Warren Buffett Trades Mesothelioma Death for Money

It is not for the victims of asbestos diseases, but for the lawyer's self-interest that asbestos litigation occurs, and the self-interest of Mr. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's group of Insurance companies that are responsible for asbestos liabilities.

The asbestos litigation industry is a multibillion dollar industry that spends more on advertising than Coca-Cola. Asbestos litigation provides substantial- steady income to asbestos litigation firms and their litigators as long as payments are made to the victims.

We know Mr. Buffett as the Oracle of Omaha, a highly praised investor and a seemingly a nice guy who plays a Ukulele and sings at the conventions of the companies he owns.

Mr. Buffett has proven to make the right investments at the right time, because he sees the future and has the cash to buy it. With cash and enough time, time being the key word, you can make yourself one of the wealthiest men in the world, as Mr. Buffet.

Mr. Buffett's, Berkshire Hathaway, has recently purchased a litany of insurance companies that are directly responsible for asbestos and/or hazardous/toxic liabilities, which Mr. Buffett agreed to take on with this purchase.

So why would the world's wisest investor buy such portentous liability?

The answer: along with that liability comes tons of billions in cash, known as the float, which is invested at great returns, as long as Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway insurance companies can deny, delay or not pay plaintiffs' (victims) claims. The float is money held by the insurance companies to pay the victims of asbestos and/or hazardous/toxic diseases.

Asbestos and /or hazardous/toxic diseases are a death sentence. In litigation, the defending law firms are always looking for angels to hold off payments, pay as little as possible or nothing at all to the plaintiffs, which buys time.

It is estimated by A.M. Best, an insurance company rating firm, that asbestos claim losses will surge to $121 billion dollars with no end in sight.

A.M. Best also estimates insurers are incurring $2 billion in asbestos claims each year, as well as paying out $2.5 billion to victims each year.

According to Ajit Jain Berkshire Hathaway's insurance companies paid out $1.4billion dollars in asbestos and /or hazardous/toxic claims last year. Do the math: that leaves Berkshire, according to A.M. Best, $1.1 billion to invest while fending off the losses of $2 billion a year being held in the float and invested while the cases are being detained or slowly litigated.

Also, Berkshire Hathaway's insurance company corporate-maneuvers left litigators puzzled, not knowing who to sue, payments are not being made to the plaintiffs while Berkshire's defense litigator's buy time to allow the float money to make required target profits, instead of paying the victims.

According to the Fox Business News, "Berkshire said its insurance and other revenue jumped 14% to $35.92 billion.

Mr. Buffett quote: "We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful".

If you are dying from asbestos or hazardous/toxic diseases, you will certainly be fearful of dying, but more so for the future of your loved ones.

Fear and/or desire are the greatest motivators. If you fear you will die broke from asbestos or a hazardous/toxic disease, leaving your family with nothing, you will quickly have the desire, for peace of mind before dying, to settle for a lesser amount that may be paid sometime in the future to your loved ones.

But if the Berkshire Hathaway insurance companies outright refuse to pay, because Berkshire Hathaway has to make its targeted bottom-line profits ----- what are your choices? - suffer more and die broke!

In life our true character shows through at one point or another. If we are lucky to live long enough, we will have enough time to adjust flaws in our character for the better.

Mr. Buffet is running out of time, but the aforementioned proves his strong ties to the belief of Gordon Gekko: Greed is good. 

I would make a suggestion that Mr. Buffett please put a good portion of the money he makes from the float in scientific and medical research that cure diseases caused by asbestos and other hazardous/toxic substances and invest in environmental technologies that permanently remove asbestos and other hazardous/toxic substances from our environment in order to save lives.

Instead of the beliefs of Gordon Gekko, I recommend Mr. Buffet follow the beliefs of Oscar Schindler, "To save one life is to save the world". 

The Ugly, The Bad and The Good of Waste Disposal

I know, I know it is supposed to be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but I don’t personally know Clint Eastwood and this blog, in my opinion, works better backwards.

The Ugly: recycler uses recycle operation as landfill; construction supervisor mishandles asbestos, landfill fires, landfill odors and landfill toxic fumes, landfill leachate run-off, illegal E-Waste disposal, manufacturers who knew and know that the products, such as Lead, Chromium, Asbestos were and are lethal to human beings, but manufacture for profit anyway, asbestos companies that dumped asbestos illegally in upstate New York, the asbestos truck that purposely dumped asbestos in the street in front of a grammar school, violators who do not safely handle and dispose toxins, the companies that are not precautious enough to stop environmental disasters, oil companies, the corporations that have toxic, hazardous or regulated waste that can be treated on site, but landfill them for our future generations to deal with, the list goes on and most received prison time, all except the executives that are politically connected, like W.R. Grace, but a Swiss billionaire asbestos manufacturer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for asbestos deaths – in Italy – no less! There is something wrong with the U.S., because no one received prison time for killing a town of people in Libby, Montana. Now that is really UGLY!

The Bad: The bad are the people who care, but only occasionally, the bad are the people who find it difficult to go out of their way to recycle and only recycle when convenient, the bad are the people who throw everything into one garbage bin, the bad are the people who throw waste in the street instead of carrying it to a garbage bin or a recycle bin.

The Good: The good ardently believe the more we recycle the better we will become as humans, the better our children will be as they grow, the less future pollution our children will have to deal with and the less pollution will enter the environment, the less garbage will be handled and dumped in a landfill or put through an incinerator, believe in conserving our natural resources, support global climate change and will continue to create new industries and jobs though innovation of recycling products.

The good believe in a circular economy: what comes out of the manufacturing product, after its end of life’s cycle, is able to go back into the manufacturing the same or similar product. The good understand the importance of buying products that are recyclable and/or are made from recycled material. The good don’t take shopping bags from the grocery store, but they bring their own non-disposable shopping bags to the grocery store.

The good understand the importance of the separation of recyclables, they buy and use designated recycles bins. They believe in composting, paper, cardboard, bottle, and can recycling.

Hell! The good believe in recycling everything they can possibly recycle to save our planet.

Now ask yourself: Which one am I?

Similarities Between the Waste and Death Industry

In a blog recently published on Waste & Recycling News, Maria Kirch writes about being environmentally responsible in death.

The blog discusses the new eco-friendly coffins that can be decorated to your desires and biodegradable corporate clothing line known as the first 100% environmentally responsible tailored funeral wear.

It started me to think about death, population, garbage, landfilling and burial plots.

Let's take death and population first. Currently approximately 150,000 people die each day and it is expected that 40% of these people will opt for cremation (incineration). Some who die unforeseen deaths and are healthy at death will hopefully donate their organs to medical institutions for reuse to better the life of humans who need them, i.e. human organ recycling.

Cemetery space is becoming like landfill space, diminishing greatly. Presently, in the United States, 230 million tons of solid waste is landfilled each year. The population growth of 19.5% for every 1,000 people will not only create a vast increase in garbage disposal, but also create a vast increase in burial ground requirements.

Will land be used for garbage, for cemetery plots or for food? Statistics point out that one has to realize the future of the earth's limitations and the future use of its land do to population growth. The siting of new landfills, as well as the need for burial space, will forcibly make our earth's livable ground disappear in a short time.

One thought might be, can we use old landfills for burial grounds? Just the thought of being buried in a garbage dump makes me cringe.

Landfill mining is starting to be become a trend by digging out the recyclables to create more landfill space. Now done in the Netherlands, the reality will that all landfills will install onsite waste-to-energy units to incinerate or cremate the remaining landfill waste after the recyclable are mined. They are starting to remove the recyclables before landfilled and incinerate (cremate) the rest of the garbage for energy without putting it in a landfill.

Incineration or cremation of anything leaves a minimal amount of ash that can be disposed of or recycled, and when a human is cremated, the ash can be kept in an urn or spread over the person's favorite spot.

The aforementioned will give us back our natural resources found in the recyclables, and eliminate a great portion of our solid waste by creating much needed energy and land space.

As hard as it is we humans have to start to think seriously about our environmental impact while we are busy resting in peace. Each and every one of us must think about organ donation, i.e. recycling, land space, cremation as opposed to cemetery plots, while at the same time taking advantage of the eco-friendly coffins, and biodegradable corporate clothing.

If the waste industry can do it -- so can us humans!

I'm Guilty Of Illegal Dumping

I live in downtown New York City, one block west of City Hall. My office is approximately 2 1/2 blocks north of City Hall. I point this out, because many demonstrations are held right outside City Hall with loud speakers for the protesters to announce their protests so everyone can hear them within a half-mile radius, they march or gather for blocks.

During these demonstrations, it is common to have a strong police presence lining the streets for safety. Now an additional safety precaution has been implemented since the Boston Marathon bombing, removal of all curbside garbage cans by sanitation.

If you have never been in New York, it is a city of high-rise office and apartment buildings in most areas. As much as New Yorkers understand the importance of recycling, it is hard to recycle in a large apartment building or office building that do not provide separation recycling bins. Even the curbside separation recycling bins are far and in-between. Although I found a set of garbage, bottles and cans only, and newspapers and magazines only recycling bins outside City Hall and across the street there were two solar powered Big Belly compactors. I guess City Hall politicians were setting an example, but so far they have not provided these bins throughout the city.

In my office we have water in bottles and soda in cans. When we finish the drink we put them in separate bins for recycling. When the bins are full we recycle and help the homeless at the same time by filling two large shopping bags with the cans and bottles, leaving them for the collectors of these bottles and cans next to a curb side garbage can. These collectors are usually older, short in stature with a hunch, Asian woman who sift through bags of garbage in every block filling large clear plastic bags with bottles and cans carrying them over their shoulder on a broom handle with a bag as large as they filled each end or filled shopping carts with the same size bags.

They do this for nickel redemption on each returnable.

The strange thing is if you offer them money they won't take it and consider it an insult.

On July 3, I left my office with two large shopping bags filled with bottles and cans. When I got downstairs there were no garbage cans in sight, because of labor demonstration at City Hall. I walked down until I got to my block where I finally saw a garbage can across the street. Next to the garbage can where two sanitation workers and a sanitation inspector talking, I asked if it would be OK if I left these bags for the Asian woman.

His reply: "You know that is illegal dumping and if he," pointing to the inspector, "wanted to, he could arrest you."

I put them next to the garbage can anyway.

Besides reminding me that it was illegal dumping (it does state on each curbside garbage container "Liter Only: No Household Trash; No Business Trash, 100 Dollar Fine") he reminded me how much he hated those Asian woman, this was not a prejudice remark, but a complaint that the Asian woman caused them extra work, messing up the waste bags for sanitation to clean-up.

That afternoon my son and I were going to a movie. I walked across the street where I live to get my son. When I walked back across the street, I found that the sanitation workers where gone and so where the bags of bottles and cans, but no Asian woman were in sight. I guess I wasn't arrested or fined, because the bottles and cans provided coffee money for those sanitation workers.

This incident set-off my curiosity and sent me on a quest to better understand garbage and recycling in New York City. So I started to walk through the neighborhood to see how much illegal dumping went on, quite a bit.

I also found a number of curbside garbage cans with white trash bags next to them with the words ACE Empowering the Homeless. ACE stands for The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless. This program helps people who are either in a rehabilitation program and have a doctor's clearance to work or are homeless. ACE people are street sweepers who use these ACE bags for trash; when full, place them next to a curbside garbage container. After speaking with one of the ACE workers who was happy to have the job, I realized ACE made a great contribution to trash clean-up and to human dignity. The ACE person reminded me that ACE takes donations.

Back to the Asian woman, in my travels I spotted an Asian woman working on a pile of clear recyclable bags that was five feet high and a half of block long. Mind you these bags are only supposed to contain newspapers and small cardboard items, bottles or cans are supposed to be in separate clear plastic bags.

This woman worked efficiently, precisely, carefully and extremely quickly, untying the bags picking out the bottles and cans and neatly tying the bags back up. When I left she had four large bags, three and a half feet tall filled to the brim and was only a quarter of the way through the pile.

The way I see it, these women are doing the city a great service by supporting themselves; not taking welfare; supporting New York's recycling program by lessening the waste burden for the sanitation workers, who had coffee on me.

Honest Truths

I have to be honest about my life, a life of sever Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). My father had it. I know, because I asked him why he only went to one month of high school, he said, I couldn’t study or sit still to read.

ADHD is hereditary; some of my children have it.

At age 30, not knowing what ADHD was or that I had it, I made up my mind that I was going to learn how to read and write. So every night I went home and forced myself to read. I had a college PhD English Professor who lived across the hall from me, Elaine Levy. Elaine agreed for $50.00 an hour to give me private English lessons, chapter by chapter.

I worked for many years to improve my English, vocabulary and writing.

I am more than appreciative when an environmental magazine publishes one of my articles and more than grateful to Craines Waste and Recycling News editors and Maria Kirch who allow me to be published monthly.

From one of my writings, I received an email from Garry Van Heest, Vice President -Remediation at Directional Technologies, Inc:

Tony,

My Dad was a self-employed carpenter from 1950 to 1970.  He was exposed to dust from asbestos-containing building products (as was I as a kid when I worked with him).

I agree: this material has to be removed from our environment.  There are documented cases of people getting meso from one exposure and you do not get the disease unless you are exposed - no documented cases of anyone with the disease that was not exposed.

As you can see from my LinkedIn profile, I am an environmental professional with industrial hygiene experience.  It really blindsided me when my Dad was diagnosed.  I thought it was only people who worked in the asbestos industry that contracted the disease.

I am joining your mailing list.

Keep up the good work.

Garry

I was humbled by the fact that my writing has been able to cause environmental awareness and I was flattered and thankful for Garry’s email. I asked if I could use his email. 

Garry’s answer: “You have my authorization to use my story - anything to help even one more person from contracting mesothelioma”.  Garry

There are many executives of companies, who have allowed pollution for profit; upon their death their children will inherit their money, as I inherited ADHD. The pollution created by that money is also hereditary to their children as well as many others will involuntarily pay, either by environmental clean-up costs or by contracting a detrimental and fatal illness, much like Garry’s father. It is inevitable!

Science has found a way to deal with ADHD using medication and therapy.

Science must find a way to deal with the many environmental pollutants by creating technologies to take them out of our environment once and for all or we will continue to pay until we are broke or terminally ill. This is the Honest Truth!

The Impact of Environmental Litigation

Let's explore the history of toxic substances in our environment from the time we knew that the toxic substances were harmful and lethal to our health.

Let us start with asbestos -- the most litigated of the hazardous, toxic materials.

The Greeks, the earliest users of asbestos 3,000 years ago, considered the value of asbestos almost equal to the value of gold. Chrysotile, the most commonly used asbestos, comes from the Greek word of gold, chysos, and fiber, tilos.

The Greeks and the Romans recorded that slaves who worked with asbestos and in asbestos mines died early from lung sickness.

The industrial revolution brought on the expanded use of asbestos, because of its superior fire retardant ability and its tensile strength. Asbestos products were used to contain friction and heated parts of machinery, protecting that part of the machinery from wear and tear and protecting the worker from burns. The use of asbestos in these applications made sense from a manufacturing point of view, but not from a health point of view.

The vast increase of mining and processing asbestos during the industrial revolution was proven in the late 1800s to damage the lungs, causing death.

The use of asbestos in manufacturing continued for more than 100 years without regulation pertaining to the safety of the worker. Asbestos is still used today, in spite of the health effects.

Chromium has been used for over 2,000 years. Although asbestos relates to lung cancer, hexavalent chromium or chromium VI, is related to a mired amount of diseases, lung cancer only being one of them. As early as 1930, the effects of respiratory cancer in workers in the chrome industry were diagnosed. Eventually, a mired amount of other chromium related diseases that ranged from asthma, liver disease and skin cancer to cardiovascular disease, as well as many other lethal effects to the human organs were discovered from exposure to chromium.

Chromium cancer clusters can be isolated and identified to specific areas of our environment, such as former chromium manufacturing sites and dumping sites from those chromium manufacturing sites.

Lead has been used for over 6,000 years and the effects of lead poisoning have been known for over 2,500 years. All through history the effects of non-occupational lead poisoning have been documented.

In recent years publications on the devastating effects of lead paint has permanently impaired the learning ability of children.

The industries that used the aforementioned hazardous, toxins in their manufacturing operations have caused devastating effects on society and loved ones.

The business of environmental litigation has cut deeply into industries profits, causing many to go bankrupt.

Although litigation does not cure or bring back a loved one, it says loudly and clearly that companies must take advanced steps to protect the environment and loved ones, because there is no dollar amount that can buy a human life.

The Trouble with Asbestos Disposal

Hailed as a miracle mineral because of its superior fire resistance and tensile strength, asbestos was installed abundantly into our built environment for over 200 years. However, once it was established that this undeniably useful resource was a dangerous carcinogen, Australia and many other countries enacted strict regulations for handling asbestos and asbestos containing material (ACM). There regulations created an asbestos abatement industry worth billions of dollars worldwide annually, and which will continue to generate millions of ton of asbestos waste long into the future.

Corporations and insurance companies have paid out billions of dollars in asbestos claims and have increased their reserves by billions of dollars to cover present and future incalculable loses pertaining to asbestos lawsuits. Much of the cement board that permeates Australian residential, commercial, school, and government buildings is a prominent example of such a product.

The installation and presence of these building products has caused many construction trade workers – including plumbers, pipefitters, boilermakers, carpenters and installers – to contract mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases. Besides the construction trades, the people who live and work in buildings containing asbestos are potentially exposed to toxic forms of asbestos. Consequently, the ACM mining, manufacturing and installation industries have created great liability issues for the producers, installers, end users and their associated insurance companies.

From 1950 to 1970, Australia was the highest per capita user of asbestos in the world, and vast numbers of domestic dwellings built before 1982 contained – or still contain – asbestos.

Whereas most countries banned the use of asbestos in building products by 1980, Australia’s relatively late bans are likely to lead to more asbestos related exposures and diseases many years into the future. Australia already has one of the world’s highest rates of mesothelioma deaths, as well as many other asbestos related cancers. There late bans will feed the asbestos abatement industry and the disposal of asbestos and ACMs, as well as contribute strongly to ongoing contraction of asbestos diseases.

In Tasmania, the Australian Workers Union has developed a plan to remove all the ACM by 2030, 17 years from now. But this raises difficult questions. Will all ACM on substrates be removed? Where will the ACM be stored (nothing that asbestos never really goes away, even when landfilled).

US laws make the owner or generator asbestos or ACM a “Potential Responsible Part”, who is responsible for the cradle-to-grave liability for asbestos stored in a landfill through perpetuity. This means that when the landfill fails and must be cleaned up, the Potential Responsible Party or Parties, become responsible to pay for clean-up. In Australia there is no such regulation, with taxpayers meeting much of the financial burden for clean-up.

Let us explore the disposal options presently available for asbestos and ACMs.

Landfilling

Eventually, all landfills will fail. Modern day landfills liners last around 30 years. What happens when the liners are punctured or deteriorate?

Although landfilling is the cheapest and most convenient disposal option for asbestos or ACM, it is not the most cost effective – in the long run someone will have to pay to re-abate the asbestos from the landfill before it pollutes the surrounding area.

So what happens to asbestos or ACM when it is landfilled? By regulation, asbestos and ACM must be wrapped in plastic or a double polythene bag. Every package of asbestos must be clearly marked with a proper shipping name, including UN number, packaging group number, hazchem code and class label. The polythene bags are loaded on to a bin or trailer and driven to the landfill. The vehicle carting the ACM to the landfill must display a placard that is placed at the front and rear of the vehicle stating “Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods”. Next, the polythene bags are dumped from the height of a trailer or container into the landfill. The dumped asbestos polythene bags must then be covered with 15 to 30 cm of non-asbestos covering pushed over by heavy construction equipment.

What are the possible consequences of this method of disposal? Bags can break, allowing asbestos fibers to become airborne and migrate to the water table. An example of problems encountered in Australia with landfilling asbestos is Wyong Council’s landfill at Shelly Beach, New South Wales. Because ACMs have surfaced above its cover due to erosion and weather conditions, it will cost $12 million to clean up the asbestos dumped into the landfill during the 1970s. Also, there is no way to tell how many people who live and work around Shelly Beach have been exposed to the surfaced asbestos.

Thermal Options

There are presently three thermal options to destroy and permanently rid asbestos from our environment: vitrification, plasma torch, and Asbestos Recycling, Inc.’s hearth oven.

All thermal processes require high heat and high energy to destroy asbestos, because they need to run at 1500 to 2000 °C to glassify the asbestos. The asbestos is fed into the thermal unit for a required residence time. Following this, the end product must be cooled before testing. If no asbestos is detected by transmission electron microscopy, the end product can be recycled or sent to a non-regulated landfill. If asbestos is detected, then the whole previously treated batch must be put back through the thermal unit.

The high temperatures require substantial electricity at high cost, along with high maintenance costs on the refractory – the inner brick lining of furnace, which over time cracks and wears out due to the high temperature required to destroy the asbestos – which causes approximately 25 to 30% down time. Furthermore, the thermal unit must have an extensive and efficient scrubber system that prevents the escape of potentially harmful byproducts (e.g. furans, dioxins and nitrogen oxides).

Chemical Options

There are several chemical options for the permanent disposal for asbestos.

Soaking chrysotile asbestos in sulfuric acid for an extended period of time destroys the chrysotile, but is slow in its destruction reaction time. Once the reaction is complete, the acid is neutralized with a base, such as lime or baking soda.

W.R. Grace, Inc. developed an in situ non-thermal chemical process to destroy asbestos containing spray-on fireproofing containing chrysotile. The spray-on fireproofing (trade name Monokote) was developed and sold by Grace when asbestos was still permitted in building materials. When asbestos was banned, Grace developed an in situ chemical asbestos destruction process that destroyed only chrysotile. The process requires full negative air containment with four air changes per hour, but not high electrical use. Ultimately, Grace encountered two problems: 1) for a building with hundreds or thousands of square feet of sprayed-on fireproofing, it was difficult and costly to prove that all the asbestos was destroyed; 2) the process did not fall under the relevant US Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation; therefore Grace could not secure EPA approval for the process. (The aforementioned thermal options are EPA approved, because they do fall under the relevant regulation).

The ABCOV®  Method of asbestos destruction is a non-thermal; EPA approved mixing process that chemically and physically destroys all forms of asbestos in all ACM. The process is performed under negative air containment and employs size reduction of the ACM and high speed dispersion mixing with ABCOV®  chemicals, which are contained in a mild acidic solution.

The asbestos destruction is able to best tested, using polarized light microscopy, as the asbestos is being destroyed, allowing no asbestos to leave the process equipment until completely inert.

The process requires the negative air containment to have six air changes per hour. There is minimal electrical usage and a negative air scrubber system that includes an activated carbon filter and a high-efficiency particulate air filter that will provide six air changes per hour (as opposed to the four air changes per hour that is required for a typical asbestos abatement project performed under negative air containment.

Innovative waste treatment technologies are the future of the waste industry – not only for asbestos, but for all hazardous wastes that cannot be recycled.

Australian bans on asbestos:

1967 - crocidolite (blue asbestos) - considered the most dangerous of the asbestos minerals.

1989 - amosite (brown asbestos) - banned from building products (and from other products in 2003).

2003 - chrysotile (white asbestos).

2004 - the remaining asbestos minerals, tremolite, actinolite and anthophyllite.

Sources: Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization; Australian Council of Trade Unions

Further reading

• www.asbestos.com
• Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org)
• United States Federal Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov)
• Australian Industrial Waste Resource Guidelines: Asbestos Transport and Disposal (http://bit.ly/12EwRvY)

References

1. NSW Government: Cabinet Office 2004. Report of the special commission of inquiry into the medical research and compensation foundation. ‘Asbestos and James Hardie’, Annexure J., p.117.
2. National Occupational Health & Safety Commission 2005. Code of Practice for the Safe Removal of Asbestos 2nd Edition [NOHSC:2002 (2005)].

Disclaimer: Tony Nocito works for ABCOV®; Description of proprietary technologies does not imply endorsement by Remediation Australasia.

We would like to thank Australian Remediation Industry Cluster for giving us this great opportunity to publish our content in their quarterly magazine "Remediation Australasia."  Remediation Australasia, Issue 13.

Understanding price and cost of hazardous wastes

The first line of defense for companies is they don't have any hazardous, toxic or regulated wastes. And if they do, it is minimal, gets cleaned up and sent to a safe landfill (if there is such a thing). So they believe they are safe.

You may be safe, but our environment is not and our children for sure are not and your future stockholders definitely are not.

I have knowledge of asbestos problems, because that is my business. I am gaining knowledge of Hexavalent Chromium problems, a new business for me. I am also somewhat knowledgeable about other toxic and hazardous wastes, but these wastes are not as well publicized as asbestos due to mesothelioma litigator's barrage of constant advertisements.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at asbestos trust's fraudulent claims on March 11. Fact: Where there's money, there will always be fraud. Who knows better than the Wall Street Journal, they cover Wall Street.
With the trusts paying out $100 million a year, "There is growing concerns that the trusts will run out of money before America runs out of asbestos victims," the article reports. And that, my friends, is exactly the point.

One litigator claims that asbestos "victims are the worst corporate mass genocide in history," a very true statement.

Hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes must be dealt with now! They must be taken out of our environment -- permanently -- or the genocide will continue!

It doesn't make sense that companies wouldn't be interested in using available positive environmental technologies to permanently rid these dangerous wastes. I think corporations think the price of landfilling is cheaper than treatment. Please keep in mind that price and cost are two totally different numbers.

What happens when asbestos is landfilled: the driver who takes asbestos to the landfill must suit-up in asbestos protective clothing with respirator before the load can be dumped. When dumped, inevitably containers are going to break, allowing asbestos to become airborne. This holds true for other hazards. I sure hope you don't live around one of these landfills.

Where the cells asbestos and other hazardous and toxic wastes are stored (I used the word stored, because the waste eternally belongs to the generator) cannot be used for any other purpose. They can't be used for waste-to-energy, recyclables recovery, installation of wind farms or solar panels or to capture methane gases. The cells cannot be disturbed forever except by the inevitable wear and tear, causing exposure to hazards long into the future.

The fact is the generator's name is listed on the landfill manifest, container the waste is stored in and, in some cases, on the waste material itself.

Why do the generators keep landfilling hazards when asbestos has proven that the cost will be much greater than the price?

Zero waste, circular economy, sustainability impact the bottom line

What is zero waste? In manufacturing zero waste's goal is to reuse left over materials from the manufacturing of products, putting them back into the process to manufacture new products. Zero waste can also be carried out when a manufacturer of a product that is recyclable takes it back to its facility to reuse recycled product in the production of a new similar product. This closely resembles circular economy, but not completely, because all older products cannot be brought back for feed for reproduction, due to possible hazardous and toxic contaminants, asbestos being one.

The construction industry is continuously toiling to bring construction and demolition debris to zero waste to reduce, reuse, recycle, and salvage, but the construction industry is only accomplishing a 95% recycling rate. Again, hazardous and toxic wastes, like asbestos, are one of the problems standing in the way of 100% recycling.

Although recycling and zero waste are becoming a way of life, to get to zero waste takes hard work and constant diligent-awareness of how to avoid creating waste.

Recycling will continue to eliminate waste to the landfill, especially in the construction debris area. This was proven to me when I met the chief environmental engineer for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), Thomas Abdallah, who is faced with a herculean challenge of dealing daily with a subway system that is more than 100 years old. How Abdallah sleeps at night, I haven't been able to figure out. As I got to know Abdallah, I found him to be a "in the present thinker" but always looking to the future of how to improve the system and how to eliminate wastes, like asbestos, that are a constant pain. Abdallah recently told me that in the last renovation project he recycled 95% of the construction debris.

But the MTA doesn't manufacture; it provides transportation. So when improvements are made to the 100-year-old system, recycling becomes of great importance.

Our future is to think in terms of how nature works, i.e. re-fertilize to create a new crop, thus a circular economy.

A circular economy is going to take persistence and time to create, but it will be our environmental savior once created.

I recently met with the Armstrong flooring and tile company's Andy Lake, recycling infrastructure processing specialist, in charge of bringing used ceiling tile back into the manufacturing system. Lake arranged the meeting with his ceiling group and Armstrong's floor tile group headed by Lisa Y. Cavataio.

My observation of these two groups was that they are diligently working to develop Armstrong into a circular economy company by bringing back ceiling and floor tile to its birth for fertilizer for a new crop of building materials.

Lake and Cavataio, like Abdullah, are present and future thinkers.

The examples above are people who are environmentally conscious and are aware of the importance of sustainability, understanding what it means to the future of our environment and to the company's bottom line.

Utilities will be forced to figure out tough environmental issues

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal, a fairly reliable publication, titled "U.S. Electricity Use on Wane."

The article cites the fact that although we have more electronic gadgets than ever before "electricity use is barely growing," challenging our nation's utilities.

I am sure that we all feel sorry for the utilities, because they now have to rethink how they can find a new way to hold us hostage.

To help solve this financial problem, most of the large utilities will invest in transmission of electricity, abandoning electrical generation. This will allow them to see higher returns, because they no longer have to maintain the generating stations.

I would bet a dollar that solar panels, wind farms and waste-to-energy facilities played a role in the aforementioned reduction in profits, besides the economy and the movement of manufacturing to other countries.

But what are going to be the consequences of utilities investing in the transmission of electricity as opposed to generating it?

The utility industry is in an evolution period, it is slowly evolving from generator to transmitter (think manufacturing of electricity to landlord, renting us their transmission lines, in part, because the growth and use of new cleaner technologies, such as solar, wind and WTE). All of these technologies will grow in use and become a necessity, helping us lessen our carbon footprint, making it imminent to put them to use.

WTE is coming into its own. Because of diminishing landfill space and the problems with siting new landfills, it will become a necessity just as landfill mining will. We will eventually put a WTE facility on every landfill allowing the generation of power and the digging up of recyclables for reuse. This will lessen our carbon footprint and strengthen our reuse of recyclable resources.

Utilities are slow to change and only move when they are forced to, because they don't have to, they are our utilities. Also, they have proven to be the financial staple that pays better than average dividends. Now financial stability is threatened. Although the utilities' challenge is to generate more income, they will be faced with larger and more onerous definitive financial and environmental issue that they must figure out a way to solve by answering the following questions:

How does the utility clean-up all of their retired generating stations with their toxic, hazardous and regulated waste contamination?

Where does the utility find the money to clean-up these retired assets?

Is there enough landfill space to take the amount of hazardous, toxic and regulated wastes the retired assets will generate?

How do we head off the disaster that is going to happen if we don't find and use technology to take these wastes permanently out of our environment?

I understand that the utilities have to scramble to keep ahead of the financial curve, but the looming disaster will do worse damage. If they don't act now, they will be buried by their own toxins.

The only four things we are given in life

I teach my children that we only have four things in this world.

The four things are:

*Our health. If you don't take care of your health it won't take care of you.

*Time. If you don't spend your time constructively, it is a waste of time.

*People. If you are not good to other people, they will not be good to you.

*Our Earth, the ground and water.

Let's explore these four things.

We know if we eat right and exercise regularly the chances of staying healthy are good, but on the other hand, if we smoke, drink excessively, and over eat, especially fatty foods, we pay for it with sickness and an early death.

We know that wasting time accomplishes nothing, but if we spend our time constructively, it generally pays off.

We know that if we are polite, kind and express good will toward people, and help those in need, they will always be grateful and kind to us.

We know that the Earth is our survival. We cultivate it for food, so we can be nourished; it is the land we live on. It is our life's blood. Without it, we would not exist. A good part of the Earth is our water, ocean, lakes and our reservoirs, from which we get the pure water we drink.

Like our health, we must treat Earth with the best physical ability we can: nurture and cultivate the soil, treat it with nutrients to maintain the soils rich content, irrigate the soil with non-polluted water and not abuse or over-use the soil by draining it of its nutrients or polluting it with hazardous, toxic or regulated substances.

When we abuse our body, waste our time, or mistreat other people, the abuse of the body makes us ill with heart disease or cancer or maybe both, the waste of time catches up to us as we age, because we see what we could have done, but didn't and when we mistreat other people, we have no friends to be there when we need them, because we were not there when they needed us.

It is difficult to overcome the aforementioned, but not impossible. The key, to build back our health, this is possible with technology and modern medicine, which gives us enough time to overcome our shortcomings and be kind to other people, giving us sustainable living.

We are now in the difficult period of taking care of our earth, but not impossible. We are over-landfilled; over-polluted; have an ocean full of garbage; and global warming causing disastrous hurricanes.

Therefore, our New Year's resolution must be to stop our earth's deterioration, reduce, reuse and recycle; make sustainability a priority and develop technology that stops hazardous pollutants.

This will all give us good health, more time, and a chance to be good to others.