2023-11-13 19:00:03
Chimney of the waste incinerator in Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), September 14, 2021. RAFAEL YAGHOBZADEH FOR “THE WORLD”
When a study revealed high levels of dioxins around the Ivry-Paris XIII incinerator in February 2022, the manager of the installation, the metropolitan agency for household waste (Syctom), rejected any responsibility, explaining that the levels measured in the two chimneys of the largest incinerator in Europe were “systematically inferior and very inferior” standards and were subject to “continuous checks 24 hours a day, 365 days a year”, in the words of its general director, Denis Penouel, on BFM-TV. However, the question remains: the dioxin measuring device would not have worked for nearly seven thousand hours over the period 2020-2021, according to a new report to which The world had access.
Like that of February, the study was carried out by the ToxicoWatch foundation, a Dutch NGO made up of researchers, which is a reference in the toxicological analysis of pollutants emitted by incinerators and in particular dioxins. As toxic as they are persistent in the environment, dioxins appear on the black list of chemical compounds of greatest concern of theWorld Health Organization. They are classified as carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Dangerous even in tiny doses, they accumulate in the food chain.
The biomonitoring study of February 2022 revealed significant levels of dioxins in chicken eggs raised outdoors around the incinerator, in the municipalities of Ivry-Seine, Alfortville (Val-de-Marne ) and Paris. Since then, the regional health agency (ARS) has carried out its own samples and recommends no longer consuming eggs from domestic chicken coops throughout Ile-de-France. Announced several times, an ARS report supposed to shed light on the sources of pollution is still awaiting publication.
“Measuring equipment failures”
“Eggs are only one indicator of the presence of dioxins, comments Jean-Christophe Brassac, co-president of the 3R collective (reduce, reuse, recycle), the association which requested the expertise of ToxicoWatch. Prohibiting the consumption of eggs from domestic henhouses is certainly part of the precautionary principle, but it is essential to identify the causes of pollution, old or recent, by dioxins in order to reduce them. »
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The association, which campaigns for alternatives to waste incineration, obtained from Syctom the raw 2020 and 2021 data from dioxin sensors installed inside the chimneys of the two ovens. The analysis, entrusted to ToxicoWatch, shows that the devices did not take samples for 6,936 hours (3,269 hours for oven 1, 3,667 hours for oven 2) between December 24, 2019 and December 21, 2021 , the equivalent of 289 days.
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