Timely warning, hope it's widely read and disseminated, though judging by the lack of comment here so far it seems it may not be.

It highlights once again the frustration of living under a government that talks up terror and spends billions fighting threats which may never eventuate, and all the while real and documented ones like this one are steamrolling along under its very nose and being all but ignored.

"The major political parties at federal and state levels, the oil companies and car manufacturers have known that while "leaded" petrol is a health hazard, “unleaded” petrol has even greater toxic properties. The decision was made, it seems, to cut lead so it did not poison the "catalytic converter" and knowingly introduce substances that would increase cancer rates."

What a gem of a revelation, is there any more information on this?

Yep. the NSW Gov't spend a bucketload of money on research into air quality, right up until 2000. And then mysteriously....cut funding after the Sydney Olympics. Go figure.

If you're interested in air quality, have a look at the State of the Environment Report (whare are always at least 12 months behind but still relevant):

http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/soe/soe2003/chapter3/

An interesting article indeed! No doubt the author is aware also of the federal government's "initiative" with the product stewardship (oil) where they are encouraging industry to conveniently burn waste oil as a cheap fuel, over communities, rather than endeavouring to recycle this compound for re-use in the transport industry. One would think that this practice would be sensible in view of the current dilemma with oil exploration and the price of fuel. In addition, there is little hope of reducing the numbers of vehicles on our roads, therefore recycling of waste oil for transport would be beneficial!

I fully concur with the author's advice on the potential ramifications of long or short term exposure to fossil fuels. However, the practice of burning waste oil over and in close proximity to a community is irresponsible indeed.

One will find, on perusing emissions' reports of companies using waste oil as a fuel, that capping is almost non-existent and the stack volumes of hydrocarbon emissions are of concern. I am referring particularly to benzene. I would consider a 3 minute exit of 990 mg/m3 to be excessive! There is not even a requirement to report on PAH's where previous reports were excessive. Then one learns of the excessive emissions of dioxins and furans (a result of continuing poor combustion)and the enormous emissions of CO. Then you have mountains of fly-ash piled up for years on the site boundaries, contaminating the surrounding flora and fauna.

Despite community members' objections and appeals requesting limits on emissions and the testing of fly-ash prior to safe disposal (or beneficial use), the DoE continues to protect the pollutant companies by manipulating stack emissions to ambient air levels with "computer modelling". Seemingly they have little regard for the upper troposphere, stratosphere or the citizens they are employed to protect. To manipulate stack emissions of transboundary chemicals such as dioxins etc is, I believe, an abuse of public gullibility.