baby steps

Sometimes I read things and think 'aaah for fuckssake people we're not in the middle ages - stop putting crap in waterways and thinking it will just disappear without having any impact!!' and then I think, actually, maybe we are in a sort of dark ages, only this time round it's the very bright ages - dazzling with electric light, dazzling with whiter than white pearly whites and laundered whites and dazzling with a smug and airy notion of our own very hi-tech wonderfulness. Think some retirement ad with beaning silvertops stolling hand in hand along a beach, wearing flowy white linen beach pants, and looking toned and terrific and financially secure. Honestly, that's where I think our collective consciousness is, drifting off in some soft focus television advertisement while here, back in the dazzling ages, the back end of the dream is the cramped sweatshops where the impoverished women stitch those flowy linen slacks, the gasping last breaths of the tuna fishery that fuels their daily measured intake of omega 3 (because they read it in a magazine somewhere), the lurking power of the sea about to flex and reach out with a hungry bite at their beach house, and the water with all sorts of hideous chemicals that don't quite get pulled out of even the sophisticated water treatment systems that we have here, but certainly don't get removed in all of our neighbouring countries that don't have water treatment systems at all, and this heady brew drifts, through fish and weed beds and into our shared oceans. Pity the fish who have to live in the wash of the bleach that makes our lives so shiny bright and stain free.

So - program below. Nice, good idea, practical, proactive, replicable, nicely targeted - great idea. And also, at the same time, why the fuck should we continue to let industry self regulate on matters that have public health and environmental impacts ('voluntary until 2011'), and why take mincing little baby steps when we know this stuff needs doing now? For goodness sake Silent Spring was written in the 1960's - we can respond to fashions about dress length and coat collars and colours as they arise each season but not significantly change our systems of production even in 40 years? AND if we can't do it, and do it quickly, how on earth do we expect everyone else (in this case the many dentists around the world I imagine are collectively pumping out more than 200kg of mercury annually) to do something quickly? We can build teensy little nanorobots, we can rip things out of the ground and turn them into glittery sky scrapers and shiny racing cars and pretty earrings, we can build ever so tricky little gadgets and gizmos and have them talk to each other magically through wires and airwaves but we can't collectively get a system in place where we don't deliberately and consciously and systematically put our own crap in the ocean. Honestly people, get it together.

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"The Victorian Government has launched a new $1 million program to work with the state's dental and water industries to help prevent mercury from entering Victoria’s sewerage systems.

The voluntary program will provide rebates to dentists to install amalgam separators to stop mercury entering the sewerage system from their surgeries.

Under the program, a rebate of $1000 or 20% of purchase and installation costs (whichever is greater) will be offered to private sector dentists who install amalgam separators. The rebate will be on a sliding scale, reducing over a three-year period.

At the conclusion of the voluntary program in June 2011, the State Government will assess the uptake rates for the voluntary program before making a decision on whether it is necessary to introduce mandatory regulations.

Funding for the program is being provided by South East Water, City West Water, the Victorian Environment Protection Authority and the Victorian Water Industry Association Inc. The Victorian Branch of the Australian Dental Association will develop and implement the program.

It is estimated that in 2007 about 200 kilograms of mercury was discharged into Victoria’s sewers from the dental industry."
Source: random enviro email list newsletter