No Natural Gas, No Electricity - Pakistani Steel Mills Fueled By Burning Tires

[hatrack]

LAHORE:

Nadeem Kamboh lives in a crowded 10-marla house with his family, which includes five brothers and their wives and kids, in an area called Shadipura. Like the other residents of this poor northern neighbourhood, they would sleep on the roof to escape the summer heat.
That is, until about five years ago. “Everyone would wake up coughing. Our faces would be covered in soot,” he says, a result of the black smoke being spewed from the many small industrial units in the area.

There are 55 steel rerolling units in Shadipura, recycling iron scrap that is melted down in five furnaces in the area. All 55 have been cited by the Environment Protection Department for using tyres as fuel.

Burning tyres as fuel results in large quantities of carbon, sulphur and dust pollutants being released into the atmosphere. Many of these pollutants are carcinogenic and cause respiratory and other diseases.

But the owners of these factories insist that faced with gas and electricity shortages, they have to continue using tyres as fuel when needed. Officials point out that Shadipura is an industrial area so the residents do not have the right to complain about living conditions there.

EDIT

http://tribune.com.pk/story/192300/without-gas-and-power-steel-factories-fuelled-by-burning-tyres/

[phantom power]

1. You see, it's the resident's fault! For living in an industrial area!

:eyes:

[pscot]

2. Revolution is also fueled

by burning tires. Just a coincidence, surely.

[AlecBGreen]

3. I didnt know that Pakistan had its own GOP

"Officials point out that Shadipura is an industrial area so the residents do not have the right to complain about living conditions there"

WOW, just wow... At least they have the cojones to come out and say it. Thats about the only positive thing I can say.

[Gregorian]

4. I have got to say something here.

When I see the photos, it is evident that these steel companies are essentially backyard enterprises.

Let's look at the world as if it had no borders. Because after all, pollution knows no borders. Whether it's burning tires that are in a low efficiency incinerator/furnace, or dioxins, or nuclear particulates and radiation. I immediately thought about the money and reasoning why we went to war in the Middle East. We (Americans) did that for our own interests. Yet, what really are our best interests? Or rather, what is it that we really should be fearing? What if the damage that these kinds of inefficient businesses are doing far outweighs any benefits we could possibly gain from invading countries in the name of American progress. What if the Pentagon were aimed in a new direction whereby it studied the weak links on the planet, and went after them in order to improve them. I think it's time that we started realizing that we're living on this tiny planet together. And it is small, and subject to finite capacity to recover. And that we're going to suffer from what we are ignoring.

[kristopher]

5. How to drive it home?

In the 60s and 70s we were seeing the Earth from space for the first time and everyone was paying attention. It had a profound effect.

Over time, however, the tribalism has surged back into our lives with a vengeance.

How can we recapture that feeling? I don't know.

[Gregorian]

6. Remember this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Z

I remember my dad had one of these when I was in high school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_1000


Now it's all 300 horsepower monsters. Why? I don't think we can recapture what we lost so many years ago. I blame disco. I don't know. I remember Polyphemus moths that no longer exist where they did. It's like a positive feedback system. Kids only know concrete. It's Twitter this and that. Maybe I'm just an old cranky man. But I'm cynical about where this is heading. All of the things that claim to be organic or "green" are mostly just phony rhetoric. I keep saying to myself that when the population reached a certain level, the specialness of life disappeared. Honestly, that is an overriding thought in my life. The specialness is gone.

[kristopher]

8. I don't remember those...

I don't think the human condition is as bad as you seem to feel it is. There is ample reason to be cynical but I've always accepted that as part of a larger journey that I really rather enjoy no matter what it seems to bring me.

When you wrote that the "specialness is gone" another thing from that era popped into my head. Perhaps you recall the admonition: "Never trust anyone over 30"?

That expression contained a fundamental truth - at around the age of 30 we change. It is as natural and inevitable as puberty. And part of that is losing the feeling of having wings on your heels. I think a lot of people interpret it as the world having changed for the worse, when in fact, it is just our youth sliding into maturity.

Taking the world seriously, realizing there are both good and bad unintended consequences to our actions that ripple through our our entire lifetime can be quite a shock, I think, if you aren't really prepared. Just remember that every day has its never to be repeated treasures.

[Gregorian]

10. I appreciate your thoughts.

Very good stuff.

I'm clear on what it is. This happened well before I was an adult. I grew up in the San Francisco area when there were dairy farms, fields, orchards, relative silence, and too many amazing things to even post here. I remember the day the new overpass was built. And the time when I rode my bike over it and finally realized what was happening to what was a very very special place. I lost my home. But it's more than personal. Everyone lost. Most don't know it. Now I'm 20 years away from the day I quit my silicon valley engineering job. Half a dozen farms and ranches, each one just a step away from the encroaching mass of cars. I had a dental emergency, and had to travel to San Francisco for the first time in 15 years. When I drove through Santa Rosa, I was stunned. What was a lonely drive on my last trip, was now a sea of a hundred thousand cars. A living hell.

I'm quite clear on the cause.

And you're right. Each day contains special things. For me. I have a beautiful coastal timber ranch. I'm lucky. And smart. But I think about those who don't have this. I hurt for them. It really bothers me to see the life so many others are living. Many of them in places where I used to enjoy the beauty. Like playing my trumpet, while watching the pheasants fly, in the field that is now the Google campus. Or hanging out in the barn on the farm that is now Marriott's Great America. Chalk it up to progress. If that's progress, then I want nothing of it. I will admit I'm practicing gratitude. I hung out in the computer club where Wozniak built his first prototype. When my dad was designing the first digital control system for Applied Material's vapor deposition units, we discussed how all of this growth and pollution would bring the human race together. And it has. I often wonder how happy I would be to live life as a kind of native, versus the continuous stream of human interaction which we now enjoy.

[Odin2005]

7. Easy, fund manned missions to the Moon and Mars.

[kristopher]

9. Maybe, but that would be different.

That could have a "rally around the massive human project" type of effect, and that was part the mood of the time; but that aspect was also a part of the Cold War and I think there was an element of competition that was part of the rallying effect. If we could get the imaginative juiced flowing in the service of a Mars mission, the benefits in all areas would be huge I'd imagine.

But what I was referring to was a unique moment in our existence, when we first looked down and actually, for real, saw the entire planet from space with human eyes.

It was pretty profound.