Plenary speech, Wednesday 23rd of June
Statement by the Environmental NGOs on Housing and Health
By Sascha Gabizon, Director WECF, Coordinator European EcoForum
Dear Chairman, ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for this occasion to present the view of the environmental NGOs on the issue of health
and housing. We have read with great interest the studies prepared by the WHO office and we
believe housing and health is a very timely and urgent issue. We would like to draw your
attention to 2 issues which we think are crucial, and which have so far been little addressed:
-
Health effects from indoor plastic waste burning
Health effects from toxic materials used in houses and furnishing
Photo: Huts instead of houses: addressing poverty as an environmental health issue
From my own work in Eastern Europe and the EECCA countries, we see that there is an growing
gap between the rural and the urban areas. Inequality between the rural and urban areas is
growing , poverty is increasing. In some cases the situation is as dramatic as for this village of
Roma’s near Sibiu in Romania. But we see similar situations in many villages. On this picture
people live in humid huts.
Next slide
Photo: Bad stoves = respiratory problems
With the market orientation and privatisation of public services such as electricity and heating, an
increasing number of rural families are more and more dependent on burning biomass in ovens to
provide for heat in winter .with bad ovens and their houses are full of smoke during cooking and
heating. Being exposed to it, is a cause of respiratory diseases like asthma, lung infections and
cancer. If we want to address this environmental health problem, we have to address poverty and
growing inequalities.
Photo: plastic waste in stoves
But even biomass costs money, wood and coal all have their price, which is why in our
experience many people in rural areas all over the Eastern European and NIS region, use plastic
waste to fuel their stoves. Plastic bags, as on this photo are rolled up and used to light fires. It’s
an easy way to get rid of the waste and some plastics burn very well. The problem is that almost
all those plastic bags contain chlorine compounds, like PVC. When such bags are burned this
generates dioxins. Dioxins are the most toxic to the human organisms. They are carcinogenic and
a hormone disruptor and persistent, and they accumulate in our body-fat and thus mothers give it
directly to their babies via the placenta. We are not seeing the worst health effects yet, as dioxins
are a long-term poison.
Photo: dioxins can be set free when burning plastic waste containing for example PVC
Therefore it is essential that you as ministers of health and environment, immediately do three
things
1. inform your people –your doctors, your nurses, your teachers, your local administrators,
the general public - about the health dangers of burning plastic waste. People in the CEE
and NIS have NO idea about the dangers of burning plastic waste!! They should be
informed urgently!
2. ban PVC packaging and all chlorinated plastic and promote less dangerous types of
plastic but in particular, promote re-usable packaging such as glass and paper, by using
market instruments such as deposit schemes and taxes on one-way packaging
3. develop with your colleagues of the other ministries social schemes to allow the poorest
families to have heating in winter without destroying their health
Now I will address point 2, toxic houses
As recent studies of medical scientists have shown, - and we heard about this yesterday at the
pre-conference with medical doctors organised by the EEA – our populations have high bodyburdens of toxic chemicals in their bodies, in Western Europe the levels of DDT have gone down
after this chemical was forbidden, but it has stabilized at the still very dangerous level, on the
other hand, scientists now find hundreds of other chemicals in the bodies of our populations,
including newly identified dangerous ones like brominated flame retardants, which are as toxic as
PCBs!. So the old toxins have reduced a bit, but the new ones – like brominated flame retardants
- have been doubling in our body-fat every 2-5 years!
The problem of these new chemicals is that many of them are hormone
disrupting, bio-accumulative and persistent, which means that mothers
give them to their babies via the placenta and thus these babies get
between 25 and 70 times the maximal dose allowed for adults in a lifetime,
these babies get them in a few months! We are already seeing the effects,
as a study of babies from before birth till the age of 12 has shown in the
Netherlands, babies born with higher dioxin and PCB –between 5-10 % -,
had higher levels of problems with learning, intelligence and attention. The
current levels of dioxin and PCBs in the Dutch population mean that we
are doubling the number of retarded children in our population and halving
the number of very intelligent children every 10 years. A new study which
was only released on 6th of June, of the Netherlands council of health,
shows health effects of pesticides on children and highlights the severe
brain damage on children from pesticides.
Now why do I mention this, because one of the source of exposure to these
chemicals are among food our houses. The Greenpeace house-dust studies,
which were done in 5 European countries show that our house-dust
contains highly toxic chemicals, particularly Phtalates, brominated flame
retardants and organotins.
I have myself a 3 year old daughter. And trying to be a responsible parent I
would like to avoid exposing here to health hazards. But this is very
difficult. Let’s look at this typical baby room (slide). A typical baby room
has organictins or pyrethroides in anti-mite pesticides coming from the
carpet, it probably no longer has lead coming from the paint, but it has
very probably still furans, and formaldehyde leaching from the pressedwood furniture, it has phthalates leaching from the baby toys (plastic balls,
clothes with imprints, it has phtalate esters used in wallpapers, furnishing,
it has brominated flame retardants leaching from the baby phone and other
electrical appliances, it may have phthalates and bisphenol-A leaching
from the plastic baby bottle and parabens in the wet-wipes to clean the
baby bottom. Our baby is surrounded by toxic chemicals most of which
accumulate in it’s little body and start effecting its hormones and can cause
cancer in later years.
We therefore ask you, Ministers of Health and Environment, to develop the following actions as
part of your national CEHAP’s:
1. develop a strong action plan for children’s health, which also focusses on toxic material in
houses. For the European Union countries a good start has been made with the SCALE
Health and Environment Action plan!
2. develop a good chemicals legislation which will give incentives to progressive companies
to substitute the thousands of dangerous chemicals being used in everyday home products
by non-toxic alternatives, in particular the alternatives should not be bio-accumulative,
persistent and hormone-disrupting. For the countries part of the EU, we call on your to
support and strengthen the proposed chemicals legislation REACH. Stand up for a toxic
free future for our children, show courage to protect the future generations!
Thank you very much for your attention