There are two coking factories on the Tata Steel site in Wijk aan Zee. Local residents are very concerned about harmful emissions. American scientists have now investigated what the closure of such a factory means for the environment: “It saves lives.”
Scientists from New York University School of Medicine have conducted research into a similar coke factory like that of Tata Steel in the American city of Pittsburgh. That factory closed in 2016. The study shows that the closure had an immediate positive impact on public health in the region.
Almost half as many recordings
For example, the number of people who ended up in the emergency room or had to be admitted to hospital due to heart problems and respiratory diseases fell almost immediately.
Within 2 weeks of closing the Shenango cooking plant in Pittsburgh, hospitalizations fell by 42 percent. And in the three years that followed, a further decline was seen in the number of people who had to go to hospital. In fact, between 2016 and 2019, the demand for care in the region was no less than 61 percent lower than expected by the government.
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90 percent less sulfur dioxide
Public health professor at New York University School of Medicine George Thurston led the study. This looked at hospital visits in the region around the Shenango cooking factory, in the 3 years before and in the 3 years after the closure.
Air quality data was also examined. The researchers from New York University note that emissions of highly harmful sulfur dioxide decreased by 90 percent after the closure at measuring points in the immediate vicinity of the coke factory.
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Local residents of the Shenango cooking plant in Pittsburgh filmed the harmful emissions themselves
‘Decrease is due to closure’
Thurston is surprised by the research results, but is ‘as certain as can be’ that the decline in hospital visits and admissions is due to the closure of the cooking factory. “It’s highly unlikely that it could be anything else because that decline was so unique to the period in which the plant was closed.”
The Shenango plant is located north of Pittsburgh. South of the city there is another coking factory, which is still in use. The scientists also looked at hospital figures in that region. What turned out: between 2016 and 2019, there was no change in the number of admissions in that area compared to the period 2013 to 2016.
Other causes investigated
They also investigated other possible causes of the decline that are not related to air pollution, such as traffic accidents. “But they did not decrease during that period,” the professor emphasizes.
There were no other significant changes in Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh is located, in the period before and after the Shenango cooking plant closed, Thurston said. “Nothing that could have otherwise explained this abrupt decline.”
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‘Relevant to other places’
He thinks that the striking health results in Pittsburgh are also achievable at other cooking factories. “The research has universal relevance for other places where people burn fossil fuels, especially coal,” he explains.
Emissions from coking factories contain high concentrations of, among other things, sulfur dioxide and the heavy metal arsenic. This makes air pollution from coal much more toxic than an average particulate matter in the air, says the professor. “In the longer term it is twice as toxic, but we have now also established the acute effects.”
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How does a coking factory work?
In a coke factory, coal is fired at a high temperature until the coke gas comes out and so-called coke or coke remains. The factory consists of batteries with several chambers in which the coal is heated to more than 1,000 degrees. This process takes about 20 hours, after which the cokes are done and they are pushed out of the ovens. They are then used in the process of turning iron ore into raw iron.
Cooking factories at Tata Steel
Tata Steel also has two coking factories in Wijk aan Zee, which are currently still in use. As a licensing authority for Tata Steel, the province of North Holland demands that one of the two coking plants close by the end of 2029 at the latest. This concerns the Kooksfabriek 2, the largest and most polluting factory on the site.
According to Thurston, the study into the Shenango cooking factory in Pittsburgh shows how great the health benefits for the environment are if such a factory is closed. “I am confident, given the significant benefits in terms of hospital visits and admissions, that lives have been saved by the closure of this plant.”
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American study: health of local residents improves immediately if coke factory closes
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2023-12-15 15:30:02
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