internet sites. WasteLink currently contains over 4,100 links to radioactive waste Web sites, organized into 29 categories. Whether the question is how to calculate effective doses for radiation exposures or where the worst radioactive pollution problems in Russia are, WasteLink provides an excellent place to begin searching for information.
Links to the 29 site categories are listed on the left side of the WasteLink home page. The first of these categories, labeled General, gives visitors access to sites that provide an overview of worldwide radioactive waste generation, nuclear safety, and waste management. To keep visitors aware that the information linked to this page comes from a wide variety of sources and therefore may not be objective, WasteLink assigns each link an icon that designates whether the corresponding site generally supports or opposes nuclear energy or is neutral or sponsored by the government.
Specific information on nuclear activities in each of 45 countries is available via the National Profiles link on the home page. For the most part, this information is provided by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the international Nuclear Energy Agency. WasteLink lists nine categories that deal with more specific aspects of the radioactive waste issue. The Radwaste Processing link, for example, leads to sites concerned with procedures such as stabilization, packaging, and vitrification of nuclear waste. Information on environmental remediation and restoration projects is available among the links in the Decommissioning Issues category. The sites listed under the Health Physics Issues category give users access to health information such as data on Japanese victims of radiation exposure and facts about the health risks associated with radon. Other categories dealing with specific waste issues are Radwaste Storage, Radwaste Disposal, Radwaste Handling Procedures, Radwaste Characterization, Radwaste Transportation, and Mixed Waste Issues.
The WasteLink home page provides links to directories of government agencies and to sites dealing with nuclear waste regulations for many countries and some U.S. states. Standards that have been set by various governmental and professional agencies but that are not part of the corpus juris can be found through the links on the Nuclear Standards page.
Among the other resources in the WasteLink index are directory pages for organizations involved in radioactive waste management, including nuclear research centers, waste management companies, technical consultants, professional societies, and environmental organizations. The Nuclear Power Utilities link leads to a directory of 226 nuclear power plants. Listings in this directory include a link to each of the following (if available): the home page of the company that operates the plant, the home page of the plant itself, technical information about the plant, and information on the plant posted by government, industry, or anti-nuclear groups. Still another directory, Technical Journals & Publishers, lists journals, magazines, and publishers that address radioactive waste issues.
The Events & Conferences link leads to a regularly updated list of gatherings of interest to radioactive waste professionals, including the Symposium on Technologies for the Management of Radioactive Wastes, which begins August 29 in South Korea. Other calendars of events, such as those maintained by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, are also linked to this page. In addition, WasteLink also provides links to the proceedings of past conferences.
For quicker navigation of the WasteLink site, a site map and search engine are also available. The expansive WasteLink search page also includes links to other search engines, radioactive waste indexes, and various other pages of related links. If visitors find that WasteLink has failed to list a radioactive waste site in any of its indexes, a form is provided to submit the URL for inclusion in the directory.
Last Updated: July 19, 1999