The company would wash and dry scrap tires, shred tire
chips, and melt tires into scrap steel, synthesis gas, oils, and carbon
black. The plant would process 8,333 pounds of tires an hour, 24 hours a
day.
Health
The Franklin County Solid Waste Authority and the Ohio EPA have
tried to grant a permit quietly to avoid a public outcry. The community,
however, has many questions about the safety of this proposed facility.
In the 1980s and 1990s, several U.S. companies -- including Startech in
Sycamore, Ohio, south of Tiffin -- experimented with tire-melting facilities,
but the businesses failed. This is an attempt to revive this process, called
"pyrolysis". Do we want to be the guinea pigs?
- Although tire-melting is not currently being
done in the United States, there are many tire-burning facilities.
Tire burners are a top source of the synthetic hormone dioxin, the most toxic human-made chemicals,
affecting almost every organ of our bodies, attacking the immune
system, causing learning and developmental disabilities, and cancer.
One dose of dioxin can harm the next seven generations of a family.
- All components necessary for the creation of dioxins,
including oxygen, chlorine and the right temperature, will be at this
facility. Defenders of the tire-melting technology claim that it is
different from incineration and that it will not generate hight toxic
emissions, including dioxins. Can they prove it? Is this claim purposefully
misleading to avoid stringent rules and control equipment?
Money
The U.S. Department of Energy says tire-melting
(pyrolysis) is "not economically viable". The products of pyrolysis have
limited marketability due to low quality. What should make us think this
company can do any better?
Is the City of Columbus venturing into a situation that will hurt our quality
of life, increase pollution for our area, and put an extra burden on taxpayers?
We need answers
- If this facility is allowed to open, what contaminants would be in
the gaseous emissions, the oil and the soot?
- Where would the heavy metals from radial tires go?
- What about the formation of dioxins? How did the Ohio EPA determine
that the dioxins were not going to be formed? Where are the emission
data that tested for dioxins to prove this claim?
Background
- Neighbors technical comments to Ohio EPA on draft tire-melting permit, Southwest Neighbors Protecting Our Environment, Buckeye Environmental Network, Ohio Citizen Action.
- 2,3,7,8-TETRACHLORODIBENZO-p-DIOXIN (TCDD); DIOXIN, from the "10th Report on Carcinogens," substance profiles, CAS No. 1746-01-6, National Toxicology Program, Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2 MB pdf.
- Burned: The life and times
of Spokane's incinerator, Northwest Environmental Education
Foundation.
- Pyrolysis:
a non-traditional thermal treatment technology, Health Care
Without Harm.
- Pyrolysis
and thermal gasification of municipal solid waste, Blue Ridge
Environmental Defense League.
- Incineration
and gasification: A toxic comparison, Blue Ridge Environmental
Defense League.
- Tire management, California
Integrated Waste Management Board.
- Scrap
tire recycling, U.S. Department of Energy.
- Used
tire recycling, National Border Technologies Partnerships Program,
U.S. Department of Energy.
For more information,
call or email Simona Vaclavikova,
Ohio Citizen Action, (614) 263-4111.
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