Survey on health hazards linked to Cacem solid waste incinerator, Martinique, French West Indies

In Martinique in 2002, on the Trompeuse area in Fort-de-France, the implementation of the Cacem solid waste incinerator raised concern among a part of the population living in the vicinity, and among employees working in the area exposed to the incinerator plume. A survey was carried out in 2005 to assess the potential health hazards linked to this facility. The collected data show that the amount of pollutants released from the chimney meets the 2002 legal requirements. The concentrations measured during the tests comply with the threshold limit values determined by a decree of regional authorities. The risk for the population living or working in the areas exposed to the waste incinerator plume can be compared to the one estimated in the French public health society report for recent incinerators. This risk is low, concerning cancers particularly, as it does not exceed 10^-5 for heavy metals and 1.2.10^-5 for dioxins. If the inhalation route is considered as the only exposure source (and this hypothesis is the most likely to be true), the number of excess cancers in the population exposed to the dioxins released by the incinerator would be 0.037 cases over 70 years. This survey shows that the Cacem incinerator meets the current legal requirements. Thus, the health hazards linked to the pollutant emissions of this plant are very low. The emission standards must be respected to help keeping health hazards at a very low level. (authors)