Respect Creation: Do not Burn it.

INCINERATORS - A wasteful and inefficient technology.
by Sean mcDonagh SSC
Doctrine and Life ( July/August 2002) Dominican Publications

INCINERATORS - A wasteful and inefficient technology.

Within the next five years Ireland will take a fateful step which will have implications for this and future generations. We will decide to deal with waste in a sensible way through reducing it and recycling it or we will simply burn it. At the moment waste management plans in Ireland favour incineration, despite disclaimers from local officials and the national government. There are plans to build seven municipal waste incinerators and one national toxic waste incinerator right across the country. Driving around the country one can see signs with the skull and crossbones in almost every county declaring that this community does not want and incinerator. Communities are being divided and I am sure committed Christians have been asked to take sides in the debate about incineration. I hope, in this article, to give some reasons for opposing the building of incinerators at this time.

But before addressing the core issues I think it important to recognise two somewhat contradictory facts. The first is that those involved in environmental activities do not look to the Churches for moral support in contrast to people working for human rights and justice campaigns. This was brought home to me very clearly when I read a review of my recent book Why are we deaf to the cry of the Earth? In the May-June issue of Wild Ireland. "When I read the back of this book, I made a lot of assumptions, the most wrong-headed being that because the author is a Columban missionary priest, the book would not be of interest to me-.... I guessed it would not have much to do with 'the real world'. I presumed that it would be void of real facts on the environment or on global issues. I was wrong. This is an excellent introduction to environmental issues..." One cannot blame the reviewer for her initial assumptions that the Church has nothing concrete to say about local and global environmental destruction. The sad fact is that even though we profess an incarnational and sacramental faith the leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland has, to date, been virtually silent on environmental challenges.

On the other hand I have found that, when a community is faced with an environmental challenges, like the plan to build an incinerator in their area, they are eager to have ethical and religious insights to support their campaign. They want to be able to give an account "of the hope that is in them (us ) (1 Peter 3:15) and relate it to contemporary challenges.

While the local religious leadership has been very poor in engaging with the numerous ecological problems in Ireland considered by Brian Harvey in the recent Joseph Rowntree Report to have "one of the worst environmental records in Europe", there is a growing body of teaching from other sources, including the Holy See. In 1990 Pope John Paul II wrote that "Christians in particular realize that their responsibility with creation and their duty towards nature and the Creator are an essential part of their faith"

In a talk on January 17th 2001 the Pope's tone was more strident as he called for an "ecological conversion" to avert an global ecological disaster.

However, if one looks at the regions of our planet, one realizes immediately that humanity has disappointed the divine expectation. Above all in our time, man has unhesitatingly devastated wooded plains and valleys, polluted the waters, deformed the earth's habitat, made the air unbreathable, upset the hydrogeological and atmospheric systems, blighted green spaces, implemented uncontrolled forms of industrialization, humiliating -- to use an image of Dante Alighieri ("Paradiso," XXII, 151) -- the earth, that flower-bed that is our dwelling.

It is necessary, therefore, to stimulate and sustain the "ecological conversion," which over these last decades has made humanity more sensitive when facing the catastrophe toward which it was moving. Man is no longer "minister" of the Creator. However, as an autonomous despot, he is beginning to understand that he must finally stop before the abyss. In the 1970s and 1980s it was often said that Catholic social teaching was our best kept secret I would suggest that our teaching on the environment is even a better kept secret. I have been asked on a number of occasions to speak about incineration. I have endeavoured to do so in the light of my Christian faith. What follows are some of the arguments I have put forward in opposing incineration as a waste management strategy

Dump or Burn?
Those who promote incineration often challenge a community by asking whether the people would prefer an incinerator to a dump? The assumption is, of course, that by opting for incineration the landfill is precluded. This of course is untrue. One of the basic laws of physics is that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Incinerators only transform matter. In other words each atom that enters the incinerator escapes either through the chimney, or is deposited in the ash.

What goes out the chimney contaminates people, the land and the food chain. If heavy metals like cadmium, lead and mercury are burned these contaminate the ash and make it much more toxic than the original volume of rubbish, much of which is organic and ought to be returned to the soil. This toxic ash must be deposited in a landfill. If these landfills are not properly sealed toxic materials can leach into the water table poisoning the water for generations. Ironically, the more modern an incinerator is, in terms of sophisticated filters designed to minimise air pollution, the more toxic the ash. Often times this ash will be classified as hazardous waste and will have to be disposed in special landfill sites. So you cannot have incineration without landfill.

Waste does not disappear when burned
This belief that if we burn things they simple go away is completely erroneous. Breaking things into fine particles has the effect of vastly increasing their surface area and therefore their ability to pollute. A single lump of waste weighing a pound would have a surface area of 44 square inches. When the same pound is broken into fine particles, its combined surface area grows to 9900 square yards (approximately two soccer fields). This fact is important for several reasons. The incinerators act as synthesizers and therefore compound the waste problem because other deadly toxic substances, not found in the original waste stream, are produced in the combustion process. At temperatures ranging from 400 to 1600 C complex organic molecules break down into basic atoms. Then combustion gas cools as it travels up the chimney stack where some atoms recombine to form new, and often more hazardous, compounds. So fine particles, with their large surface area, provide and inviting place for pollutants like dioxins and furans to attach themselves before they are released into the air. These particles can also become coated with toxic metals cadmium, arsenic, chromium and zinc. Some of these fine particles remain airborne for long periods of time and travel long distances, even hundreds of miles before they settle on land or water. So an incinerator can pollute the environment way beyond the immediate are where it is operating.

Creating dioxins and furans
Dioxins, and their closely related organochlorine cousins furans, are created when you burn, organic matter, newspapers and plastic wrapping or any kind of synthetic material. Dioxin is the collective name for numerous toxic chlorinated compounds that are undesirable by-products of the combustion process and chlorine industry. There are 75 different dioxins and 135 different furans. Some dioxins like TCDD -or 2,3,7, 8-tetracholorodibenzo-p-dioxin are particularly poisonous.

In contrast forest fires create very little few dioxins. So dioxins and furans are very a modern phenomenon. Research from core sediments found little evidence of dioxin before the 1930s. Dioxins are also produced during the manufacturing of certain pesticides and the bleaching of paper. As the ecologist Sandra Steingbrabers put it "dioxins and furans are not the natural-born children of fire. They are the unplanned, unwanted offspring of modern chlorine chemistry".

Proponents will argue that the new generation 'state of the art' operate to very high standards. Despite these claims even the modern incinerator spews dioxins into the air. They contaminate the land and subsequently the food that is grown on this land. Dioxins accumulate in the tissue of grazing animals like cows. They, in turn, pass the dioxins on to humans when we consume dioxin-contaminated milk or meat. Furthermore there is no safe levels for dioxin exposure. Recent research indicates that it can disrupt biological process at even a few parts per trillion.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the statistics used by advocates of incinerators to prove that they are not a health hazard normally relate to laboratory tests or those carried out under supervision. But in the real world things are not so neat, clean and tidy. This is what researchers from the US EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration discovered in a 1990 study. They found that the level of emissions achieved under laboratory conditions or even in a commercial incinerator being inspected by prior arrangements by a regulatory authority are likely to be far lower than those routinely emitted during normal operations. They made 62 unannounced visit to 29 incinerators around the country. 69 percent of the facilities were found to have violated of their emission's license.

Danger to Human Health and the Environment
Incinerator pose a threat to human health and the environment. Dioxins are fat soluble so they can easily fool the cell membrane and gain access to the nucleus and the DNA. The damage is done when they switch on certain genes that in turn to can lead to cancer, disruption of the endocrine system and depression of the immune system. This is why dioxin has been linked to cancer in many different organs of the body.

A report from the United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1994 stated that dioxins cause cancer. The same report also stated that the effect of dioxins on the immune and reproduction systems was much greater than previously thought. It now appears that dioxins disrupt a variety of organs known as the endocrine system. These include the testicles, the ovaries, the pancreas, the adrenal glands, the thyroid, parathyroid and the thymus. The impact of endocrine disruptors on animals can be disastrous- thyroid dysfunction in birds and fish, decreased fertility in birds, fish, shellfish and mammals, metabolic abnormalities in birds, fish and mammals, demasculisation and feminisation of male fish. The report claimed 95 percent of dioxins found in humans in the US could be traced to one form or another of incineration. The Dutch National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection came up with similar findings. They estimated that waste incinerators can be held responsible for 80 percent of all dioxin emissions into the air in Holland.

A danger to health and contaminates the food chain
In November 1999 the Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) strongly opposed building an incinerator at Kilcock because of its negative impact on human and animal health. Doctors like Elizabeth Cullen, the joint secretary of the Irish Doctors' Environmental Association (IDEA), are opposed to incineration for a number of reasons.
First of all there is no baseline medical database on public health like blood tests, tissue samples, respiratory examinations against which any alteration in environmental quality could be measure in the future. Without this data any increase in cancers, immune diseases, problems with endocrine glands will be dismissed as anecdotal.
Secondly, dioxins are persistent organic pollutants and they bioacculumate in the food chain posing a health risk to this and future generations. They also biomagnify. According to the authors of Our Stolen Future concentrations of a persistent chemical can be 25 million times higher in a top predator, such as a herring gull, then in the surrounding polluted water 2 . This is why even seemingly minuscule amounts of chemicals such as PCBs or dioxins are so dangerous especially for babies in their mother's womb. There is a particular time in their maturation when they are particularly vulnerable and the consequences can be horrendous as happened in the thalidomide tragedy in the early 1960s.

In May 2002 Dr. Cullen told a meeting of people opposed to the proposed incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork in May 2002 that "it does not make sense to burn these chemicals which will combine in the furnace, releasing unknown compounds, whose composition and effects we know little about into the environment".

Cold statistics are helpful but nothing beat meeting someone whose has been blighted by emissions from an incinerator. In August 2002 a Belgian anti-incinerator campaigner, Fred de Baere, his wife, Kristine, and son David visited Ireland and spoke at meetings organized by anti-incineration groups in Ireland. His story is not just one of pain, suffering but also of the strength of his character in researching what happened to his family.

He is certain that the incinerators have cause major health problems for many people during the past 20 years, though the impact often did not show up for 10-15 years after the incinerators were opened.

His own story of pain begins when he returned to Sint-Niklass (Belgium). This is a relatively industry free area of Flanders. In the mid 1970s an incinerator with the capacity to burn 55,500-ton per year was built less than two miles from the city centre. Between 1977 and 1988 the incinerator operated with limited filtering. Ash was stored and transported in open containers.

Fred married in 1977 and in 1979 his wife suffered a spontaneous abortion after being pregnant for three months. One year later his wife became pregnant again, this time with twins. After eight months she entered hospital for delivery to find that the twins were dead. The doctors who carried out tests claimed that both incidents were mere accidents. In 1981 a daughter was born who, at the time, seem very healthy. She is now 21 and doctors have discovered that she has suffered from hormonal imbalance and that she only has a period twice a year. In 1996 a son was born who suffers from a genetic effect associated with dwarfism. De Baere is convinced that all these events and the high incidences of cancer and hormonal disruptions that he has documented in the vicinity of the incinerator are during toxic emissions. He campaigned for the closure of incinerator at Sint-Niklaas but has had little success with politicians. Recently he has brought his case to the courts. The court has directed that the incinerator be closed at the end of 2002.

In August 2002 the World Health Organisation urged governments to establish an immediate inquiry into the effects of endocrine-disrupting (EDCs) chemicals on human and animal populations. The report acknowledges that there is strong evidence linking reproductive abnormalities in populations of birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians with endocrine-disrupting chemicals. It is also felt that EDCs have contributed to the increase in breast, testicular and prostate cancers among humans and the decline in sperm count. The report details a large body of evidence pointing to the way wildlife has been harmed by exposure to EDCs, including industrial chemicals such as phthalates, dioxins as well as herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

This is why building incinerators in places where agriculture is an important element in community life and the economy is madness both from a health and economic perspective. Most of the dioxins are delivered to humans not through breathing them in air but through eating food or drinking milk from areas where dioxins are present. If there is even a slight doubt that food may be contaminated in any way the supermarket chains will not source food from such an area. Thus farming in the area will be undermined. At the moment Ireland has lowest dioxin levels in milk in Europe. A good reputation for producing chemical free food will become more and more important as the 21st century unfolds as scientists and doctors learn more about the negative impact of the cocktail of human-created chemicals that are already in the environment.

If the authorities decide to build eight incinerators in Ireland every part of the country will be affected by emissions and we will then lose our reputation for producing clean, fresh and healthy food. Even now it ought to be clear that the future of Irish agriculture will not be in mass production of foods. Given the size of our farms, and the cost of inputs we cannot compete with large ranches in the US and Australia. We ought to be aiming at niche markets, especially the production of high quality, clean food. Irish people are already well placed in the speciality foods markets. Thirty-five Irish speciality food companies won 90 medals, including 13 medals, at the Great Taste Award in London in August 2002. The awards covered a wide range of products. These included breads, cheese, beers, meats, chocolates, preserves and fish. This market is now worth over euro 250 and has a potential to grow by over 65 per cent according to Bord Bia 4. Building incinerators will have a negative impact on this potentially lucrative market.

People do not want incinerators built in their areas. An MRBI poll carried out in South Tipperary in June 2002 found that 70 percent of the people are against including incineration as part of a waste management strategy in the South East. According to The Irish Times (July 9, 2002) Wexford County Council also rejected incineration. Despite this Minister Cullen continues to promote incineration, under the guise of thermal treatment, as part of the waste management strategy.

Locked into incineration for 30 years
Once a decision to incinerate is taken a community is locked into this way of dealing with waste for at least 30 years. The plant will require a steady flow of waste to make it viable financially. Operators typically demand a contract with local or national government to supply them with a minimum amount of waste to burn over protracted periods such as 25-30 years. Naturally such contracts remove the incentive to prevent the production of waste and, furthermore, close down the possibilities of developing new technologies to deal with waste in a more sensible way in the future.

Incinerators have no place in a world that is seeking Sustainability
Sustainable development calls for an alternative approaches to waste management. These begin by attempting to prevent waste in an effort to conserve natural resources which are precious and will be needed by future generation. The next step in the process is to promote policies that reduce waste to a minimum. This will involve working with people who create waste, especially those in the manufacturing, building and retailing sections of the economy to reduce waste. Waste that cannot be prevented or minimized should be reused, repaired, recycled or composted. "Hard-to-recycle materials, like tires, drywall, plastics, insulation, glass and biosolids, can even by disintegrated by intense sound waves into fine powder for easier reprocessing.

Ethical Issues involved in incineration
In the natural world there is no such thing as waste. During the 3.5 billion years of life on earth God, working through the extraordinary process of evolution, saw the natural world evolve from single-cell organisms to the wonder and diversity we find in the world today. During millions of years nature 'learned' that the only viable way to continue and enrich life on earth was by recycling everything. What was waste for one species became food for another in a diverse and stable ecosystem. Humans technologies, instead of imitating natural ones, decided to break this sustainable cycle and create high through-put and waste. As the economy has heated up in recent years there has been an exponential increase in waste. Globally and here in Ireland we have become a throw-away society. But this reckless behaviour is both unnecessary and cannot continue indefinitely on a finite planet. This means creating the maximum of wealth with a minimum of materials flow. Industries will mimic ecosystems in which one "company will feed upon the nontoxic and useful waste of another" 6. It will also mean overhauling industrial designs so that no waste is created in the first place by the manufacturing process. Scores of examples are given in the book Natural Capitalism.

On May 23, 2002 the UN Environment and Development Programme published a report called The Global Environment Outlook. 1200 scientists collaborated in the work which surveys, from an ecological perspective, the past 30 years and looks forward to 2032. It makes chilling reading and the message was clear. If we continue in a business-as-usual way allowing market forces to determine everything then by 2032, 70 percent of the Earth surface will have suffered severe impact from human activity. About one quarter of the current species will have been driven into extinction. Resources will be severely limited and much of humanity will be living in poverty. The message of the report is that we have got to change or else we will leave a blighted planet to the next generation. We are now living as if we are the last generation of humans to inhabit that planet.

But incineration supports and canonizes everything that is wrong about our present destructive way of living. As I have written above the public authorities will be committed to supplying waste to the incinerator even if new technologies are developed to facilitate resource recovery. Once waste is burned it can no longer be used. Over the next decade or so public attitudes may change towards waste production. Legislation from Europe and the national governments will, most probably, insist that companies assume responsibility for the whole life-cycle of their products. Xerox's worldwide re-manufacturing operations boosted earnings by about $200 million over the past three decades.

In future companies will be obliged to manufacture their products in such a way that they can be easily recyclable. The declaration of "The Factor Ten Club" begins with the prophetic words "within one generation nations can achieve a ten-fold increase in efficiency with which they use energy, natural resources and other materials" 8. Already "Factor Four" (a 75 percent reduction) efficiency has been championed by the governments of Norway and Netherlands. If the present predictions about the efficiency of nanotechnologies are anywhere close to the mark waste will be reduced even further. If incinerators are built now in Ireland they will still be operating and demanding high volumes of waste to keep them in operation. Ireland will not be able to gain from the new productivity-oriented industrial revolution that aims to do more with less.

Minister Cullen (the Irish minister for the environment) claimed on "Morning Ireland" ( July 5th ) that unless we build incinerators to deal with our waste we will soon be wading knee deep in waste in Ireland. In the 1880s many people in London and New York felt that their cities would be drowned in horse manure. A short sighted politician could have called for a huge investment in a technology to mechanically sweep the streets each night into drains underneath the roads of London and collect all the manure in one area. Such a technology could have incorporated the most sophisticated swivel designs but it would have been redundant within two decades as a new form of transport- the automobile- changed everything. The same kind of revolution is now underway in the area of resource and energy use and management. The Irish Governments ought not to promote obsolete ways of dealing with problems. Instead they ought to use their fiscal policy to promote innovation that protect both human health and the environment. Governments need to give leadership by rewarding those companies that promote the efficiency and longevity of products.

In Denmark, for example, landfill taxes increased the reuse of construction material from 4 to 82 percent in less than a decade. This is twenty times greater than the average 4 percent that has been achieved in most industrial countries.

It is important to remember that a faulty economic understanding helped to create mountains of waste. It believed that natural capital and human capital were of little significance compared to the finished consumer item. Economic theory dealt with extraction and manufacturing costs and profits. Little though was given to the natural world that was mined in the first place and which because to final resting place for waste. These were somehow free. As natural capital and places to put 'waste' run out the traditional economic paradigm is seen to be very short-sighted. It urgently needs to be replaced by a new more adequate one that values natural capital and people.

In the present economic climate it is foolish to think that there will be money to fund both incineration and the elaborate infra-structure that is necessary to support alternative ways of managing waste. A high capital investment in incinerators will scupper all other developments. The citizen will also be forced to pay a tax on massive waste production long after such wasteful production methods and consumption patterns have been phased out elsewhere.

In his January 1, 1990 statement on the environment Pope John Paul II saw clearly that a throw-away, consumer culture was destroying the earth. He stated that " modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it take a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these cause.... Simplicity moderation and discipline as well as a spirit of sacrifice must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer from the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few".

From what I have written it is clear that there are serious dangers to human health and the environment from incinerator emissions and ash. In that context the precautionary principle should prevail. In January 1998 a group of activists, scholars, scientists and lawyers met at Wingspread, home of the Johnson Foundation in Racine, Wisconsin to discuss the precautionary principle. The group was convened by the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN). The Wingspread definition of precaution contained three important elements, namely the threat of harm, scientific uncertainty and preventative, precautionary action. The Wingspread statement on the precautionary principle read as follows "when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity rather than the opponents should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action at all"

It would seem to me that given the serious health and environmental risks involved in incineration the precautionary principle would preclude building them.

Intergenerational Justice
There is an added ethical concern which involves leaving a toxic legacy to future generations. Moralists in the past have not felt the need to discuss questions of inter-generational justice for the simple reason that few people thought that one generation could wreak such havoc on the planet so as to seriously endanger the well-being of future generations. Now moralists are asking: Does this generation have the right to use up all the fossil fuel in the world, erode its topsoil, deplete the ozone layer, build up nuclear waste, destroy tropical forest, hasten climate change, leave a toxic legacy to the next generation so that one fifth of the world's population can today live in affluence? Future generations have the right to inherit a world as fertile, beautiful and healthy as the world this generation inhabits. This surely involves protecting biodiversity and ensuring that a cycle of poison should not be left to plague future generations.

Call to Live Lightly on the Earth
At the heart of an earth and human-centred ethic there must be a call to live more lightly on the earth and to work for a more just and equitable human community. At the moment a mere 20 percent of the world's population consume 80 percent of the world's resources. Much of the current development thinking is based on the assumption that, in time, people in the Third Word will enjoy the same levels of affluence as those of us in the First World. Now we know that our finite world cannot produce these resources and more, important still, the earth's processes would be unable to survive the impact of even attempting such a course of action. 10 billion people living as affluently as we do would wipe out the world's forests in about 15 years and accelerate global warming to take two examples. The truth is that the survival and well-being of the human and earth community depends on whether we in the First World are able to live dignified, fulfilled lives on about one-tenth of the resources we now use. We have the scientific knowledge to be able to do this but at the moment lack the political will to do it. Surely the Churches, with their traditions of asceticism, ought to be able to give a creative lead to encourage people to live more simple and creative lives for their own well-being and that of all future generations.

Waste prevention will also benefit producers of products. It will offer them opportunities to achieve savings in terms of the cost raw materials, energy and disposal charges. This is why the targets set for waste reduction in the recent Irish government's strategy for sustainable development are woefully inadequate. The plan is to reduce waste product by 20 percent by the year 2012. Other countries like New Zealand are much more ambitious. They have embraced of zero waste goal. In that plan all waste is seen as a potential resource for something else.

Finally, we ought also to be concerned about poisoning land. In our Judeo-Christian tradition land is one of God's most precious gifts to humankind. The second account of creation in the Book of Genesis tells us that God's involvement with humans does not end with creating them. Immediately 'the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east and there he put the man he had fashioned' (Genesis. 2.8). God instructed the man to till and to keep the land (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew words used here have overtones of service, protecting and defending the land from harm. The tradition of stewardship has emerged from this perspective. Every seven years land was to be allowed to remain fallow in order to regain its fertility (Exodus. 23: 10-11). The cultivators were only God's tenants and it was clearly recognised that there were restrictions on what they could do with the land. The Land must not be sold in perpetuity, for the land belongs to me and to me you are only strangers and guests (Leviticus. 25:23).

Land is also at the heart of our Christian faith. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we bring bread and wine to the altar. In the Offertory Prayer we recognise that it is "fruit of the earth and work of human hands". Bread comes to us from the fertility of the land, the skill and hard work of the farmer, miller and baker. This 'fruit of the earth and work of human hands' sequence is the ideal relationship that ought to exist between humans and the rest of creation. It is based on a mutually enhancing relationship rather than one exploitation and destruction which is what building eight or incinerators around the country would mean.

In the Eucharist we bring gifts from our land, bread and wine, that are destined to be transformed into the Bread of Life and Cup of Eternal Salvation - the Body and Blood of Christ our ultimate source of nourishment as Christians. If we continue to pollute our lands then these precious gifts will also be contaminated with the fingerprints of sickness and death. How then, we might ask, can this tainted wheat ever become the Bread of Life for us?

1 Brian Harvey, Rights and Justice World in Ireland a new base line, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust 2002, page 23. 2 Pope John Paul II "Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all Creation" Vatican City, January 1,1990. 3 Sandra Steingraber, 1997, Living Down Stream, Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, page 218. 4 Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future, Abacus, London WC3E 7EN, page 26. 5 Deirdre O'Flynn, "Burning issue of toxic waste", Irish Examine Feelgood, May 24, page 3. 6Belgian Campaigner Claims Illness is Due to Incinerator, The Meath Chronicle, August 11, 2002, page 18. 7 Lorna Duckworth, "Global probe into 'gender-bender' chemicals scare" The Irish Independent, page 11. 8 Ray Ryan, "Ireland's medal haul a taste of things to come in speciality food sector" The Irish Examiner. August 20, 2002. 9 Hawken, Paul, Lovins, Amory, Lovins, L. Hunter, 1999, Natural Capitalism, Little Brown, London, page 80. 10 Hawken, Paul, Lovins Amory and Amory .L. Hunter 1999, Natural Capitalism, Little Brown, London, page 18. 11 Quoted in Natural Capitalism , page 78. 12 Quoted in Natural Capitalism, 1999, Paul Hawkens, Amory Lovins and l.Hunter Lovins, Little Brown Books, London, page 11. 13 . ibid. 167. 14 Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all Creation" Vatican City, January 1, 1900, No 13. 15 Sustainable Development (1997) A strategy for Ireland, Department of the Environment.