I agree with you, except the decomposition products of vinyl chloride. I read the testing protocol, it’s proper combustion under ideal conditions. This was a dumpster fire, that smoke is something far worse. You can read the protocols of burning gasoline, it’s pretty damn clean at the end. Then you dump it in a ditch in the winter with other chemicals and let it undertake unknown reactions and then burn oxygen deprived and you have a toxic mess of highly dangerous pm 2.5 particulate matter (that crosses the blood brain barrier) that is carcinegenic atbest and possibly far worse.
I agree with you, except the decomposition products of vinyl chloride. I read the testing protocol, it’s proper combustion under ideal conditions. This was a dumpster fire, that smoke is something far worse. You can read the protocols of burning gasoline, it’s pretty damn clean at the end. Then you dump it in a ditch in the winter with other chemicals and let it undertake unknown reactions and then burn oxygen deprived and you have a toxic mess of highly dangerous pm 2.5 particulate matter (that crosses the blood brain barrier) that is carcinegenic atbest and possibly far worse.
I would agree with you if this incident were the very first time vinyl chloride has been involved in a disaster like this. We know what the various combustion byproducts are for vinyl chloride are because there have been plenty of incidents with it. We don't need to know all the byproducts to test for the health dangers. We just need some markers to determine if vinyl chloride was part of the mix of combustion products. The analysis for other known markers is important because you want to assay the whole lot and assign the danger appropriately by what is discovered. I don't expect (((they))) will do that though because it would make their decision to release and burn a culpable act of terrorism.
Good points. I tried studying just one small facet of combustion known as the Maillard reaction , as it pertains to food. The short answer is hundreds of interesting (and tasty, though arguably not healthful) substances are created at varying rates and varying times and amounts in an incredibly complex way in every square inch of pan, slightly differently. Even just concentrating on a single food item was reminiscent of Pirsigs ‘the art of motorcycle maintenance’ in the madness of trying to definitively say what is going on in any specific batch.
I’m not knowledgeable about previous accidents, how they played out, or what level of testing was performed and by who. But partial combustion thermal decomposition of mixed chemicals is a nasty fucking cup of tea, and in my opinion it’s far far worse on a long term health basis than anyone believes right now.
Hell, your proximity in miles to a freeway or a port can change your children’s chance of developing asthma by orders of magnitude. It’s slow, quiet, and hard to assign blame years later. Regardless of who’s to blame, you only get one life and the thought of losing a large chunk of it to shifty toxic smoke is terrifying to me.
Someone wrote you should get your health. He led now to have it on record in case you have issues… if you have issues through it’s likely something horrible and terminal, and duck that.
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