The Cause

Why did Thomas, age 63, volunteer for the impossible run? Why were the young people running the long relay? It was to encourage the public to immediately stop burning leaves and trash.

Ecorun asks the government of Kerala to ban leaf burning, trash burning, and bush burning.

The burning of leaves contributes to Global Warming

Burning the leaves produces what is called Black Carbon? What is Black Carbon?

When a kerosene lamp burns, the stream of black smoke that goes up from the flame is Black Carbon. When dry twigs and wood are burned, the soot that goes up is Black Carbon. The black smoke puffing out of diesel engines is Black Carbon or BC. BC is unburned Carbon. BC is the unwanted carbonaceous by-product resulting from the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials, such as oil, fuel oils or gasoline, coal, paper, rubber, plastics, waste material, and leaves. BC contains less than 60% of the element that we call Carbon. Coal is impure Carbon. Diamond and Graphite are made of pure Carbon. The soot arising from the burning of coal is Black Carbon. When anything organic is burned we get three things: Soot (BC), CB, and ash. CB is Carbon Black which is more than 97% pure Carbon. Note that the name Carbon Black is confusing. It contains the same two words in BC. But Carbon Black is a useful product. It is used in dyes and such. Ash is unburned Carbon and other compounds depending on the original material.

BC rises in the air and travels long distances. In the air it directly absorbs sunlight and also the energy reflected from clouds, thus warming the atmosphere. The BC carried long distance settles on icepacks in glaciers, mountain covers, and the arctic and causes them to reflect less light. This means more sunlight is absorbed by their surfaces - causing them to melt.

Between 25 and 35 percent of BC in the global atmosphere come from India and China. Biomass burning contributes at least one-half of the BC emitted from India.

The air life of BC is temporary – hangs in the air for a few weeks. This means if we all stop burning leaves, we can help reduce in just a few weeks the 25 to 35 percent BC in the global atmosphere. This will immediately reduce global warming. Compare with the Greenhouse Effect caused by CO2. CO2, water vapor, and methane in the air reflect back the heat rising from the Earth’s surface and keep the surface warmer. But CO2 is increasing due to fossil fuel and forest burning. And the CO2 effect of today’s burning can not be reversed for a long time. The CO2 from the first coal-powered train is still in the air. But BC can be reduced in a few weeks if all of us stop burning leaves. Of course, to stop BC to a significant extent, more needs to be done. Like using efficient “scrubbers” to catch BC from factory and ship chimnies and coverting from wood burning stoves to natural gas or electricity obtained from renewable energy.

What should be done with leaves?
There are four safe alternatives to burning leaves: (1) Compost them! Composting means mixing the dry and other leaves with greener bio materials, or, if they are not available, with nitrogenous fertilizer, and burying them. (2) Controlled burning. Use an incinerator for leaf burning. However, we have not yet heard of such an incinerator. Yet, it must be looked into by municipalities. We do know one thing: Open burning of anything, including leaves, releases nano-size particulates directly into the air without passing through a filter that catches the particulates. (For this reason factory smoke stacks without scrubbers that are periodically tested for efficiency should be banned.) (3) The government provides a facility as well as transport of leaves to the facility. This is done in most provinces in Canada. (4) Grind the dry leaves and spread over the land area.

As you can see, the choice (1), is the best alternative, for you can also deposit organic debris from the kitchen in the compost pit. However, where there is an enormous accumulation of leaves, and composting all of it is not practical, one of the choices (2), (3), and (4) would be necessary. For most households in India, composting is the best alternative, for they have only compostable quantities and the land to do it - he who has leaves usually has enough land to accommodate them.

Sources:
Soot and Global Warming
Black soot and snow: A warmer combination

The dangers of burning trash

• Unsorted trash usually has plastic mixed in. When plastic is burned, cancer-causing "things" are released in to the air. Three of these "things" are hydrochloric acid gas, dioxins, and metals (Lead and Cadmium). See ...Combustion of plastic..., American Scientist, July-Aug 1998.
• Unsorted trash usually has other materials that also release harmful gases and metal vapours when burned.
• Open burning of trash produces soot which is mainly Black Carbon. Black Carbon in soot is the dominant absorber of visible solar radiation in the atmosphere. Black Carbon also mixes with aerosols in the atmosphere and travel long distances to settle on the ice in the mountains, the Arctic, and Antartica, and cause the ice to melt. Since sunlight is more in the tropics, soot from burning here has greater effect on the climate. See ...Climate Changes due to Black Carbon, Nature Geoscience, 23 March 2008.

What to do with trash

• Sort the trash for plastic material, including bags, bottles, and wrappings, as well as for casings of all manner of gadgets (phones and computers) and appliances (television sets). Compost or bury the organic materials, like leaves, twigs, and vegetable matter.
• Store the sorted plastic outside the house; plastic bags and styrofoam cups should be in a separate pile for non-recyclable plastics - these will be used in future to generate energy.

(Store also any PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) material - like old or broken PVC pipes. These and other unrecyclable plastic should be burned at specially equipped high-temperature incinerators that filter flue gases and catch over 99% of the "things". An even better way is to reduce the use of PVC - for instance, PVC tiles and PVC ceiling! Likewise, reduce the use of all manner of plastic and do not purchase or use unrecyclable plastic such as plastic bags and styrofoam cups. ) Examples of reducing plastic use are the following: Toys not made of plastic, refillable ink pens, wooden toilet seats with brass fittings, aluminum instead of plastic for buckets and pots, recyclable interior upholstery in vehicles and on furniture, and alternatives such as Eco-flexx instead of PVC flex for outdoor advertising boards and banners. An organization such as Milma should charge a deposit for milk pouches and collect and recycle them; or use biodegradable pouches - immediately! Bottled water and batteries should be similarly marketed. Colgate should ensure that its toothbrush handles are biodegradable.

What to do with the stored plastic
The answer is, keep it stored until you learn from the media as to how the recyclers will pick up - this may take even a few years, but do not burn plastic. We believe that government will collaborate by providing grants and tax relief for plastics recyclers, for although the democratic process necessary involves much wrangling, every governance is ultimately based on reason dictated by the long-term welfare of the people domestically and globally.

Stopping trash burning will be a paradigm shift for the public of Kerala. It is the hope that at least the educated or those who care about the welfare of others will immediately heed. And the government follow the example of many other countries and ban trash burning.