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Results of the monitoring of dioxin levels in food and feed
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

The European Safety Authority (EFSA) has just published a report on Consumer Protection funded by the European Commission which concludes that 8% of the food and fodder in the European Union exceeds the maximum permitted levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB). To obtain this result 7000 samples have been analysed, all of them recollected in 21 Member States between 1999 and 2008.

Apart from this 8% where dioxin levels exceeded the maximum permitted level, smaller amounts of dioxins have been found in many other supplies. It is true that these substances do not cause immediate health problems. However, in the long term dioxins and its derivatives can cause serious health issues to humans and animals, including many types of cancer. The persistence and the capacity of accumulation of these substances, particularly in the liver and in the fat tissue of the body, raise serious environmental problems. Moreover, these substances are highly volatile: they can be found many kilometres away from the place they were emitted. These contaminants even affect the quality of the milk and eggs of animals found in surrounding areas.

Dioxins and similar compounds, e.g. PCB for instance, include a wide range of toxic substances that develop during the combustion of organic materials at a certain temperature like it happens for example in waste incinerators (or during the waste incineration in cement industries) and during some industrial processes. Moreover, incineration generates microparticles, ashes and highly toxic slag that later must be taken to security landfills.

The organisation Ecologists in Action rejects waste incineration not only on the basis of the pollution it generates, but they are also concerned about its potential to aggravate climate change and it being incompatible with recycling and composting. It destroys many valuable materials such as paper, plastic and organic matter, that should rather be reused, recycled or composted.

Waste incinerators are a very expensive solution (the construction of an incinerator costs millions of Euros, not to mention its maintenance): it requires funding that could otherwise be used for reduction, recuperation and recycling, and it creates fewer jobs than other waste management programmes.

As regards the production of electricity in these incinerators numerous studies concur that its efficiency is very low and the level of CO2 emissions is proportionately higher than when opting for other electricity generating technologies. This way the energy saving that could be obtained with preventive measures, reutilisation and recycling is lot superior to the energy produced by incinerators.