The Trouble with Asbestos Disposal

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:29:00 -0600

Hailed as a miracle mineral because of its superior fire resistance and tensile strength, asbestos was installed abundantly into our built environment for over 200 years. However, once it was established that this undeniably useful resource was a dangerous carcinogen, Australia and many other countries enacted strict regulations for handling asbestos and asbestos containing material (ACM). There regulations created an asbestos abatement industry worth billions of dollars worldwide annually, and which will continue to generate millions of ton of asbestos waste long into the future.

Corporations and insurance companies have paid out billions of dollars in asbestos claims and have increased their reserves by billions of dollars to cover present and future incalculable loses pertaining to asbestos lawsuits. Much of the cement board that permeates Australian residential, commercial, school, and government buildings is a prominent example of such a product.

The installation and presence of these building products has caused many construction trade workers – including plumbers, pipefitters, boilermakers, carpenters and installers – to contract mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases. Besides the construction trades, the people who live and work in buildings containing asbestos are potentially exposed to toxic forms of asbestos. Consequently, the ACM mining, manufacturing and installation industries have created great liability issues for the producers, installers, end users and their associated insurance companies.

From 1950 to 1970, Australia was the highest per capita user of asbestos in the world, and vast numbers of domestic dwellings built before 1982 contained – or still contain – asbestos.

Whereas most countries banned the use of asbestos in building products by 1980, Australia’s relatively late bans are likely to lead to more asbestos related exposures and diseases many years into the future. Australia already has one of the world’s highest rates of mesothelioma deaths, as well as many other asbestos related cancers. There late bans will feed the asbestos abatement industry and the disposal of asbestos and ACMs, as well as contribute strongly to ongoing contraction of asbestos diseases.

In Tasmania, the Australian Workers Union has developed a plan to remove all the ACM by 2030, 17 years from now. But this raises difficult questions. Will all ACM on substrates be removed? Where will the ACM be stored (nothing that asbestos never really goes away, even when landfilled).

US laws make the owner or generator asbestos or ACM a “Potential Responsible Part”, who is responsible for the cradle-to-grave liability for asbestos stored in a landfill through perpetuity. This means that when the landfill fails and must be cleaned up, the Potential Responsible Party or Parties, become responsible to pay for clean-up. In Australia there is no such regulation, with taxpayers meeting much of the financial burden for clean-up.

Let us explore the disposal options presently available for asbestos and ACMs.

Landfilling

Eventually, all landfills will fail. Modern day landfills liners last around 30 years. What happens when the liners are punctured or deteriorate?

Although landfilling is the cheapest and most convenient disposal option for asbestos or ACM, it is not the most cost effective – in the long run someone will have to pay to re-abate the asbestos from the landfill before it pollutes the surrounding area.

So what happens to asbestos or ACM when it is landfilled? By regulation, asbestos and ACM must be wrapped in plastic or a double polythene bag. Every package of asbestos must be clearly marked with a proper shipping name, including UN number, packaging group number, hazchem code and class label. The polythene bags are loaded on to a bin or trailer and driven to the landfill. The vehicle carting the ACM to the landfill must display a placard that is placed at the front and rear of the vehicle stating “Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods”. Next, the polythene bags are dumped from the height of a trailer or container into the landfill. The dumped asbestos polythene bags must then be covered with 15 to 30 cm of non-asbestos covering pushed over by heavy construction equipment.

What are the possible consequences of this method of disposal? Bags can break, allowing asbestos fibers to become airborne and migrate to the water table. An example of problems encountered in Australia with landfilling asbestos is Wyong Council’s landfill at Shelly Beach, New South Wales. Because ACMs have surfaced above its cover due to erosion and weather conditions, it will cost $12 million to clean up the asbestos dumped into the landfill during the 1970s. Also, there is no way to tell how many people who live and work around Shelly Beach have been exposed to the surfaced asbestos.

Thermal Options

There are presently three thermal options to destroy and permanently rid asbestos from our environment: vitrification, plasma torch, and Asbestos Recycling, Inc.’s hearth oven.

All thermal processes require high heat and high energy to destroy asbestos, because they need to run at 1500 to 2000 °C to glassify the asbestos. The asbestos is fed into the thermal unit for a required residence time. Following this, the end product must be cooled before testing. If no asbestos is detected by transmission electron microscopy, the end product can be recycled or sent to a non-regulated landfill. If asbestos is detected, then the whole previously treated batch must be put back through the thermal unit.

The high temperatures require substantial electricity at high cost, along with high maintenance costs on the refractory – the inner brick lining of furnace, which over time cracks and wears out due to the high temperature required to destroy the asbestos – which causes approximately 25 to 30% down time. Furthermore, the thermal unit must have an extensive and efficient scrubber system that prevents the escape of potentially harmful byproducts (e.g. furans, dioxins and nitrogen oxides).

Chemical Options

There are several chemical options for the permanent disposal for asbestos.

Soaking chrysotile asbestos in sulfuric acid for an extended period of time destroys the chrysotile, but is slow in its destruction reaction time. Once the reaction is complete, the acid is neutralized with a base, such as lime or baking soda.

W.R. Grace, Inc. developed an in situ non-thermal chemical process to destroy asbestos containing spray-on fireproofing containing chrysotile. The spray-on fireproofing (trade name Monokote) was developed and sold by Grace when asbestos was still permitted in building materials. When asbestos was banned, Grace developed an in situ chemical asbestos destruction process that destroyed only chrysotile. The process requires full negative air containment with four air changes per hour, but not high electrical use. Ultimately, Grace encountered two problems: 1) for a building with hundreds or thousands of square feet of sprayed-on fireproofing, it was difficult and costly to prove that all the asbestos was destroyed; 2) the process did not fall under the relevant US Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation; therefore Grace could not secure EPA approval for the process. (The aforementioned thermal options are EPA approved, because they do fall under the relevant regulation).

The ABCOV® Method of asbestos destruction is a non-thermal; EPA approved mixing process that chemically and physically destroys all forms of asbestos in all ACM. The process is performed under negative air containment and employs size reduction of the ACM and high speed dispersion mixing with ABCOV® chemicals, which are contained in a mild acidic solution.

The asbestos destruction is able to best tested, using polarized light microscopy, as the asbestos is being destroyed, allowing no asbestos to leave the process equipment until completely inert.

The process requires the negative air containment to have six air changes per hour. There is minimal electrical usage and a negative air scrubber system that includes an activated carbon filter and a high-efficiency particulate air filter that will provide six air changes per hour (as opposed to the four air changes per hour that is required for a typical asbestos abatement project performed under negative air containment.

Innovative waste treatment technologies are the future of the waste industry – not only for asbestos, but for all hazardous wastes that cannot be recycled.

Australian bans on asbestos:

1967 - crocidolite (blue asbestos) - considered the most dangerous of the asbestos minerals.

1989 - amosite (brown asbestos) - banned from building products (and from other products in 2003).

2003 - chrysotile (white asbestos).

2004 - the remaining asbestos minerals, tremolite, actinolite and anthophyllite.

Sources: Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization; Australian Council of Trade Unions

Further reading

www.asbestos.com
Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org)
United States Federal Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov)
Australian Industrial Waste Resource Guidelines: Asbestos Transport and Disposal (http://bit.ly/12EwRvY)

References

NSW Government: Cabinet Office 2004. Report of the special commission of inquiry into the medical research and compensation foundation. ‘Asbestos and James Hardie’, Annexure J., p.117.
National Occupational Health & Safety Commission 2005. Code of Practice for the Safe Removal of Asbestos 2nd Edition [NOHSC:2002 (2005)].

Disclaimer: Tony Nocito works for ABCOV®; Description of proprietary technologies does not imply endorsement by Remediation Australasia.

We would like to thank Australian Remediation Industry Cluster for giving us this great opportunity to publish our content in their quarterly magazine "Remediation Australasia." Remediation Australasia, Issue 13.

Understanding price and cost of hazardous wastes

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:25:00 -0600

The first line of defense for companies is they don't have any hazardous, toxic or regulated wastes. And if they do, it is minimal, gets cleaned up and sent to a safe landfill (if there is such a thing). So they believe they are safe.

You may be safe, but our environment is not and our children for sure are not and your future stockholders definitely are not.

I have knowledge of asbestos problems, because that is my business. I am gaining knowledge of Hexavalent Chromium problems, a new business for me. I am also somewhat knowledgeable about other toxic and hazardous wastes, but these wastes are not as well publicized as asbestos due to mesothelioma litigator's barrage of constant advertisements.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at asbestos trust's fraudulent claims on March 11. Fact: Where there's money, there will always be fraud. Who knows better than the Wall Street Journal, they cover Wall Street.

With the trusts paying out $100 million a year, "There is growing concerns that the trusts will run out of money before America runs out of asbestos victims," the article reports. And that, my friends, is exactly the point.

One litigator claims that asbestos "victims are the worst corporate mass genocide in history," a very true statement.

Hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes must be dealt with now! They must be taken out of our environment -- permanently -- or the genocide will continue!

It doesn't make sense that companies wouldn't be interested in using available positive environmental technologies to permanently rid these dangerous wastes. I think corporations think the price of landfilling is cheaper than treatment. Please keep in mind that price and cost are two totally different numbers.

What happens when asbestos is landfilled: the driver who takes asbestos to the landfill must suit-up in asbestos protective clothing with respirator before the load can be dumped. When dumped, inevitably containers are going to break, allowing asbestos to become airborne. This holds true for other hazards. I sure hope you don't live around one of these landfills.

Where the cells asbestos and other hazardous and toxic wastes are stored (I used the word stored, because the waste eternally belongs to the generator) cannot be used for any other purpose. They can't be used for waste-to-energy, recyclables recovery, installation of wind farms or solar panels or to capture methane gases. The cells cannot be disturbed forever except by the inevitable wear and tear, causing exposure to hazards long into the future.

The fact is the generator's name is listed on the landfill manifest, container the waste is stored in and, in some cases, on the waste material itself.

Why do the generators keep landfilling hazards when asbestos has proven that the cost will be much greater than the price?

Zero waste, circular economy, sustainability impact the bottom line

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:12:00 -0600

What is zero waste? In manufacturing zero waste's goal is to reuse left over materials from the manufacturing of products, putting them back into the process to manufacture new products. Zero waste can also be carried out when a manufacturer of a product that is recyclable takes it back to its facility to reuse recycled product in the production of a new similar product. This closely resembles circular economy, but not completely, because all older products cannot be brought back for feed for reproduction, due to possible hazardous and toxic contaminants, asbestos being one.

The construction industry is continuously toiling to bring construction and demolition debris to zero waste to reduce, reuse, recycle, and salvage, but the construction industry is only accomplishing a 95% recycling rate. Again, hazardous and toxic wastes, like asbestos, are one of the problems standing in the way of 100% recycling.

Although recycling and zero waste are becoming a way of life, to get to zero waste takes hard work and constant diligent-awareness of how to avoid creating waste.

Recycling will continue to eliminate waste to the landfill, especially in the construction debris area. This was proven to me when I met the chief environmental engineer for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), Thomas Abdallah, who is faced with a herculean challenge of dealing daily with a subway system that is more than 100 years old. How Abdallah sleeps at night, I haven't been able to figure out. As I got to know Abdallah, I found him to be a "in the present thinker" but always looking to the future of how to improve the system and how to eliminate wastes, like asbestos, that are a constant pain. Abdallah recently told me that in the last renovation project he recycled 95% of the construction debris.

But the MTA doesn't manufacture; it provides transportation. So when improvements are made to the 100-year-old system, recycling becomes of great importance.

Our future is to think in terms of how nature works, i.e. re-fertilize to create a new crop, thus a circular economy.

A circular economy is going to take persistence and time to create, but it will be our environmental savior once created.

I recently met with the Armstrong flooring and tile company's Andy Lake, recycling infrastructure processing specialist, in charge of bringing used ceiling tile back into the manufacturing system. Lake arranged the meeting with his ceiling group and Armstrong's floor tile group headed by Lisa Y. Cavataio.

My observation of these two groups was that they are diligently working to develop Armstrong into a circular economy company by bringing back ceiling and floor tile to its birth for fertilizer for a new crop of building materials.

Lake and Cavataio, like Abdullah, are present and future thinkers.

The examples above are people who are environmentally conscious and are aware of the importance of sustainability, understanding what it means to the future of our environment and to the company's bottom line.

Utilities will be forced to figure out tough environmental issues

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:46:00 -0600

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, a fairly reliable publication, titled "U.S. Electricity Use on Wane."

The article cites the fact that although we have more electronic gadgets than ever before "electricity use is barely growing," challenging our nation's utilities.

I am sure that we all feel sorry for the utilities, because they now have to rethink how they can find a new way to hold us hostage.

To help solve this financial problem, most of the large utilities will invest in transmission of electricity, abandoning electrical generation. This will allow them to see higher returns, because they no longer have to maintain the generating stations.

I would bet a dollar that solar panels, wind farms and waste-to-energy facilities played a role in the aforementioned reduction in profits, besides the economy and the movement of manufacturing to other countries.

But what are going to be the consequences of utilities investing in the transmission of electricity as opposed to generating it?

The utility industry is in an evolution period, it is slowly evolving from generator to transmitter (think manufacturing of electricity to landlord, renting us their transmission lines, in part, because the growth and use of new cleaner technologies, such as solar, wind and WTE). All of these technologies will grow in use and become a necessity, helping us lessen our carbon footprint, making it imminent to put them to use.

WTE is coming into its own. Because of diminishing landfill space and the problems with siting new landfills, it will become a necessity just as landfill mining will. We will eventually put a WTE facility on every landfill allowing the generation of power and the digging up of recyclables for reuse. This will lessen our carbon footprint and strengthen our reuse of recyclable resources.

Utilities are slow to change and only move when they are forced to, because they don't have to, they are our utilities. Also, they have proven to be the financial staple that pays better than average dividends. Now financial stability is threatened. Although the utilities' challenge is to generate more income, they will be faced with larger and more onerous definitive financial and environmental issue that they must figure out a way to solve by answering the following questions:

How does the utility clean-up all of their retired generating stations with their toxic, hazardous and regulated waste contamination?

Where does the utility find the money to clean-up these retired assets?

Is there enough landfill space to take the amount of hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes the retired assets will generate?

How do we head off the disaster that is going to happen if we don't find and use technology to take these wastes permanently out of our environment?

I understand that the utilities have to scramble to keep ahead of the financial curve, but the looming disaster will do worse damage. If they don't act now, they will be buried by their own toxins.

The only four things we are given in life

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:24:00 -0600

I teach my children that we only have four things in this world.

The four things are:

*Our health. If you don't take care of your health it won't take care of you.

*Time. If you don't spend your time constructively, it is a waste of time.

*People. If you are not good to other people, they will not be good to you.

*Our Earth, the ground and water.

Let's explore these four things.

We know if we eat right and exercise regularly the chances of staying healthy are good, but on the other hand, if we smoke, drink excessively, and over eat, especially fatty foods, we pay for it with sickness and an early death.

We know that wasting time accomplishes nothing, but if we spend our time constructively, it generally pays off.

We know that if we are polite, kind and express good will toward people, and help those in need, they will always be grateful and kind to us.

We know that the Earth is our survival. We cultivate it for food, so we can be nourished; it is the land we live on. It is our life's blood. Without it, we would not exist. A good part of the Earth is our water, ocean, lakes and our reservoirs, from which we get the pure water we drink.

Like our health, we must treat Earth with the best physical ability we can: nurture and cultivate the soil, treat it with nutrients to maintain the soils rich content, irrigate the soil with non-polluted water and not abuse or over-use the soil by draining it of its nutrients or polluting it with hazardous, toxic or regulated substances.

When we abuse our body, waste our time, or mistreat other people, the abuse of the body makes us ill with heart disease or cancer or maybe both, the waste of time catches up to us as we age, because we see what we could have done, but didn't and when we mistreat other people, we have no friends to be there when we need them, because we were not there when they needed us.

It is difficult to overcome the aforementioned, but not impossible. The key, to build back our health, this is possible with technology and modern medicine, which gives us enough time to overcome our shortcomings and be kind to other people, giving us sustainable living.

We are now in the difficult period of taking care of our earth, but not impossible. We are over-landfilled; over-polluted; have an ocean full of garbage; and global warming causing disastrous hurricanes.

Therefore, our New Year's resolution must be to stop our earth's deterioration, reduce, reuse and recycle; make sustainability a priority and develop technology that stops hazardous pollutants.

This will all give us good health, more time, and a chance to be good to others.

Corporate Leaders: Don?t Allow the Landfilling of Hazardous and Regulated Waste Haunt Us!

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 12:52:00 -0600

The holiday season is coming: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas,Hanukkah, and New Year’s.

I am asking the corporate leaders who claim aggressive recycling programs and zero waste to landfills to think during this holiday season in terms of zero hazardous waste and zero regulated waste to landfills.

I would bet my Halloween pumpkin that no corporation wants to admit the extent of their hazardous or regulated waste environmental liabilities or even the fact that they have asbestos or any other hazardous or regulated wastes in their facilities and/or stored in landfills, a huge negative to the corporate bottom line!

I give presentations and demonstrations of my process that stops asbestos cradle-to-grave liability and I thought you might be interested in some of the corporate feedback I received.

Environmental Manager, Major City Utility: “Our CEO will be retired by the time this comes back to haunt us.”

Senior Vice President Legal and General Council of one of the largest oil and refinery companies in the world: “I spoke to our environmental department and they said it’s not necessary to destroy our asbestos, we landfill it.” Not a wise decision

Head Environmental Attorney for a major Fortune 500 company: “The next building we buy with asbestos, we’ll call you.” I walked away and asked myself what about all the asbestos you presently have in all your many facilities around the world?

My favorite: I was asked to speak at an Asbestos Litigation Conference. Asbestos litigation is a multibillion dollar industry that the legal profession possibly spends more money on advertisement than Coca Cola. Why in God’s name would asbestos litigation lawyers want to hear from me, when maybe I can start to solve the asbestos problem? They really didn’t. It was my turn to speak, the moderator, an attorney, purposely used up my time leaving me two minutes. I saw this coming so I rapped off all the positives about ridding our environment of asbestos. He then made this brilliant remark: “I suppose you can turn water into gold?”

Don’t get me totally wrong, the corporate environment concerning hazardous and regulated wastes is starting to change --- slowly--- but changing.

Thus the holidays:

Halloween: If you think of hazardous and regulated wastes as Halloween with forever haunting ghosts make no mistake about it, the ghosts of these hazardous and regulated wastes will haunt the corporations through eternity unless these corporations do something about it.

Thanksgiving: It will be a great Thanksgiving in a new world when these wastes are out of our environment by aggressive corporate initiatives

Christmas and Hanukkah: The gift of Christmas and Hanukkahto all will be technological solutions to the hazardous and regulated waste problems with rigorous implementation of these technologies mandated by corporate leaders.

The New Year: Solving these problems will provide a myriad of New Years with corporate sustainability and corporate financial stability through many generations, and most importantly, a glorious future of a healthy environment for our families, our children and our grandchildren.

Postal Service can learn from the waste Industry

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:32:00 -0600

My friend, John Crudele, who writes three plus columns a week for the New York Post on economic issues and one on personal financial advice, has written several articles concerning the Post Office's financial debacle.

In John's last article he addresses the massive $5.2 billion loss the Postal Service has suffered in the last three months. In previous articles and in the last article as well, he addresses the fact that stamp forgery is one of the issues that have caused this loss.

I like John. He's got a unique sense of humor (read his column), we play golf, have dinner and have lunch several times a year. But as much as I agree with John, over 99% of what he writes and predicts is true, my personal opinion is that stamp forgery may be an issue, but only a small issue compared to the explosion in electronic technology.

John says that if a real business person took over the Post Office he or she won't allow stamps to be forged.

A real business person wouldn't walk into a business that is colossal, out of control and losing $20 billion plus a year. A business person would let the taxpayer continue to pay. But if a business person did run the Postal Service, there would be immediate and drastic cutbacks in every sector. Then ways would be developed to use new technologies that eliminate all physical mail, except packages, and maybe, Certified Mail.

Now think about the positive effect this mail technology would have on our environment: no junk mail; a lot less motor vehicles on the road; a lot less garbage to dispose; a lot less paper to recycle; a lot less carbon emissions; and a lot less traffic. GREEN AS HELL -- RIGHT!

Well you say, what about the people who work at the Postal Service? They will be unemployed and our unemployment rate is too high now!

The answer: Retrain the people who work for the Postal Service to use the new technology.

Just as the waste industry is retraining everyone who has garbage (that's everyone) by restricting weekly pick-up to one garbage bag, and requiring recycling or, in some cases, if you don't recycle, no garbage pick-up. The aforementioned is starting to become law in many states.

The waste industry is consistently reinventing and developing itself with new technologies to deal with the colossal ever growing problems of waste disposal and landfill space shortage.

Instead of technology eliminating jobs in the waste industry, it has created jobs.

Think about it Postal Service!

Zero Waste - Zero Waste - Zero Waste by Tony Nocito

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:37:00 -0600

The Planning Group of the Zero waste International Alliance defines zero waste as: “Zero waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for other use.”

I recently posted this question on Linkedin: Why do companies claim zero waste when they continue to send their hazardous waste to a landfill causing incalculable future liabilities to their companies and their stakeholders?

I received quite a number of intelligent comments from individuals all over the world, many of whom are in the waste business or deal with waste in their jobs.

The consensus was that zero waste claimed by companies is hype or rhetoric used to make the companies look greener and some thought that there is no such thing as zero waste.

Most were in agreement that all people should constantly and vigorously strive to reuse, reduce and recycle (3Rs) or make the generator of the waste responsible for its waste. These aforementioned approaches to dealing with waste must become a way of life for all. There is also a consensus: If it can’t be recycled, don’t make it – good point!

It is estimated that $11.4 Billion in recyclable materials are landfilled in the U.S. every year. Not only is this a waste (pardon the pun) of the landfill space, but also a flagrant waste of valuable materials that are made from natural resources.

More and more manufacturers are recycling materials used to manufacture their products back into newly manufactured products, by salvaging and reusing the leftovers. This is why they claim zero waste. This recycling approach supports a solid bottom line and supports good environmental sustainability, but this is only one form of zero waste.

The employs of the manufacturing facilities, or any employee for that fact, can recycle all the paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, food, if there is a composting station on site, etc. leaving zero waste when they leave work. They also should and can do the same at home, as we all should.

The truth is not everyone has a car, not everyone has a TV, and not everyone has a computer, but everyone creates waste of one kind or another.

Landfills were named landfills, because they were usually holes in the ground that could be filled, but landfill space is a scarcity. Today they are mountains of garbage, taking in millions of tons more garbage each year and releasing tons of noxious gasses. It is estimated that 1.3 billion tons of municipal solid waste will become 2.6 billion tons of municipal solid waste in the next decade. Where are we going to put this waste?

Old landfills that are not Superfund sites needing to be cleaned up have a use: capturing of methane gas for use in power plants and vehicles, provide space for the construction of Wind Power Turbines, and provide space for the construction of Solar Panels.

Landfill mining, the digging up of a landfill to recapture and remove recyclables from the landfill, therefore increasing the landfill space, is becoming a trend, as well as dumping a garbage truck at the gate before it enters the landfill to separate out of the recyclables.

Towns, cities and states are requiring mandatory recycling or no garbage pickup.

The purpose of striving towards the 3Rs and zero waste is a matter of our sustainability through the elimination of Landfilling waste as much as possible. The reality is that we are running out of landfill space and no one wants new landfills in their backyard, nor do they want incineration, even if it is waste to energy, although waste to energy will become more of a reality in our future.

The aforementioned has addressed the two zero waste initiatives that we are and should continually strive for, business recycling and personal recycling. Although we are starting to make some progress in the war against waste, we must keep a diligent and constant awareness every time we plan to discard something --- anything: we should think about the future and our children, asking ourselves: do I want land to be used for garbage or do I want land to be used for farming?

The third most daunting and hardest to address is hazardous, toxic and regulated waste disposal. How do we accomplish zero hazardous, toxic and regulated waste?

If we are running out of space for everyday garbage, what are we doing about hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes landfilling? Asbestos, which is imbedded in 5,000 matrices, permeates our environment and when removed is extremely space consuming when landfilled, provides perpetual liability to its owner and can be of no benefit to after landfill reuse. One cannot build over the asbestos cell in a landfill in fear of disturbing the asbestos and contaminating the neighborhood.

Because most of these hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes are in industry’s facilities, it is up to industry to seek out, find, and invest in research to create new technologies to solve the hazardous waste problem or use existing technologies to rid their facility and our environment of these hazardous wastes. We cannot keep sending them to the landfill where they will create unstable and unusable land, incalculable liability for present and future stockholders, and could continue to poison us.

To rid our environment of these hazardous waste is a major challenge to industry that can only be solved with investment in technologies that provide sustainability to our environment. In order to do this, industry must first admit that they have these hazardous materials in their facilities. Then address the problems in the most environmentally friendly and sustainable way.

Industry is in business to create jobs and turn a profit. Industry is also in business for the long haul and the long haul must be profitable.

Land preservation, recycling, eliminating landfilling of hazardous wastes all lead to sustainability, which is our future. Sustainability leads to the long haul by allowing profits to continue well into the future, creating jobs and making better lives. The use of and investment in technologies that eliminates and reduces waste and hazards in our environment are of utmost importance to develop and achieve as close to zero waste as possible. Without waste treatment technologies that provide sustainability, there will be no environment in our future.

Are We Good Physicians of Our Environment? By Tony Nocito and Tiluna Nocito

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0600

In ancient China a physician, who had two brothers, also physicians, was asked by a lord, which of you is the most skilled in the art of healing? Why my oldest brother of course.

The lord asked why he is the most skilled. Because he sees illness before it happens and cures it, therefore no one knows of him.

And your second oldest brother, how does he cure illness? He cures illness when it is still small and has not left the neighborhood. Therefore he is only known only by our neighbors.

And you, the lord asked? I treat illness when it is advanced so all know of me.

As the first paragraph depicts, the brother who cures illness before it happens is the superior physician and as the last paragraph depicts, the brother who treats illness when it is advanced, is well known.

Today, our environmental awareness and conciseness to save our earth, therefore saving ourselves, are diligently, and as financially possible, moving in the direction of the first brother who treats illness before it happens. Illness, for this blog, is the metaphor for environmental waste and pollution.

Industry, over the past two centuries, has created negative externality, which they have become cognizant of over the past 30± years. Industry was the “classic example of a negative externality: pollution, generated by some productive enterprise, and affecting others who had no choice and were probably not taken into account” (about.com).

For its own gain, industry has used substances that were known carcinogens, asbestos being the most widely used, known and publicized, sickening and killing multitudes who have worked in industry or government that used asbestos in their products.

The use of asbestos has caused one of the greatest world wide industrial tragedies in all of history.

Asbestos has polluted entire towns through mining the six minerals, subsequently using these asbestos minerals in over 5,000 asbestos containing products around the world.

The polluters are well known. They have allowed the advanced pollution to get out of the house and out of the neighborhood, becoming infamous to all; costing them billions of dollars in revenues, i. e. bankruptcy lawyers, legal fees to defend lawsuit and large cash settlements, as well as causing a negative impact on their image and the products they manufacture. They have tied up the courts and have caused high-cost medical expenses paid for, by guess who, the Tax Payer.

This is not only true with asbestos, but many other pollutants that would require more than this page to list.

The polluters are the older brothers who are now trying to cure the illness (pollution) after it has left the neighborhood.

We, as a society, are starting to drive ourselves towards the first brother’s philosophy: cure the illness before it happens.

How are we doing this? Through sustainable thinking and sustainable action, sustainable industrial production, renewable energy, positive use of closed landfills, i. e. methane gas recapture, wind farm placement, setting up solar panels on closed landfills, waste to energy facilities being built where a landfill stood, land conservation, food composting, practicing the 3Rs, recycle, reuse and reduce, constantly striving for zero waste, and all growing from our understanding and necessity that we must save ourselves and our planet, yes must.

We are working to undo something that has taken well over two centuries to create, slowly working ourselves into being the middle brother, industry is striving for zero waste from production of their products, our recycling, waste treatment and conservation efforts are preventing less waste not to leave the neighborhood.

I watched a documentary film produced by Sage Environmental, which makes a solid case that everything is recyclable and that it is up to us to emphasize and implement recycling. The film starts by making the statement: everything in nature is recycled; emphasizing examples that nature recycles itself, and that with a conscious effort we can do the same.

In this mix of environmental problems our population is growing and our need for space is expanding, leaving less and less of earth’s area to put trash that no one wants in their back yard.

We are making tremendous progress in dealing with waste. We are making tremendous progress in our recycling and conservation efforts. Recycle, reduce and reuse is the natural solution to our waste problems.

If we think of recycling as the seatbelt of our planet, we will become more and more aware of the benefits for us and our environment.

Think about it, when seat belt regulations were implemented, most thought it would be a hassle to buckle up. But once we started to use the seatbelt, it became consciously impossible to first buckle up; then drive off.

THINK: every time we begin to discard something we ask ourselves--- can I or someone use this again? The answer should be yes.

Industry is becoming very aware of sustainability and the reuse of waste from production, as well as the importance of land conservation. Many are announcing their ability to create zero waste.

We support their efforts to conserve by buying their products.

But what about the wastes that makes us ill, like asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyl, PCBs, heavy metals, chromium, lead, and other environmental pollutants. How do we constructively take them out of our environment? ---- One word: Technology.

Treatment of advanced illness takes research and development of new medicines and implementation of technology.

Commitment by industry that has the problems of harmful and lethal environmental pollutants in their factories, facilities, landfills and Superfund Sites should utilize existing technologies and through research and development create new technologies.

This will be the only way industry will become the first doctor.

The positive image using technology to rid our environment of hazardous pollutants will make them the most skilled and they will only be known by efforts of good sustainable- environmental practices of preventing future illness before it happens.

EPA Budget Cuts Spell Stricter Enforcement:Technology the Answer

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0600

How does the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) receive funding? The simple answer - the taxpayer -from the taxpayer to Congress from Congress to the EPA, the taxpayer being the catalyst.

The economy is in deep trouble; our government is looking at options not to default on our debt, trim budgets and reduce unemployment.

One disturbing factor is that Congress wants to take billions from the EPA budget by weakening part of the Clean Air Act.

The EPA’s job is to enforce environmental regulations passed by Congress to keep us and our country in a healthy and pollutant-free environment bymonitoring a myriad of industries, conducting walk-in inspections, audits and investigating record keeping fraud.

In order to effectively do their job, the EPA needs money besides Congressional appropriations. The EPA creates funds by issuing permits, overseeing environmental cleanup projects, criminal punishment and fines, and issuing fines from violation enforcement.

If Congress cuts the EPA budget by billions, the EPA will have to find the money to fund operations. One way would be through dogged-tougher industrial enforcement.

Industry is lobbying Congress to trim down the Clean Air Act, because of the price of compliance. If this happens, what will be the cost to the environment and ultimately humans?

Cost and price are two different things, price is something you pay immediately, but cost is what you pay in the long term. That leads to the question: What does human sickness cost, and even worse, what is the cost of losing a human life?

The question is how industry complies with the EPA, keeping itself intact and financially viable, creating jobs and paying taxes, as well as becoming good corporate citizens, who are socially responsible, and who practice sustainability in their quest for a cleaner and healthier environment.

Instead of paying high-priced lobbyists to lobby Congress to limit environmental regulations, and pay for research and development to create technologies that will prevent environmental releases, have your environmental departments explore existing technologies that can be implemented; fund research and development projects that will create solutions to the environmental problems of your industry:

For stack releases invest in research to create a viable technology that will arrest toxic releases.
Instead of sending toxic wastes, such as Chromium VI soil, heavy metals, asbestos, etc to a landfill, diligently invest in research for new technologies or search for and use existing environmentally safe technology that will stop landfilling of all toxic wastes.

We have become so conscious of environmental issues and green initiatives that we live in a world of corporate and individual social responsibility and sustainability; Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) with landfills and incinerators; landfill mining, which is becoming a trend (digging up landfills and removing the recyclables to make more space) or removing the waste from a truck at the tipping gate to cull the recyclables, and the constant reminder to recycle, reduce and reuse.

Treatment of toxic substances may originally have a higher price to create and to use, and existing technology may be a slightly higher price to implement, but the long-term cost will be a lot less, environmental cleanups will start to diminish, air will start to become cleaner, and people will have a good chance for good health.

The Asbestos Business is Booming ? But from the Wrong End

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 09:25:00 -0600

I eat dinner some where between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. most nights.

Burned out from starting my Blackberry at 6 a.m. and shutting it down at 12 a.m., as well as sitting in front of the computer all day, I do workout, important for everyone to do, and I do speak with my wife, also important, but I tend to watch brainless television while I eat, as well as keep my Blackberry turned on.

I switched channels hoping to see a good movie on HBO, which usually has the same old movies that run for months at a high price. I usually look for a movie to take my mind off my business. When I switched to the first HBO channel it was airing an HBO Documentary series Mann vs. Ford, Mann being Mr. Wayne Mann of the Ramapough American Native Tribe, and of course, Ford being the Ford Motor company.

This series is related to my business, the business of treating hazardous waste to a non-hazardous material. Being the workaholic and craver for more knowledge, I watched the documentary to see if I could learn anything new about hazardous waste.

The documentary’s premise: that Ford was liable for the short life span of the Ramapough people; that dumping of paint toxic sludge was the cause of a cancer cluster in the surrounding area; Ford dumped the toxic paint sludge in the abandon mines and mountains of Ringwood, New Jersey where the Ramapough live.

The documentary goes on to show the history of the dumping, the suffering, poverty and constant fight of the Ramapough to rid the area of the toxic paint sludge.

When Ford closed its facility in Mahwah, NJ, Ford graciously donated the land for low income housing to be built for the Ramapough.

With this donation, the taxpayer gave Ford a huge tax deduction.

When the Ringwood site became a Superfund site, again, the taxpayer, paid for the clean-up, in this case not once, but twice with long term costs for monitoring the site, which means the taxpayer paid twice for the clean-up and continues to pay for the monitoring.

The lead paint’s attorney in the documentary is Ms.Vicki Gilliam.

Ms. Gilliam takes us to site of the cancer cluster to personally meet the residents and to point out the poverty and pain of the Ramapough.

Then, somewhere in the middle of the documentary we get the pain and suffering of Ms. Gilliam, how she was poor growing up on a farm, got married at a young age and had a child while still a teenager. Then her husband left her, she had to live in a trailer, but she was determined to become a lawyer. I am not sure what this portion of the documentary had to do with the Ramapough, because Ms. Gilliam didn’t know them while growing up or while becoming a lawyer.

Lawyers who take on the lucrative environmental cancer and illness cases know that the fees will be high and that they will be there when they finish, no matter how much they win for their clients. Ms. Gilliam stated that legal fees would cost more than a million, possibly two million before the case was over.

My favorite scene, while showing the devastation of the Ramapough in this cancer cluster, takes place in an upscale restaurant at a meal with the lawyers, a consulting doctor and an environmental consultant drinking red wine and bottled sparkling water while discussing the Ramapough case. Of course the meal was tax deductible, charged to the Ramapough account, and partially paid for by the taxpayer.

Then we cut to the court and the Judge all paid for by the taxpayer.

The judge was adamant about not making this a long and drawn out trial.

In the end it was settled, Ford claimed no wrong doing and said that it was legal to dump at the time that it used the site as a landfill.

The total dollar settlement was $11,000,000. 00, less than carry-around pocket change for Ford. The monies paid to the plaintiffs ranged from the lowest $700.00 to the highest $34,000,000.00, a very small amount to pay for good health, something no amount of money can buy.

The lawyers, I would guess, got closer to the million to two million dollar mark and some good meals.

Now take the above law suit and times it by millions of cases with much larger settlements around the world, specifically asbestos cancer cases.

According to the Buffalo News, Ford paid a chemist with mesothelioma who worked for Durez Plastics with a machine manufactured by Ford that filed and ground brake shoes. Mr. Ginter won a $2.5 million settlement of which Ford paid 15%, or $375,000.00.

When asbestos containing materials are removed from our built environment we send it to another built environment, a landfill.

Today it is legal to dump asbestos containing material in a landfill, with two caveats: by law the asbestos containing materials sent to a landfill must have the original owner of the asbestos containing material’s name on the bag it is put in when removed and on manifest this way the lawyers will know who to sue, because there is a sign posted on the landfill that warns of the dangers of asbestos, which indicates that asbestos, although dumped in a legal landfill, can still cause health problems.

We all see the lawyers on television advertising: “if you have been exposed to asbestos, call us.”

We are in the awareness stage of recycling and the scarcity of landfill space.

We are in the awareness stage of toxic material dumping and the consequences of families suffering with illness and loss of loved ones.

We need to start permanently ridding our environment of toxic materials, like asbestos, and at the same time reduce landfill storage.

There is no price big enough to pay for good health, no matter how good your lawyer is.

And so it goes with hazardous waste, especially asbestos.

Asbestos and Other Hazardous Wastes

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:53:00 -0600

Asbestos has been used in products since the first century as tablecloths, candle wicks, blankets, etc. At that time the advice to slave owners: do not buy slaves who had worked in an asbestos mine, because they died prematurely.

In the early 18^thcentury asbestos started to be used in building materials and continued in the United States until its use in building materials started to be banned in 1973.

U.S. Public Health Service recommended guidelines on asbestos exposure as early as 1938, but the advent of World War II brought about the abundant use of asbestos containing building and insulation materials.

If you think about the massive amount of asbestos containing material that has been installed in our built environment (meaning all man made asbestos environments, including landfills), it makes you wonder, is there enough money to remove it, and if it is all removed where will we store it and how many deaths will occur from now to then?

In the United States 3,000 people are diagnosed with Mesothelioma each year.
Nearly 125 million people worldwide encounter asbestos in the workplace.
Research estimates that 100,000 people die each year from asbestos-related diseases, and that there will be 5 million to 10 million deaths worldwide from asbestos-related cancers by 2030.
Every year there are more people killed by asbestos than in road accidents.

In what century will we be wise enough to realize we have to permanently rid our built environment of asbestos and other cacogenic-hazardous waste?

The only answer to the aforementioned question is to develop technologies that will permanently eliminate hazard-carcinogenic wastes from our built environment.

There is a proven non-thermal, EPA approved method to rid our environment of asbestos.

The owners of facilities or the CEOs and CFOs should seek out the best possible solution and technologies that eliminate hazardous wastes. This mission should be a priority and should be demanded by the stakeholders of these facilities.

After all, taking care of the earth is our responsibility for our children’s future existence.

Industry-Government-Pollution-EPA-Money

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:44:00 -0600

Industry and Government have been hazardous polluters for decades. Negative Externality (the theory that those who make a decision do not have to pay the negative cost and effect of that decision) is a theory that could well apply to the consequence of previous hazardous pollution in the past.

An example of this is the answer I received after a presentation I gave on a non-thermal, EPA approved process that destroys asbestos. At the end of the presentation I asked the environmental manager if the company was worried about the cradle-to-grave consequences of landfilling asbestos or, for that fact, any hazardous waste.

The answer: Our Chief Executive is not worried about that, he’ll be long retired before there are any consequences of our landfilling of hazardous material.

In other words, he is going to CYA it until it is time to collect his pension

Yes that may be true, but what about his grandchildren?!

This brings us to the EPA and money.

EPA budgets have become limited by financial constraints, as well as the fact that EPA enforcement has become prevalent since the EPA has been sued by environmental groups to enforce Section 108(b), which requires financial responsibility and a secured guarantee for environmental pollution clean-up that a company may cause long into the future.

The enforcement of 108(b) will eventually lessen the Congressional appropriations for the clean-up of polluted sites in the future, therefore easing tax payer liability and creating an efficient EPA that can be the oversight manager of our environment instead of the responsible clean-up contractor.

How does industry constructively deal with 108(b)?

The financial requirement of 108(b) goes directly to a company’s bottom line as a negative liability and future cash requirement.

Industry, through its CEOs and CFOs should instruct their research and development and environmental departments to actively seek out solutions to our hazardous waste problems.

Let’s take a look at the advantages to industry of finding and utilizing solutions that permanently rid our environment of hazardous waste:

Elimination of a liability;
Elimination of further pollution;
Elimination of health risks to humans
Good social responsibility;
It is the green thing to do;
It does not cost them anything, because it is tax deductible, either as a deductible expense or as a deductible capital expense

In this scenario, the company will be financially stronger, good for the stock holders and the CEO and CFO, good for the environment, socially responsible and most importantly, good for our grandchildren.

Clean Energy Technologies Will Create Waste

Mon, 23 May 2011 09:39:00 -0600

Clean Energy Technologies Will Create Waste

By Tony Nocito

The birth of mitigating our dependency on oil and coal is here. We are rapidly developing energy saving and renewable-energy solutions that are about to transform our lives for the better, bringing a new era of limiting our dependency on fossil fuel, and creating less wastes when generating electricity. But inevitably through this period we will create other wastes, some hazardous.

These changes and growth in renewable-alternative energies will deliver a new era of efficient power generation and a new sector of jobs. Infrastructure building and renovations will have to take place, i.e. transmission lines and sub-stations will require modifications and upgrades and generating stations will be abandoned as retired assets, dismantled and the environmental hazards removed.

It is obvious that the cross over to clean energy will inevitably breed countless environmental clean-up projects. Utilities are notably plagued with many hazardous-waste products such as asbestos, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), heavy metals, lead, cadmium, and chromium that will haunt them and us for generations to come if they are not permanently removed from our built environment (meaning buildings, facilities and landfills).

The companies that generate and release these hazardous wastes are being monitored by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who has become stricter in its enforcement of polluters, requiring a guarantee of financial assurance under Section 108 (b) of the Comprehensive, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). In this section of CERCLA, companies must prove financial stability, long into the future, by acceptable financial vehicles with terms and language incorporated and approved by the EPA and enforced by the National Enforcement Initiatives for the clean-up of environmental hazardous. Therefore it is in their favor to seek out technologies that permanently remove these hazardous wastes from our built environment, which will lesson the financial burden.

The major problems that will develop from this era lay in the fact that landfill space is at a premium and landfill mining (digging up landfills to recycle the buried recyclables) is becoming a way to create landfill expansion. Also, the development of new landfills is becoming almost impossible, due to the ever present: Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY).

Hazardous waste destruction technologies are the future of the waste industry, just as clean energy technologies are the future of the utility industry.

Clean energy and zero waste, non-hazardous and hazardous, must be a vigilant effort. Our goal has to be the development, refinement and implementation of technologies that can support these efforts. This is the best socially responsible sustainable environmental approach.

What will our children do to eliminate waste in their life?

It is up to our generation to set the ground work and emphatically pursue cleaner energy and zero waste technologies, educating the consequences of not continually finding better solutions for our environment, and most importantly, for the health of generations to come.

Asbestos Liability: How Does a Company CEO Provide Financial Assurance?

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 10:24:00 -0600

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been sued by the environmental groups, Sierra Club, Great Basin Resource Watch, Amigos Bravos and Idaho Conservation League, to enforce Section 108(b) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), i.e., companies must prove financial assurance requirements for hazardous releases. In short, prove to EPA that they can afford to pay the clean-up of hazardous release from today’s operations years in the future.

The first industry that must comply with the enforcement of 108 (b) is the Hard Rock Mining Industry, which is and has cost the EPA billions of dollars to clean-up Superfund sites. These clean-up costs are presently paid for with taxpayer dollars.

The Hard Rock Mining Industry compliance with 108 (b) will be followed, within a year, by Electric Power Generators, Power Transmission and Distribution Industry, and the Process Industries: Chemical, Petroleum Refineries, and Coal Producers.

EPA will require an acceptable financial vehicle to prove financial assurance such as guarantee, surety bond, stand by letter of credit, insurance, self or insurance company generated, all with terms and language incorporated and approved by the EPA.

The financial assurance instruments will protect the taxpayer against future costs in case of bankruptcy.

All of the aforementioned industries have asbestos in their facilities and all of the aforementioned industries have asbestos liabilities, whether they are in their facilities, in a landfill or have caused exposure to humans who have contracted asbestoses or mesothelioma.

Self-insurance against asbestos diminishes the stock value, because of the long latent period for the diseases asbestoses and mesothelioma, along with the perpetual liability asbestos carries when stored in a landfill. I say stored, because the generator of the asbestos still owns asbestos cradle-to-grave under CERCLA.

To add to these costs, public companies have to deal with the Security and Exchange Commission’s Accounting Board Standard’s: Fin 47 and Statement of Position 96.1, both require CERCLA enforcement.

The herculean efforts and funding required to clean-up these Superfund sites has driven congress to determine the reinstatement of the polluter pays tax; the reinstatement is strongly supported by EPA. This tax would quickly bring revenues into the Superfund clean-up efforts and quicken clean-up.

The implementation of CERCLA Section 108 and the reinstatement of the polluter pays tax will take a good deal of pressure off the taxpayer and put it where it belongs, on the polluter.

In my experience, when it comes to asbestos, the attitude is: if it is cheaper and easier to send to a landfill, although asbestos is a regulated waste --- it is still a hazard, which makes it a hazardous release.

The attitude: we will deal with it in the future, if and when it becomes a Superfund site.

It is not undeniable that sizeable environmental liabilities and risks cause a blunt blow to a company’s bottom line, shareholders equity and its stock price. Therefore many companies do not distinctly specify detailed environmental liability by delaying quantification, saying they can not accurately predict future environmental costs, hide information in the foot notes, do not amass liabilities at one time, or avert recognizing future costs.

The above tactics divert divulging future costs that should be in present financial statements. Consequently, the profit margin will be higher, the shareholder equity greater, and the stock price higher.

The enforcement of Section 108 and the strong possibility of an environmental tax reinstatement, will force future environmental liability costs to be carried on the books of a company today, leaving room for non of the above financial statement deterrents .

Appropriately, a CEO of the above mentioned companies will have to ask their environmental department heads to start looking for alternative solutions to permanently rid the company of hazard releases. Preferably ones that do not allow the hazard release to leave the premises.

When hazards are being released from a site, CEOs should require a constant vigilance by their environmental department heads to find technologies that will constructively support their environmental initiatives that will mitigate the financial responsibility of Section 108 (b), and if passed, the environmental tax.

Where asbestos is concerned, there is a non-thermal, EPA approved process, simple process that destroys the asbestos on-site as it is being removed.

CEOs should always seek out technology for feasible environmental solutions, avoiding future liabilities. Once the aforementioned regulations are put into effect they will become extremely costly to manage with no way to financially disguise environmental cost of a hazard release.