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Dump Fire


Vik
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At home off my work this morning feeling crap after 2 - 3 days working down wind of the burning dump fumes. Googled the health effects of being subject to burning rubbish and yesterday was certainly a day that anyone working in the area from Staney Hill to Rova Head would have been subjected to high levels of carcinogenic, dioxin & other toxic emissions!

 

I'm now very surprised certain places in North Lerwick in direct line of the smoke yesterday were not closed down & folk sent home for the day!

 

Anyone else who works or lives in the worse affected area feelin rough today?

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Surely if you suspected your health was being in any way compromised the onus was as much on you to engage your employer on the issue as it was on them to take the initiative, and if you felt it necessary, remove yourself from the perceived danger area. Or have we all become automatons these days who will keep on "following orders" to the letter until and unless countermanded by the man, even if it involves walking in to the heart of the fire.

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With respect it's not as easy as that. Are you an expert on toxic emissions? Are you medically trained to assess the situation? I'm certainly not trained in any of that nor anyone in my company.

 

Is this not why we have trained people, experts, organisations charged with public health & all the things that are in place to protect public health or safety and which we pay our taxes for? I did take responsibility & took the day off, probably without pay. If your suggesting "shut up & get on with it" your expressing a pretty irresponsible attitude.

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I'm not saying anyone should ""shut up & get on with it", quite the opposite if fact.

 

I'm saying that if you had concerns about your working enviornment the onus was as much on you to either remove yourself from that perceived danger, which you did, and/or bring to your employer's attention your concerns about them expecting you to work there, as it was for them to monitor your working conditions.

 

It hardly requires expert knowledge on toxic emissions, but rather just a healthy dose of common sense to know that inhaling virtually all gases, whatever they are, at best isn't going to be doing you any favours, and when your nose is telling you the air is a bit thick for your personal preferences its time to get the hell outta Dodge, regardless what any "expert" tries to tell you.

 

As for so called trained "experts" and public safety organisations, they're little else than a box checking PR exercise wasting public funds, they have far too many other agendas running in parallel to their main role to be anything else. When it comes to things that can be detected by smell, I'll listen to my own nose telling me its "bad", long, long before I contemplate believing them trying to tell me its "harmless".

 

If there's one thing worse than being ignorant and irresponsible its being "trained" but being incompetent, or being an "educated fool", and public bodies in Shetland, especially their upper echelons seem almost over-run to saturation with such people. I am reminded of when the Braer wrecked of having the unbelievably bizarre scenario of one so-called "trained expert" from a Shetland public health body on one TV News Channel assuring everyone that the fumes from the spill were "realtively harmless as long as folk took basic precautions" while another so-called expert from the same public health body was on a rival TV News Channel at virtually the same time assuring everyone that the fumes were so laden with carcinogenics life as we knew it would be devastated.

 

Had it not been such a relatively serious issue, the comedy value would have been better than any script writer could ever hope to have achieved.

Edited by Ghostrider
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"Experts"....?

 

An "Ex" is a "has been " and s "spert" is a drip under pressure.

 

As GR said,  if you don't think that it is a safe(?) working environment, take some responsibility for yourself and get out of there until the issue has been sorted. 

 

It is not so much that other people are responsible for your safety and wellbeing, YOU are also responsible.  After all, if the fire brigade were wearing breathing apparatus.......?

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Suffererincrankymoto - you need to wise up! Almost all sites (Facebook Shetland Classifieds, Shetland Times, Shetlink etc) have folk sellin stuff that stays on the site / paper long after its sold. It's really time consuming operating an online classifieds / sales / wants service - some individuals who sell online cannot even stay up to date with only one item on sale.

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You gotta ask just how much combustible material is still going in to landfill here, and why. I thought we had an incinerator to get rid of that, and landfill was only for what it wasn't designed to handle.

 

Neither plastics, or metals or glass will generate heat from compression, so there has to have been a significant level of organic materials in that heap to have produced the heat needed to spark combustion, and I seriously doubt it was all from the cotton/wool/paper/wood/whatever of old mattresses sofas and chairs that maybe can't go through the incinerator on account of the amount of wire in them, something that seems to be backed up in the photos of the apparent random materials in the heap around the fire.

 

Why are we importing all Orkney's bruck and sometimes some from the Highland Council to keep the incinerator producing enough hot water for the district heating, when we're crushing, tipping and bulldozing over so much potential "fuel" literally yards away?

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It's really time consuming operating an online classifieds / sales / wants service - some individuals who sell online cannot even stay up to date with only one item on sale.

 

Anybody that cannot (won't?) set up listings in a way that they can be found using the site search engine and deleted in less than 10 seconds per item, probably shouldn't be using a computer unsupervised.

 

Granted, listing items to give them best advantage of selling quickly and at best price can be time consuming, what with pic(s), writing detailed and accurate desriptions and all, but removing is strictly a two click job that can be done with minimal brain cell usage.

Edited by Ghostrider
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Suffererincrankymoto - you need to wise up! Almost all sites (Facebook Shetland Classifieds, Shetland Times, Shetlink etc) have folk sellin stuff that stays on the site / paper long after its sold. It's really time consuming operating an online classifieds / sales / wants service - some individuals who sell online cannot even stay up to date with only one item on sale.

 

On the contrary, your organisation needs to get with it!  A total waste of money re-branding IF you can't do the basics of what is required of an enterprise these days.  Are you seriously telling me that there isn't a job for someone who might be crying out to have something to do due to perhaps their disabilities, that they couldn't be given the task of going through and sorting out the photographs?

 

Shetland Auctions seem to manage superbly by deleting all photographs a few days after their auction and put up new ones, no excuse whatsoever for your organisation.  Besides, the others aren't charities using other people's money.  Out of date photographs aren't  doing that certain organisation any favours whatsoever.  The web is a virtual shop window - use it!

Edited by Suffererof1crankymofo
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Kaiser Chef

 

Your suggesting spending hundreds of thousands of pounds if not into the millions putting pipes threw a waste landfill site just incase it ever starts burning to the degree that it can generate any heat energy.

 

Do you really have any idea how stupid that suggestion is ?

 

I am astounded two people liked that comment !

Edited by B/M/S
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Kaiser Chef

 

Your suggesting spending hundreds of thousands of pounds if not into the millions putting pipes threw a waste landfill site just incase it ever starts burning to the degree that it can generate any heat energy.

 

Do you really have any idea how stupid that suggestion is ?

 

I am astounded two people liked that comment !

And I'm astonished you've missed the picture! It doesn't need to catch fire to generate heat, it is already generating enough heat to combust. Therefore the heat exists under the ground and its maybe not such a daft idea that this could have been captured.

 

The question is, would it be cost effective.

 

Try putting your grass cuttings in a black bag, leave it for a week and youll be surprised how hot it becomes. I've often thought, are we missing a trick.:-)

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Kaiser Chef

 

Your suggesting spending hundreds of thousands of pounds if not into the millions putting pipes threw a waste landfill site just incase it ever starts burning to the degree that it can generate any heat energy.

 

Do you really have any idea how stupid that suggestion is ?

 

I am astounded two people liked that comment !

Enlighten me. Just exactly 'how' stupid is it?

(btw, there are already pipes placed in the landfill that are supposed to remove excess heat to prevent this from happening. But they only remove it to atmosphere and, evidently they don't work).

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