[CPEO-MEF] DISPOSAL, GLOBAL, VETERANS: "The Environmental Legacy of International Burn Pits Continues After 20 Years"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

The Environmental Legacy of International Burn Pits Continues After 20 Years
Some people in Iraq and Afghanistan who lived or worked downwind from burn pits experienced negative health effects. 

By Bernard Fontaine, Jr.
Environmental Protection
March 24, 2023

The original story about the 20-year legacy of the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan was published by Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim of the Washington Post on March 18, 2023. Let’s look at what we know and what has changed. Despite official U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policy that prohibits them “except in circumstances in which no alternative disposal method is feasible;” open-air burn pits were a method of waste management and disposal often used in areas with little or no infrastructure. “ Burn pits are distinguished from incineration in that they are situated out in the open, either on flat ground or in excavated depressions, rather than contained in an incinerator apparatus,” according to the American Public Health Association (APHA).

A burn pit is one approach to waste disposal used by the US military at bases in the Middle East, mainly in Afghanistan and Iraq starting in 2001. Burn pits were widely distributed geographically, but they exposed Iraqi and Afghan citizens—including women and children who experienced the detrimental health effects—to emissions as the burn pits were often located close by. APHA explained. According to VetsHQ, burn pits were also found in Kuwait, Somalia, Turkey, Spain, Qatar, Djibouti, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Diego Garcia, Bahrain, Oman, Syria, Yemen, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Even though the environmental complaints led to new U.S. laws restricting burn pits by the end of 2010, burning continued unrestricted in Afghanistan until 2021 when U.S. military forces left the country.

…

For the entire article, see
https://eponline.com/articles/2023/03/24/the-environmental-legacy-of-international-burn-pits.aspx

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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