After having inspected buildings in search of asbestos for over one year now, I did for the first time also search for PCB, lead and PAK.
Unlike asbestos, the regulations for PCB, lead and PAK are virtually not existing and many people don’t really care about it. Of these three toxic products, PCB is probably the most dangerous, although as far as I understood in buildings it’s rare that in buildings the level of PCB in the air is high enough to be considered as a real danger for health.
Anyway, I took the opportunity of the inspection of this buidling, and did some search for information on PCB. What they write at Wikipedia looks like a pretty good summary: Its a persistant organic pollutant with effects similar to the much better known Dioxine (actually when simply burning it, you get Dioxine). It was often used as coolant and insulating fluid for transformers and capacitors, but in buidlings today, you find it mostly sealants and, as mentioned, the health risk is often very small, although I know of construction sites where it was removed with the same precautions as for asbestos removal works (Kantonsschule Chur).
The crazy thing is that as for asbestos, the danger of PCB was not know or ignored for years and in many places people realise just now that they are way more affected thought. A scandal in France made the headlines. The Guardian even speaks of “French Chernobyl”, a comparison that may not be really justified although the whole scale of the problem is not yet known. Compared to what can read about PCB pollution in USA on a wikipedia contribution, the problem in France seams to be not the only “Chernobyl”.
But is this all? Probably not. Based on an article at the NY Times an estimated 1.25 billion pounds of PCB was produced in the USA. Most of this probably still is somewhere and the sites that were identified (State of New York, Indiana, Rhône river) are not even the peak of the iceberg.
What else will come? What other toxic products will we discover? What are the products still in use where we don’t yet know that they are toxic? When will humanity become whiser? I’m particularly affraid of genetically modified organisms. The fact that it’s again Monsanto who is strongly pushing it’s product is simply crazy.
