THE HANDSTAND

DECEMBER 2005
 

The Institute of Science in Society

Science Society Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk

Announcing :Science in Society #28 Winter 2005

The Only Radical Science Magazine on Earth
Subscribe now, or download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document from the ISIS members area.
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GM ending for Africa?
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i- sis.org.uk/announcingSIS28.php

South Africa sprang a big surprise when it slapped a moratorium on genetically modified (GM) imports at the end of October. The country has been the biotech industry’s main entry-point into Africa as the industry was being driven out of Europe. South Africa has a weak biosafety regime with biotech lobbyists acting in a regulatory capacity, and is the only country on the continent that has commercialised GM crops. This puts it seriously out of step with neighbouring Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, which are among the dozen or so African countries that have imposed bans and restrictions on GM imports  following Zambia’s outright rejection of GM food aid in 2002 ( SiS 16, SiS 17).

The South African government has commissioned its Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to study the implications of GM imports on trade; and the moratorium is not likely to end before the DTI study is complete by the end of next year.

As a major food producer and exporter, South Africa is clearly worried about trade, especially in GM maize. GM maize accounts for 70 percent of maize traded on the global market. As very few countries want to import GM maize, there is a glut. So South Africa, a net maize-exporter, finds it cheaper to import GM maize from Argentina than to source it from within the country, with the result that 3.5 million tons of local non-GM maize could not be sold in 2005, leaving South African farmers devastated.

Meanwhile, Zambia is holding firm against GM food aid and imports despite projected food shortages due to drought, and amid intense pressure to accept GM crops from an international pro-GM lobby. It is opting instead for organic and other low input agriculture that are boosting yields and farm income, and most important of all, liberating farmers from decades of indebtedness and dependence on agrochemicals.

Whether intentional or not, South Africa and Zambia are both making wise moves towards food security for the same reason. High input/GM agriculture and cheap imports both depend on cheap oil, which is fast disappearing.

Petrol queues are increasingly common across the globe, and Zambia is no exception. Crude oil price keeps rising, while fuel production lags further and further behind consumption. On one occasion, I was trapped in my hotel room in Lusaka with no electricity for part of the day because the hotel had been “shedded” from the grid on a regular basis for weeks; and taxis were going nowhere because the petrol pumps were empty. Could the end of cheap oil signal the end of subsidised dumping as well as high input/GM agriculture?

If governments need more convincing to give up GM crops, they should look at the new damning scientific evidence.

GM crops debacle now complete

GM crops are industrial monocultures only far worse. Two traits account for very nearly all the GM crops grown commercially worldwide: more than 75 percent are herbicide tolerant, nearly all to the herbicide glyphosate, or Roundup, Monsanto’s formulation; the rest are insect-resistant, due to a class of Bt-toxins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis.

Evidence has been accumulating over the years that all is not well with both types of GM crops: yield drag, poor performance in the field, more pesticides used, reduced profit for farmers, and bad for health and biodiversity.

A spate of recent findings not only confirm what we already know, but also complete the debacle. Roundup resistant superweeds and Bt-resistant insect pests have now been documented, making both Roundup tolerant crops and Bt crops useless. The problems don’t end there.

Bt crops express variable amounts of the toxins, often insufficient to kill target pests; but harm beneficial insects including predators, bees and soil decomposers. (Bt toxins are already known to be actual or potential allergens and can provoke strong immune reactions.)

Roundup herbicide causes sudden crop death. It is lethal to frogs, and highly toxic to human placental cells, even at one-tenth the recommended dosage. (It is already linked to cancers, neuro-defects and spontaneous abortions.)

That’s not all. A research team led by Dr Irina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences has just reported that 36 percent of rats born to GM-soya fed mothers were severely stunted compared with 6 percent of rats born to mothers fed non GM-soya. Within three weeks, 55.6 percent of the progeny of GM-soya fed rats died; the death rate was six to eight times that of progeny from rats fed non-GM soya, or a diet without added soya. This latest is perhaps the most dramatic in a string of revelations indicating that GM food is far from safe, which have been systematically dismissed, suppressed or not followed up.

It is sheer lunacy to expand the cultivation of GM crops like these across the world, as the pro-GM lobby is pushing for. It can lead nowhere else but towards global biodevastation, massive crop failures and global famine.

Stop GM soya in Latin America

We need look no further than Latin America for the nightmare scenario. It is being destroyed by soya cultivation, especially with the arrival of GM soya (“Argentina’s GM woes”, SiS 20; “How Europe is recolonizing America”, SiS 25). Soya is inextricably tied to the meat industry ever since agronomists discovered that adding soya to grain could improve the feed to meat conversion ratio up to two-fold. Countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay are driven to grow soya for foreign exchange, to repay foreign debt, and in response to demand from importing countries especially China, currently the world’s largest importer of soybean and soybean products. Soya fields have been spreading in Latin America like an ecological canker, eating up the pampas, the savannahs and the Amazonian forests; bringing with it massive infrastructure projects for transporting and processing soybean that obliterate natural habitats far beyond the areas cleared for soya cultivation. This is happening just when the integrity of the Amazonian forests is absolutely essential for stabilizing global climate against the increasingly frequent climatic catastrophes of hurricanes, floods, droughts, and heatwaves.

It is time to wipe GM crops off the planet. Governments in Latin America should put a halt to the spread of GM soya right away and reconvert monoculture soya fields back into forests or sustainable agro-forests with the help of the international community, under the provision of the Kyoto Protocol. The rest of us can contribute by rejecting not only GM soya, but also soya-fed beef in favour of organic grass-fed beef.

Scientists and universities for rent

Unfortunately, a powerful pro-GM lobby has infiltrated every level of civil society from international aid agencies to governments, and academia; I have crossed paths with it all too often.

Monsanto and other biotech corporations have been funding university scientists to do their research cheaply, yes; but also to do propaganda and to ‘debate’ with scientists like me. We are defamed and libelled at public conferences, in the popular media and pages of the learned journals. This happens worldwide. In Lusaka recently, I came up against a scientist from the University of Zambia leading an aggressive disinformation campaign against his country’s rejection of GM crops, and exploiting the most horrendous image of a starving African child to make his case. Following him, a scientist from Kenya used the same image and told the exact same story.

Scientists like us risk losing research grants and jobs, even those relatively high up in the academic echelon.

Fred Kirschenmann was director of the Leopold Center in Iowa State University for the past five years, until he was suddenly and involuntarily made “distinguished fellow”.  His sins? He argued once too often that there is an urgent need for “a more intelligent, diversified farming system.” Genetic modification, he said, is “simply another tool to make the monoculture work a little longer” in the face of the pests and diseases that monocultures encourage.

For his parting shot, Kirschenmann said Iowa State’s College of Agriculture “draws agribusiness cash the way a penned-up pig wallowing in its own waste draws flies.”

If it’s any comfort, I have found it refreshing and liberating to work outside academia since I was strongly encouraged to retire early in 2000, for speaking out on the risks of genetic modification.

Sustainable World Weekend Workshop

There is nothing to stop us independent scientists from telling the truth and making science work for a sustainable and equitable world. To do just that, we are organizing a weekend workshop with living legend Professor George Chan of “Dream farm” fame ( SiS 27), plus other luminaries (see backcover). Do apply early, as places are strictly limited.

Subscribe now, or download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document from the ISIS members area. The first few pages are viewable here.
Individual hardcopies are available from our online store.
ISIS Press Release 20/11/05

Science in Society #28 Winter 2005

The Only Radical Science Magazine on Earth

Subscribe now, or download this magazine in its entirety as a PDF document from the ISIS members area. The first few pages are viewable here.
Individual hardcopies are available from our online store.


MAGAZINE CONTENTS

From the Editor
Mission ISP
Technology watch
Living Test for Mad Cow Disease
Marker Assisted Selective Breeding
Nanotoxicity: A New Discipline
No to Releases of Transgenic Plants with Antimicrobial Peptides
Sustainable world
Less is More for Nepali Rice
Organic Farmer Who Values His Freedom Above All
Brother Paul’s Organic Cotton & Vegetable Farm
Organic Boom Around the World
Organic Yields on Par with Conventional & Ahead During Drought
GM-Free
GM Soya Disaster in Latin America
Scientists Confirm Failures of Bt- Crops
Zambia Holding Firm to GM Ban
Roundup Ready Sudden Death, Superweeds, Allergens…
GM Crops for Africa? No Thanks!
Sustainable World Policies
Science In and For Society
India’s Biotech Future
Outsourcing Ecological and Health Risks
Policies for Sustainable Food Systems, National and Global
Food and Energy Security: Local Systems Global Solidarity
Food Miles and Sustainability
Can the EU Help Build a Sustainable World?
Corporate takeover alert
Hybrid Seed
Compromise on EU Vitamins and Minerals
Letters to the Editor
New Age of Water
First Sighting of Structured Water
Positive Electricity Zaps through Water Chains
Water Smoothing Protein Relationships
* * * * * * * * * * *


Prof. George Chan, environmental engineer and creator of dozens of highly productive zero-emission farms to eradicate poverty in third world countries

  Are such farms relevant also for the developed world now that cheap oil has ended and we urgently need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to stabilise the climate?

How to turn "wastes" into energy and resources for local self-sufficiency in a post-fossil fuel economy

Also speaking: Ken Livingstone (invited), Mayor of London; Lawrence Woodward, Director of Elm Farm Research Centre; Eur. Ing. Kenneth Spelman, planner/designer of sustainable development; Martin Khor, Director of Third World Network; Julian Oram of ActionAid; Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director of Institute of Science in Society & Sustainable World Initiative.

Participation is strictly limited
Priority will be given to those who will put the knowledge to practical use to change the world
Apply early by sending your details (name, title, affiliation if any, qualifications) to
dreamfarm@i- sis.org.uk or
DreamFarm,
ISIS,
P.O. Box 32097,
London NW1 0XR,
UK

Venue:

Date:
Estimated cost:

The Kindersley Centre, Sheepdrove Organic Farm, Warren Farm, Lambourn, Berkshire RG17 7UU, UK
21 - 22 January 2006
£250 inclusive of meals and one overnight stay at a nearby hotel

Redemption from the Plastics Wasteland


Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here
Plastics wasteland

Plastic wastes that litter cities, parks, beaches and countryside look depressingly the same everywhere on earth. They have come to symbolise the mass throwaway culture: cheap, trashy, transient yet stubbornly non-degradable and inassimilable. These by-products of the oil industry are icons of the industrial economy built on the over-exploitation of oil and other fossil fuels that’s turning the planet literally into a terminal wasteland. Dealing with plastic wastes has taken on significance not far short of ultimate redemption.

The world consumes 100 million tonnes of plastic materials - 36.8 million tonnes in Europe, 5 million tonnes in the UK  - and growing at 3 to 4 percent each year [1, 2]. The largest single sector, 37.3 percent, is in packaging. There are about 50 different groups of plastics with hundreds of different varieties.

The amount of plastic wastes generated annually in the UK was estimated at 3 million tonnes in 2001. Although all types of plastics could be recycled, only 7 percent actually were. The rest were buried in landfills (80 percent) or incinerated (8 percent). Most plastics are non-biodegradable, which means they take a long time to break down naturally.

Significant amounts of fossil fuels are required to make plastics, both as a raw material and as energy for manufacture. About 4 percent of the world’s annual oil production is used for as raw material and another 3-4 percent for manufacture.

Plastics manufacture requires a lot of water, produces waste and greenhouse gas emissions, and involves using harmful chemicals, especially with polyvinylchloride (PVC), the second most common kind of plastics in the world, where further toxic chemicals are generated during manufacture [3,4]. Burying plastic wastes in landfills or burning them in incinerators create still more hazards for health and the environment (see Box).

The best way to cut down on plastic wastes is to reduce use, to eliminate unnecessary packaging, and to reuse items such as plastic bags, toys, cosmetic bottles, etc. The next best way is to recycle.

Poison plastic PVC

PVC, polyvinyl chloride, is the second most commonly used plastic in the world, and causes the most problems for health and the environment. It is the largest source of dioxin when burnt in incinerators and in accidental fires in buildings. Dioxin is also created during the manufacture process, and toxic chemical additives are incorporated in PVC products.

The largest use of PVC is in building materials: cables, window frames, floors, walls, panelling, water and wastewater pipes, vinyl flooring, wallpaper, window blinds and shower curtains. It is in consumer articles such as credit cards, records, toys, office furniture, binders, folders, and pens, in the car industry as underseal, in hospitals for medical disposables, as imitation leather, and garden furniture.

The production of PVC involves transporting dangerous explosive materials such as vinyl chloride monomer (a carcinogen), and creating toxic wastes, notably ethylene dichloride tars. Tar wastes contain huge quantities of dioxins, which when incinerated or dumped, spread dioxins into the environment. Numerous additives are incorporated into the product, including softeners to make it flexible, heavy metals to stabilise colours, and fungicides. Dioxins are generated during manufacture, which end up in the process wastes, and sometimes in the product itself. Plasticisers are not bound to the plastic and can leach out over time; plasticisers in vinyl floors evaporate into the room. The most common plasticiser, the phthalate DEHP (Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate), is a suspected carcinogen, and over 90 percent are used solely to make soft PVC plastic, including baby toys and teethers. Since 1999, the European Union has prohibited phthalates in toys intended to be place in the mouth of children under three years of age [5].

The disposal of PVC creates more problems. If burned in open fires or incinerators, it releases an acidic gas along with dioxin. If landfilled, it releases additives that contaminate the groundwater, and landfill fires involving PVC are a further source of dioxin.

TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p- dioxin), the most lethal member of the dioxin family, is a known human carcinogen and hormone disrupter, and is recognized as the most toxic synthetic compound ever produced. All humans and animals now carry burdens of TCDD and other dioxins in their bodies.

As much as 3.2 million tonnes of PVC are discarded as waste in the US every year, 70 percent consisting of packaging and bottles. PVC is difficult to recycle and contaminate other plastics. Concerned environmental groups want it to be phased out altogether.

Recycling plastic wastes saves energy and carbon emissions       

Producing carrier bags from recycled rather than virgin polythene reduces energy consumption by two- thirds, produces only a third of the sulphur dioxide and half of the nitrous oxide; it reduces water use by nearly 90 percent, and carbon dioxide emission two and a half times. For every tonne of recycled polythene produced, 1.8 tonnes of oil are saved [1].

Recycling is done mechanically or chemically. In mechanical recycling, the waste plastics are sorted, then melted, shredding or turned into granules and moulded into new shapes.

In chemical recycling, the plastic polymers are broken down into their constituent monomers by heat treatment (thermal depolymerization), which can then be used again in refineries or petrochemical and chemical production. The UK does not operate any full-scale chemical recycling plants, as according to UK’s Department of Trade and Industry [2], capital investment requirements are much higher than for mechanical recycling plants (but see “Waste plastics into oil”, this series).

Despite the wide range of recycled plastics applications, the actual tonnage of waste plastic returned to the material cycle is relatively small. Currently, recycled plastics are rarely used in food packaging – the biggest single market for plastics – because of concerns about food safety. Another constraint on the use of recycled plastics is that, to be economically viable, plastic processors require large quantities of recycled plastics manufactured to tightly controlled specification at a competitive price compared to the virgin polymer.

Legislating for recycling

The 1994 European Union Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste 94/62/EC (the Packaging Directive) aimed to establish producer responsibility for packaging waste. The directive was implemented in the UK through the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 and the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 1998. The former sets targets for the recovery and recycling of packaging wastes, including plastics packaging waste. The UK government published the national packaging recycling and recovery targets for 2004 and beyond. These required 21.5 percent of plastics waste to be recycled by 2004, rising to 23.5 percent by 2008.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) was established in the UK in 2001 to promote sustainable waste management. WRAP’s particular focus is creating stable and efficient markets for recycled materials and products.

WRAP runs a specific programme on plastic wastes. It set a target to increase mixed plastic reprocessing by 20 000 tonnes by 2003/2004, which has yet to be met [6]. Its target for 2004/2006 is to work with the wider plastics industry to increase the acceptance of recycled plastic throughout the supply chain, to deliver an additional 20 000 tonnes of domestic plastic bottle recycling capacity, and to ensure an additional 11 000 tonnes of non-bottle plastics are recycled.

UK’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has put out an action plan for a nationwide farm plastics collection and recovery scheme last year, and Waste Management Regulations will apply to agricultural waste in 2005 [7]. Farms produce more than 80 000 tonnes of waste plastic a year, such as fertiliser bags, animal feed bags and agrochemical containers, silage films, crop covers and tunnel films. Burning waste plastics ether in the open or in a drum incinerator – the current disposal option for most farmers - may no longer be available in future.

Outsourcing plastic wastes

But what really happens to the plastic packaging and bottles that the British consumer diligently places in the recycling bin for collection by the local authorities, and, more so, those that supermarkets, the biggest users, are supposed to be responsible for recycling?

It turns out that more than a third of the waste paper and plastic collected by British local authorities, supermarkets and businesses for recycling have been sent 8 000 miles to China [8]. Exports to China are running at 200 000 tonnes of plastics rubbish a year. UK’s supermarket chains, some of the largest generators of plastic packaging waste in Britain, are getting their recycling done in China. Environmental groups and Members of Parliament were shocked at the scale of the trade. No studies have been done on the environmental costs of shipping wastes to China.
This article can be found on the I-SIS website at http://www.i- sis.org.uk/RFTPW.php