Transport for London (TfL) has admitted that hazardous material is still on the Tube network coming up to five years after it was warned about it. Officials say they are working to get rid of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as soon as they can.
The American government states that the cooling chemicals ‘harm human and environmental health’. Before they were banned, the chemicals were made to make things such as electrical transformers, insulators, capacitors, and electric appliances such as television sets or refrigerators.
Guidance on the UK Government’s website states: “You must dispose of PCBs, and equipment or material that contains them, as soon as possible unless they are covered by an exception.” But there are some exemptions.
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You can read more about those here.
Documents for a meeting of TfL’s board next week state that the material will be removed ‘as soon as possible’. Documents read: “On October 7, 2019, we received a notice from the Environment Agency in relation to equipment containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the London Underground network.
“The notice required the phase out and removal of all assets containing PCBs by the end of 2023. London Underground has implemented a removal plan and work continues to remove the PCBs as soon as possible. We are liaising closely with the Environment Agency.”
The Guardian reports that, in the 1970s and 80s, PCBs ended up in the breast milk of nursing American mothers who had eaten contaminated fish. Their children showed ‘higher rates of development and learning disorders’.
In Japan and Taiwan, meanwhile, the children of women who had eaten rice oil blighted by the chemicals were ‘underweight and lagged behind their peers in development’. Adults working with PCBs were also ‘prone to developing a skin condition called chloracne, which produces pustules and cysts’.
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