Pollution in South Africa

Living safely in a polluted world.
by Glenn Ashton.

There are over 80, 000 chemicals in daily use around the world, with over 5000 new compounds entering our environment annually. Many of these

are known to be toxic to both humans and other living organisms. The situation has become so bad that a new term that has entered the lexicon over the past few years – the body burden. The body burden is defined as the total amount of chemicals, metals and radionucleotides present in the body at any given time.

The quantities of chemicals entering the environment is staggering. Organic chemical production in the USA has increased from around 7 million tonnes in 1950 to around 250 million tonnes in 1989. This amount is estimated to double every five to seven years. We can safely assume therefore that the amount of organic (carbon based) chemicals presently entering the environment is over half a million tonnes in the USA alone. This is an increasingly urgent challenge to meet.

South Africans are certainly not immune to this threat. Agricultural pesticides, industrial chemicals, antibiotics, and the growth of our local chemical industry under the aegis of development have caused similar increases in chemical use and exposure. Many people assumed they were immune to these problems locally but after testing have been found to have alarmingly elevated levels of many such products.

There is a group of chemicals called the dirty dozen, so called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs. Amongst these are included substances such as Polychlorinated bi-phenols (PCB’s), furans, dioxins and others such as DDT and dieldrin, Lindane and chlordane. Most of us have these chemicals in our body, several of which are almost indestructible. While some POPs are being phased out, developing nations do not have the capacity to monitor the removal of these chemicals from their national territory or the bodies of their people.

Even infants carry a body burden inherited from their mothers and exacerbated by further chemical transfer in breast milk. Most POPs are fat soluble and chemicals such as PCBs and dioxins have been found in isolated groups of people like the Inuits (Esquimo) of the North American Arctic and their neighbours the polar bears, seals and whales. These virtually indestructible chemicals are now globally ubiquitous.

It is not as if chemical companies were uninformed of jeopardy. Internal documents exposed in court cases have shown time and again that massive multinational corporations such as DuPont and Monsanto have covered up evidence of the dangers of their products. Monsanto was even found guilty of “conduct so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilised society,” after knowingly polluting the town of Anniston, Alabama with PCBs for decades. It is often cheaper for large corporations to simply pay fines rather than clean up their toxic mess.

At the start of the twentieth century the incidence of cancer amongst men was around 1 in 11 and amongst women 1 in 14. Today one in two men and one in three women will succumb to cancer. Clearly chemicals, heavy metals and radionucleotides have played a seminal role in this sharp increase that has accelerated in tandem with increased pollution levels. It is not only cancers that have increased so precipitously. Multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons Disease, Alzheimer’s, as well as endocrine and other illnesses are reaching unprecedented levels globally.

Very few chemicals are tested for human toxicity. When testing is performed it is almost inevitably on small mammals that are largely irrelevant to an accurate analysis of the extent of problem on humans. Testing is usually far too brief to be meaningful.

More worrying is the synergistic effect of these chemicals. The way in which they inter-react within our individual metabolic systems is not properly considered. The chemical industry has vehemently resisted transparent and meaningful testing of its products for decades. Recent attempts to impose more stringent safeguards within the EU have hit a wall of industry lobbying and litigation in attempts to stall or weaken it.

It is also remarkable that the South African Department of Environmental Affairs has, together with the South African Revenue Service, begun to examine the environmental and health costs of direct and indirect support to polluting industries and chemical clusters. For instance agricultural pesticides are under examination as to whether they should continue to be zero tax rated. Industry aligned organisations will certainly lobby to halt any such imposition upon the unfettered trade of their products.

South Africa has a particularly lax approach to the distribution of agrochemicals and several chemicals banned elsewhere in the world remain permitted to be used here. Organochlorines and -phosphates remain widely used and abused in South Africa. The result is increased risk to our population. Genetically Modified crops are of particular risk as many are engineered to be resistant to chemicals, several of which are linked to cancer and endocrine disruption.

Chemical hot spots such as the South Durban Basin, with its petrochemical complex, are implicated in numerous health effects on its residents. Other locations like Sasolburg, Secunda, Vanderbijl Park, Milnerton and Tableview are equally at risk. Organisations like the NGO Groundwork have both analysed the releases of chemicals from these complexes and lobbied to make those responsible for such pollutants to take responsibility for their effects.

South Africa also faces risks from vast amounts of mercury and other toxic gasses emitted from our coal power plants. These pollutants migrate towards local water supplies and eventually into surrounding ocean areas, concentrating in fish that are in turn consumed by humans.

Our massive mining industry also creates unique pollution problems. Mine waste is often a health risk to millions of people in our most densely populated region of the country.

Leaching from landfills, resulting from poor waste management practice is another threat with toxic chemicals migrating from these sites into precious pockets of groundwater, polluting it for all time.

Unfortunately we do not presently have laboratories capable of properly measuring our body burden, although some work is being undertaken to rectify this in Cape Town as well as in other centres. If people want to be tested here it is an expensive and time-consuming process where samples of tissue and blood have to be sent overseas for proper analysis. A full range of tests can run to more than R30, 000.

Many of the substances to which we are exposed are not only directly toxic but are also genotoxic and/ or endocrine system disrupters. Even such innocuous materials like plastics and clothing, contain substances such as phthalates and Teflon related toxins.

How do we avoid these attacks on our bodily integrity? Self-education and simple living appear to provide the best safeguard from being exposure. Choosing where you live is a luxury absent to most. The situation amongst residents in hotspots like the South Durban Bowl and other petrochemical complexes is all the more dire for their lack of alternative or redress.

Indoors living areas generally are far more polluted than outdoors; ensure your home is well ventilated. This is especially important in relation to new houses. It is staggering that many major South African paint manufacturers continue to use lead in paints. Even minuscule levels of lead have a proven effect on young children.

In the UK it is forbidden to occupy a new home for at least three months because of elevated levels of dangerous chemicals, including poly-vinyl chloride (PVC), volatile organocarbons such as thinners, benzene and toluene, as well as numerous other more exotic chemicals.

We must be very careful about the products we choose use in our homes. Many household cleaners, cosmetics and chemicals contain toxic components known to disrupt various metabolic functions. We are fortunate to have some non-toxic local alternatives to conventional chemical products, such as the Enchantrix range of home and personal care products. There are additionally many old-fashioned cleaning methods that work even better than chemical products.

It is also useful to reduce consumption of fat. Many of the most dangerous pollutants are fat-soluble, making avoidance of animal and natural fats advisable, not just for dietary reasons but for our body burden.

Certain natural and chemical substances can be taken to minimise or reduce the body burden of various compounds, particularly heavy metals (SAJNM No. ?) and some organic chemicals. Chelates and natural herbal and plant based cleansers are commonly used yet their effects are sometimes disputed and they can cause harm if used improperly.

The best choice is complete avoidance. This is probably why organic foods, natural products and health foods are skyrocketing in popularity.

Our best protection lies in living consciously. Once we have identified threats to our health we can act to avoid potentially harmful substances or environments.

All the same, we are not absolved, as well-resourced and informed members of society, from protesting stridently against the unacceptable imposition of these substances on ourselves and our world. We cannot continue to permit the presence of such substances simply to fulfil the desire for short-term profit of a few unscrupulous individuals.

Whats lurking out there to get us?

Aerosols: Any fine particulates including natural sources such as dust volcanic ash, but increasingly refers to the products of energy production such as smoke and chemical products in the atmosphere.
Antibiotics and pharmaceuticals: These are used on an industrial scale and are found in streams, drinking water and food, reducing their usefulness.
Heavy Metals: Lead, uranium, cadmium, are all dangerous in any amount but others like copper, zinc and cobalt are needed in small amounts.
Industrial Chemicals: A constantly expanding list including many of the groups in this list as well as other products such as petrochemicals, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, polymers, paints, and oleochemicals.
Organochlorines: Range from organic hydrocarbons such as chloroform to dioxin, DDT, dicofol, heptachlor, endosulfan, chlordane, mirex as well as PCBs, and chemical warfare agents such as Phosgene. Not all organochlorines are toxic but most are.
Organophosphates: Common pesticides such as Chlorpyrifos (Dursban) and Diazinon, both phased out in the US but in widespread use here. Sarin is another OP.
Plastics: while most plastics are chemically inert some contain Phthalates that are linked to endocrine system disruption. Plastics also emit toxic chemicals when burned. Plastic catalysts are often highly reactive and toxic.
Radionucleotides: Products of nuclear production and decay, such as uranium, plutonium, radium, americanum, polonium and other radioactive products.
The dirty dozen: PCBs, dioxins, furans, DDT and the pesticides aldrin, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, mirex, toxaphene, dieldrin, endrin and heptachlor, known collectively as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
Volatile Organic Carbon (VOCs): Hydrocarbons like methane and also more complex compounds like xylene, toluene, acetone, benzene and the CFC (ozone depleting) varieties of chemicals. Many VOCs are atmospheric pollutants.