To follow up on Brian's posting.

Many dioxins are considered to be what are popularly referred to as "endocrine
disruptors".
Consider a report recently published by the United Nations Environment Programme, the
World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization.
See: http://rea.ei.jrc.it/~kohl/MARA/myweb/final%20draft/who.html

The report states in Chapter 8, - General Conclusions and Research Needs "...there is
weak evidence that human health has been adversely affected by exposure to
endocrine-active chemicals." and "... there is little information on linkages between
exposures to putative EDCs and health outcomes in both humans and wildlife."

The entire report is a bit long, but it makes for a good read.

Chuck Dolci


*X-Accept-Language: en
*MIME-Version: 1.0
*Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
*From: b_ellis <[log in to unmask]>
*Subject: Re: [EN] Environmentally-friendly shopping
*X-To: Roger Bilham <[log in to unmask]>
*To: [log in to unmask]
*
*Roger
*
*Are they bothered about the dioxins when they barbecue a nice piece of
*rump steak? Or burn their autumn leaves and other garden rubbish?
*
*More important, do they know what a dioxin is (other than a dirty word)
*or how it's produced and/or destroyed?
*
*I'm not getting at you, but this kind of popular village "wisdom" makes
*me sick and I blame ecopolitical groups who would have us back in the
*stone age for using it to further their ends (and a rush candle to light
*their caves would certainly be a rich source of dioxins).
*
*A few dozen strategically-located incineration plants for household
*waste in the UK could generate a GW or two of power 24/7/50 with free
*fuel and would reduce landfill needs by 90% or more.
*
*Sorry to be so aggressive!
*
*Best regards,
*
*Brian
*
*Roger Bilham wrote:
*>
*> Brian and others,
*>
*> An issue which appears to be limiting the use of this useful source of
*> energy in the UK is the generation of unpleasant chemicals, such as
*> dioxins. No doubt, if the plant is properly designed and run, this is
*> not a problem, but the public perception here is that it is and there is
*> resistance to building more of these plants.
*>
*> Roger Bilham
*>
*> In message <[log in to unmask]>, b_ellis
*> <[log in to unmask]> writes
*> >If you go to http://www.bnellis.com/ecobags/ , you will see how much
*> >energy can be recovered after a shopping expedition to the local
*> >supermarket. This is a French initiative (translated into English). I
*> >don't know what capacity is available in France but I do know that the
*> >generation capacity in Switzerland from household waste is 277 MW. By
*> >extrapolation, this should be equivalent to over 2 GW for the UK,
*> >France, Germany or Italy or 8 GW for the USA. Is it?
*> >
*> >Brian
*> >
*>
*> --
*> Roger Bilham
*> Roger Bilham Consultancy
*> Tel: +44 (0)20 8467 8819
*> Fax: +44 (0)8700 548 613
*> Mobile +44 (0)7 941 122 446