Dioxins Intro -- Dioxin Sources - Achieving Zero Dioxin - Dioxin Elimination Report - Health & Environmental Effects - What are POPs? - POPs Sources - Eliminating POPs

Because of the high levels of dioxin already in the global environment, which will persist for many years, aggressive measures are needed to decrease human exposure to dioxin. In some sectors substantial investment will be required, however most alternative products and waste management will provide economic benefits in terms of:

+ increased employment
+ improved efficiency
+ decreased expenses for chemical procurement, waste disposal, liability and remediation
+ elimination of social costs associated with damage to health and the environment.

PRINCIPLES FOR DIOXIN ELIMINATION
Greenpeace believes the phase-out of dioxin from our environment should be based on the following principles :

+ Elimination not reduction
Dioxin releases from industry and other sources must be eliminated, not simply reduced. Because of the persistent nature of these chemicals, and their continual recycling throughout the environment, the current global build-up of dioxins will take years to decrease.
+ Prevention, not control
The use of pollution control devices (filters, treatment systems and disposal methods such as burning or burying), simply shifts chemicals from one environment to another, or delays their release. To achieve zero dioxin industrial processes must be changed to prevent the production and release of dioxin.
+ Know the source and eliminate
All known industrial sources of dioxin must be addressed, and research carried out to identify unknown and suspected dioxin sources.
+ Prioritise
Elimination timetables, prioritising the largest dioxin producing sectors and those sources for which alternatives already exist, should be set. No new permits for the production of new dioxin should be issued, and existing ones modified to include reduction and elimination timetables.

IDENTIFYING AND ELIMINATING DIOXIN SOURCES
For dioxins, the aim to eliminate means crafting and implementing policies that:
1.Prevent the introduction of new dioxin sources
2.Give priority to practical measures that eliminate dioxin sources - actions that prevent the creation of dioxins in the first place.
This will require the phase out of products and processes that are dioxin sources and the introduction of policies to replace materials that give rise to dioxins under certain conditions, eg, PVC plastics in metal recycling furnaces . Primary dioxin sources share one common feature - the availability of chlorine.
Primary Dioxin Sources - Measures for their elimination
Primary sources
Means of elimination
Examples

Processes for making chlorine containing products; eg pesticides and industrial chemicals

WHY REDUCTION WON'T DO
The aim to reduce dioxin, without the ultimate goal to aim for elimination, is unlikely to protect human health because :

+ These chemicals are persistent and bio-accumulative and toxic - they are long lived in the environment and build up in the fatty tissue of humans and animals. Adding even small amounts of these chemicals continues to add to the existing toxic burden.
+ Rather than implement alternative technologies, which would prevent dioxins being formed in the first place, technologies are modified so that dioxins are reduced. Priority is given to the sources that are most easily identified, and measures, such as pollution control systems are introduced so that dioxin release to some but not necessarily all environmental media are reduced.
+ Reductions in dioxin releases from point of source may well occur, however these reductions will be nullified and possibly overwhelmed at the national, regional and/or global level if the number of such dioxin sources continue to increase.
+ The enormous cost of regulatory and laboratory infrastructures required to monitor and enforce national reduction programmes may put an intolerable burden on some governments. Less than 50 laboratories exist which have been certified by WHO to test human tissue for dioxins. The cost of a single test ranges from $US1,000.00 to US$ 3,000.00. The costs of laboratories and testing are barriers even in wealthy western nations.

Ultimately, no-one really knows the true impact of dioxins on our environment and health. In 1998 the WHO reduced the acceptable daily intake of dioxin from 10 picograms to between one - four picograms.