TMI
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This morning, the Press is reporting on "Canada not ready to dispose of mercury-laden light bulbs" - Vancouver Sun from The Canadian Press Dean Beeby
Mercury-laden CFL:
SnipBeginning next January, a new regulation will effectively ban the sale of standard incandescent bulbs in favour of energy-efficient versions, most of which contain mercury.
So-called compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, will also enter the waste stream as they break or burn out, many destined for landfills where their harmful mercury can get into the water.
Environment Canada (Pages 3 and 11) says the MERCURY contained in a typical thermometer can contaminate five Olympic-size swimming pools to toxic levels. Snip
Imagine that, one Typical thermometer can contaminate FIVE OLYMPIC-SIZE SWIMMING POOLS! There's no mention, however, of how many Compact Fluorescent lamps can fit into a Typical thermometer............
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From Christy Clark's Minister of Environment, Terry Lake's (fitting last name) desktop:
Did you know that the average British Columbian uses about 490 litres of water each day? If you include the water that is embedded in the food you eat, the clothes you wear and the products you use every day, your “water footprint” may be over 6,000 litres a day. Over the course of a year, that’s almost a full Olympic-sized swimming pool of water per person! - Living Water Smart
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Maple Ridge uses 4,200 full Olympic sized swimming pools per year, that's 10.5 million cubic meters .... population 69,000 to 75,000.
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Olympic-size swimming pool is the type of swimming pool used in the Olympic Games, where the race course is 50 metres in length and 25 metres in width. - Wikipedia
Success story
Approximately 2.9 million litres of municipal drinking water is conserved annually with a very basic pipe configuration. This exceeds the volume of water required to fill an Olympic size Swimming Pool. Page 4 of 4
There are Three watersheds (drainage and catchment areas) in Metro Vancouver Water District, and whereas they are different in land area, the volume of water is essentially the same. Population: 2,000,000... Two Million......
Capilano Lake held back by Cleveland Dam....... from an earlier Post.
The math should be easy here, based upon Minister Lake's calculations...... of one full Olympic-sized per person... Maple Ridge's population versus 4,200 pools....
2,000,000 X 1 = 2,000,000 Olympic Size swimming pools
However:
ONE THERMOMETER can contaminate to toxic levels FIVE Olympic Size Swimming Pools.
400,000 thermometers would be needed to contaminate 2 million Olympic swimming pools
One/Third of Four Hundred Thousand ...... approximately 12,000 thermometers per watershed.
2,400 visitors carrying five thermometers each......
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TMI
Could someone please explain why the Federal and Provincial governments are introducing a product that will ... allow terrorists to contaminate our drinking water with mercury without the means to dispose of the toxic material (mercury), to stop "them", or us? This insanity must STOP
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UPDATE September 26, 2013
The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, April 1, 2012 7:53PM EDT
OTTAWA - Enough nuclear waste to fill more than a hundred Olympic-sized swimming pools could be buried in an underground chamber near the Ottawa River.
The federal government is eyeing the site of the Chalk River nuclear reactor, 160 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, as a radioactive waste site.
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. says 267,000 cubic metres of low- and medium-level nuclear waste is now stored above-ground in metal containers at the Chalk River site.
The Crown corporation is looking at building an enormous depository 500 to 1,000 metres underground to bury the detritus of six decades of nuclear testing at the Chalk River site.
UPDATE October 4, 2013
Sir Adam Beck Generating Stations downstream at a rate that would fill an Olympic sizedswimming pool every five seconds
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UPDATE November 3, 2013
Trans Mountain Pipeline aka Kinder Morgan "Did you Know":
Approximately three million barrels of crude oil travel through Canada’s crude oil pipeline network every day, enough to fill more than 475 million one-litre milk cartons or almost 200 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Factoids
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UPDATE November 13, 2013 Natural gas industry accused of illegal water use in B.C.
Environmental groups say Encana should have to pay for water used in fracking process
The environmental groups say as Encana proceeded with the fracking process to extract natural gas from underground reserves, it drew 880 Olympic swimming pools worth of water over three years from the Kiskatinaw River, which supplies drinking water to the city of Dawson Creek.
I'll give it a shot: manufacturers of CFLs stood to make a great deal of money if they could convince governments to outlaw the incandescent competition. Governments rationalize the cost- savings (CFLs use less energy per unit of light) to public-owned electricity producers, it's true; but the cost of resultant mercury pollution, finely distributed in homes (where most CFL breakage occurs), and worksites (where CFLs are improperly used in trouble-lights--handheld or dangling from a hook on the end of an extension cord) never seemed to make it to the other side of the ledger. Industry and government response to concerns about mercury pollution seem to be simply (even blithely) that each bulb contains only a minute amount of the deadly element. They also recommend placing the burned-out CFL into a baggie before throwing it in the landfill. I also notice the blister packaging has become extremely tough, no doubt to reduce breakage during shipping; yet once one manages to extract the CFL from the near-impregnable container, the risk of environmental mercury contamination rises exponentially, the consequences of which are thereafter borne by the consumer, wittingly or not, and incidentally by everyone else. Such as cost/benefit analysis only makes sense to industry which seized the opportunity to cash in on governments squirming to look green.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of stuff happens a lot in the construction industry: sales reps somehow induce civic officials to make their new building product code, ensuring exclusive profitability; new product placement also excuses civic officials for making excessive site visits (for which municipalities charge per occasion) to ensure the new product is being properly installed, maybe even demanding a licensing fee to qualify installers of the novelty. It's plain how these two agencies benefit from this arrangement. However, it's not so much fun for consumers. Look at all this house-wrap and blueskin stuff that's become de rigueur of late. The much cheaper building paper which served very well for a century or more was virtually outlawed to give the new products the inside track to profit. But look what happened to T---k, the house-wrap that became code: common for a decade or so (it reduces installation time considerably), its reputation suffered after it was shown (by the costly structural damage it initiated) not to breath as well as advertised. Clearly manufacturers and civic officials colluded to force consumers to use this product (and suffer the consequences in many cases). BTW, notice how building paper has been redeemed, especially after BC's "leaky-condo" scandal. Many building products are similarly and inappropriately fast-tracked into the building code.
Is the same collusion happening with CFLs? Will we be sorry only after serious downsides are eventually realized? In mercury's case, it will be too late once the element starts showing up in drinking water and foodstuffs.
PS. If you're thinking of buying a new home, try, if possible, to get a look inside the construction site dumpster while the place is being built; if it's filled with tubes of silicone caulking, think long and hard about purchasing.
As to that construction site dumpster..... are the tubes of silicone being treated like Asbestos contaminated building products....
ReplyDelete