News & media
Datum: 26 november 2022
Gezondheid
Karel Beckman
“We leven in een gefluoriseerde samenleving”, zegt Arkenbout. Hij maakt zich grote zorgen over de poly- en perfluoralkylstoffen (PFAS) “die ons als een tsunami overspoelen”. Arkenbout, die met zijn bureau Toxicowatch in heel Europa actief is, trekt al jaren aan de bel over de snelle verspreiding van zogenoemde Zeer Zorgwekkende Stoffen (ZZS) als dioxinen en PFAS. Hij is niet de enige. Onlangs nog riepen 116 wetenschappers de WHO op, de richtlijnen voor PFAS-blootstelling drastisch aan te scherpen. Ook de Nederlandse regering is bezorgd: zij werkt aan “een Europees traject om het gebruik en de productie van PFAS aan banden te leggen”.
Blcbx today 25-11-2022
PFAS Face masks panel presentation A. Arkenbout
Date: February 7, 2022
Waste incinerator Paris Ivry XIII, biomonitoring research, C3R
It is hard to find a reference site uncontaminated, especially in a big capital city like Paris, but references are essential in research like this. The results of contaminated and uncontaminated locations have to be compared. But it’s hard to find unpolluted locations in this highly contaminated world. Let me tell you a story. When we start the research of emissions of a state of art incinerator in the Netherlands, a lot of dead animals were found in the direct environment close to the incinerator, like birds, sheep, and hares. We have analysed the livers of dead hares on dioxins but needed an unpolluted site as a reference. It was nearly Christmas, and we found a poulterer, trading hares from the castle domain of our King in Wassenaar, the Netherlands. Our hypothesis was that the garden fields of the King should be a clean site. However, the results were completely the opposite, a very high level of dioxins, especially dioxin-like PCB 126, was found at the Kings domain. Just to illustrate how hard it is to find a clean location as a reference.
Biomonitoring
Video about biomonitoring
Biomonitoring in Spanisch Basque Country. In the Northwest of Spain, just across the border of France, in the Basque Country, Euskal Herria, an incinerator has been built in the municipal district of Donostia-San Sebastián, in the place called Zubieta, finished in 2019, and coming in operation in 2020. The complexity of the chemical content of today’s household and industrial waste presents a challenge for turning modern waste into energy in (WtE) waste incinerators. How safe are incinerators? ToxicoWatch performs biomonitoring research in the environment of the incinerator in Zubieta.
Dioxins in Harlingen. Documentary of the population's distrust of the government and the research of ToxicoWatch in the emissions of the incinerator.
"Angst in Harlingen"/ Anxiety in Harlingen (2015).
Documentary of Zembla about waste incineration, eggs, and emissions.
The toxic toll of waste incineration: measuring health and environmental impacts, March 3, 2022
Video conference research Zero Waste Europe
