Solution to Pollution
(Page 2 of 5)
May/June 1970
By the Mother Earth News editors
During the decay segment of this cycle, there is a biological process we refer to as bacterial action which always produces a stench. Anyone who has lived on a farm knows the smell of the grey vapor that rises from an opened manure pile on a cold day. This stench is hydrogen sulfide.
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The hydrogen sulfide is accompanied by another gas, methane, which is odorless. Both gases are combustible and, when oxidized, the hydrogen sulfide becomes sulfur dioxide and trioxide. If water (fog, rain or mist) is then added, sulfuric acid - which destroys everything but plate glass - is the result.
These sulfides are heavier than air and stay close to the ground where they cause maximum damage. This is the stuff that ate the metal dome off the City Hall in St. Louis and dissolved the metal doors on the Port of Oakland. In the Delaware River, it has corroded the hulls of transport ships. It's one of the reasons smog makes you cry. The cancer, emphysema or heart trouble that may kill you could well be traced back to all the sulfuric acid mist you were forced to breath during your short stay on earth.
As if hydrogen sulfide weren't bad enough, the conventional disposal plant - which daily releases huge clouds of the gas - compounds the problem. In an effort to neutralize the hydrogen sulfide stench, great quantities of chlorine ($2,000 worth every month in San Francisco alone) are dumped into the sewers.
This chlorine, of course, kills all the beneficial bacteria and does other interesting things. For example, it combines with the carbon monoxide our automobiles belch into the atmosphere to create the deadly phosgene gas that is used in chemical warfare. More cancer, more emphysema, more heart trouble.
The average municipal refuse plant then completes its criminal negligence by rushing garbage through "treatment" in as little as two hours before the nearly raw sewage is pumped into open ponds, piped into the ocean, flushed down a river or pushed into "landfill". And so, ground and water pollution - with algae growth, marine and land life kills, hepititus and other diseases - are added to the rape of our atmosphere. When confronted by the fact that such "disposal" doesn't work, the authorities in charge almost invariably respond with more of the same . . . on a bigger and a messier scale.
If you want a quick concrete example or two, I can supply more than a full quota from California alone: There is the $50 million sewage plant monstrocity at Los Angeles from which effluence was piped three miles into the Pacific Ocean. Naturally, the refuse washed back in to shore until Manhattan, Hermose and Redondo Beach brought suit for $30 million and Los Angeles had to spend $60 million to extend the discharge pipes another three miles to sea . . . from which it still washes back.
Los Angeles has incinerators too. They cost about a million and a half each and they belch smoke all over the neighborhood. They're one of the reasons Los Angeles has had smog to spare.
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