POLLUTION PREVENTION

Stormwater Runoff Reduction

Check out this video that highlights green techniques such as rain gardens, green roofs and rain barrels to help manage stormwater runoff.

The film showcases green techniques that are being used in urban areas to reduce the effects of stormwater runoff on the quality of downstream receiving waters. The goal is to mimic the natural way water moves through an area before development by using design techniques that infiltrate, evaporate, and reuse runoff close to its source.

The techniques are innovative stormwater management practices that manage urban stormwater runoff at its source, and are very effective at reducing the volume of stormwater runoff and capturing harmful pollutants. Using vegetated areas that capture runoff also improves air quality, mitigates the effects of urban heat islands and reduces a community's overall carbon footprint.

Stormwater Runoff Resoures

EPA Stormwater Advice
Michigan DEQ office of Water
WikiHow

Burn Barrels

Why are they bad?? Burning Pollutant Chart

Another component of Earth Keepers is to educate about the environmental hazards of burn barrels. Burning trash in a 55 gallon drum or in just a pile, often in the backyard, is a common method of solid waste disposal in some rural areas.

Surveys have revealed between 25 and 50 percent of rural residences and farms may do backyard burning.

What Gets Burned?

Materials "burned" range from all household trash including plastics, glass and metal, to a more selective burning of just paper items. However, with today's wastes, it is very difficult to keep plastics out of even carefully sorted paper-only waste. Envelope windows are usually plastic, as are some inserts in junk mail. Paper packaging often has plastic coatings.

Backyard burning is by definition "uncontrolled" burning and results in very high levels of toxic chemicals emitted in the smoke. Compared to municipal incinerators it takes place at much lower temperatures, with virtually no combustion air control, and with none of the very expensive high-tech pollution filtering apparatus required before the incinerator stack.

Very high levels of toxic chemicals and particulates are present in the smoke from open burning of waste. These may cause acute respiratory and other health problems in those breathing the smoke.

Source of Dioxin

Burning plastics can be especially problematic, with PVC plastic in particular contributing to high emissions of dioxin. Dioxin is a persistent, bio-accumulative toxin which means it isn't broken down into safer chemicals, and it is concentrated in the food chain. As dioxin in burn barrel smoke drifts away to eventually settle on nearby fields, it can be eaten by cows where it is concentrated in their fat. Some is then excreted with the milk while the rest remains in the animal's fat. When humans consume dairy products and meat they end up with the long-lived dioxin in their own bodies. The US EPA now considers burn barrels a major source of dioxin. They also consider that current dioxin levels in Americans, due to consumption of dairy and meat, are high enough to add a significant cancer risk, as well as other serious health risks.

Open burning can also be a significant fire risk, with frequent brush, forest, and structure fires attributed to burning which got out of control. Deaths have even resulted from such fires.

A number of national, state, and local organizations are working on educating the public on the risks of backyard burning. The federal government does not currently have laws or regulations addressing this problem. However, numerous states and localities have banned open burning, and the list is growing rapidly.

The problem of open burning may have increased in recent years because the cost of proper disposal of solid waste has risen and is more likely to be charged by weight and to the individual. Recycling and proper waste disposal have also become less convenient in many areas. Therefore, part of the solution to open burning will be improvements in convenience and affordability of local solid waste management systems.

View the most recent document DEQ Open Burning Model Ordinance recommended by the Department of Environmental Quality for local units of government in Michigan and a Michigan Open Burning Guide.

Link to the EPA site on open burning.