Ecobreves – ARGENTINA: Renewed Campaign Against Garbage Burning

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 20 2007 (IPS) - The Citizen Anti-Incineration Coalition relaunched its campaign this month for Argentina to ban the polluting process of waste incineration. Garbage burners have been shut down already in Buenos Aires and the central city of Rosario. The activists want the ban extended nationwide, and call for alternative approaches like waste reduction, recycling and chemical disinfection.

“In Morón (30 km from the national capital), an incinerator was built in 1991, and since then 85 people from within a radius of 200 meters from the plant have died of cancer,” Coalition member Gladys Enciso told Tierramérica.

France's health monitoring institute warned in a December report that the risk of liver cancer increases 6.8 percent for those living near a waste incinerator.