'Dioxin factory' continues despite opposition

By Barry Healy

SYDNEY — The Waterloo incinerator in Sydney's south-east is still operating despite increasing pressure to have it shut down from the state government, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and other critics. The incinerator is provisionally licensed until next August 13, subject to an EPA performance appraisal.

The incinerators owners, Waverley and Woollahra councils, have launched a propaganda campaign through the Sydney Morning Herald to upgrade the facility. In a major article and a follow-up letter to the editor, the former mayor of Woollahra, Neville Gruzman, has proposed building a new "waste-to-energy" incinerator on the current site.

After decades of sponsors' claims that the incinerator is safe, Gruzmans September 3 article admits that the current incinerator has had "environmentally disastrous results" and that it does "belch foul gases into the air".

Three days before the admission, one of Australias leading toxicologists, Mark Donohoe, told the Toxicology '96 conference in Queensland that the incinerator was "malfunctioning, ageing and ineffective ... exposing tens of thousands of Sydney residents to complex mixtures of potent toxins, including dioxins, sub-10 micron particulates, the full spectrum of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons".

"Recent data suggest massive synergism between many of these chemicals, leading to previously unpredicted damage to the nervous system, immune system and reproductive system", he said.

Greenpeace's June 1996 report Dioxin Factories adds to the evidence, stating, "Dioxin emission rates of the Waterloo Incinerator range from 8 to 168 times higher than the standard used in the US and Europe".

Despite the controversy, the owning councils have approached the EPA for permission to continue the current licence for at least another three years. The EPA is supposed to complete its review by the end of September.
[Barry Healy is South Sydney Council waste project officer.]

From GLW issue 247