Doctors alert on the boom in cremations and the possible risks to health and the environment. In Italy “today there are 87 crematoria, especially in the Centre-North, while the phenomenon is less widespread in the South. The multiplication of requests for new plants, often oversized compared to the needs of the territory in which they should be installed”, is worrying for the ” possible impact of a rapidly growing number of cremations and therefore of combustion emission points”. This is explained by Isde, the Italian Association of Doctors for the Environment, which published “the first Italian position paper on the possible environmental and health effects of the construction of crematoriums in urban areas”. A scientific study that indicates how to fill regulatory and technical gaps, “so that cremation does not constitute a further source of pollution with consequent impact on human health”.
“In Italy, as in many other countries – state Agostino Di Ciaula, Maria Grazia Petronio, Giovanni Ghirga, Ferdinando Laghi and Roberto Romizi, editors of the document – the debate on air pollution is increasingly at the center of public attention and scientific due to the significant health and economic implications. Crematorium ovens are systems intended for the cremation of the deceased and/or animal carcasses”, they recall. “This process involves incineration through thermal treatment at very high temperatures. This makes it essential to consider the environmental and health risk related to the emissions of these plants”, warn the experts. “This risk – they specify – is aggravated by the absence of specific sector legislation, and by the lack of efficient and adequate monitoring measures for many of the pollutants emitted. These two aspects, regulatory and technical, must necessarily be filled”, urges the Isde.
“The polluting agents deriving from combustion at high temperatures – highlight the doctors for the environment – spread through the air even for long distances and over time they settle on the ground, accumulating in this matrix and causing an alteration of the balance chemical-physical and biological nature of the soil. The particular characteristics of some substances that are not easily biodegradable can cause contamination of a soil for variable periods, with the possible passage of pollutants into the aquifers and the food chain”.
“The position paper” of ISDE, “in addition to analyzing environmental and health problems, also provides basic indications, also adopting those already suggested by experts from Ispra”, Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, “to the construction of crematoria so that they have the least impact possible. This is a document that will be useful to all citizens and, above all, to local administrators – the doctors hope – to be able to make informed decisions based on knowledge of the problems and to pressure on parliament to establish adequate rules”.
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