Open Air Burning

Lagace also discussed in detail the practice of open-air burning and the issue of how to deal with typhus-infected corpses. Regarding open-air burning, he testified that even with the use of gasoline, in 90% of all cases it would be only the skin that charred, perhaps the limbs would also be burnt, but the torso was very difficult to cremate. 

A contemporaneous witness who remembers the difficulties encountered in the cremation of the Dresden bombing victims, for example, would surely not have fallen for the atrocity tale of children being burnt alive in open-air burning pits. Or another example anyone who had ever been on guard duty himself would certainly have wondered where Weise might have gotten the ammunition he... 

Liquid propane and butane will vaporize rapidly if released into the open air, and if they come into contact with bare skin will cause painful freeze burns. Therefore gloves and goggles should always be worn if there is a danger of liquid LPG being released or spilt. 

More than 90% of municipal solid waste is directly disposed of on land, the vast majority of it in an unsatisfactory manner. Open and burning dumps are common in many developing countries these contribute to water and air pollution and provide food and breeding grounds for birds, rats, insects, and other carriers of disease. The presence of these dumps often reduces the property value of nearby land and residences. 

Concerning the open burning process, it has hazardous effects on the air. However, since there is a part that is not well burned, a residue is generated. This residue of the combustion along with metals and CRTs are normally dumped in open-air landfills. The effects of this activity impact the soil compartment. Moreover, CRTs are often pushed into rivers affecting in the water compartment. 

The presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the environment is of obvious concern and, apart from specific occupational environments, human exposure to these compounds derives from combustion products released into the atmosphere. Estimates of the total annual benzo[aJpyrene emissions in the United States range from 900 tons (19) to about 1300 tons (20). These totals are derived from heat and power generation (37-38%), open-refuse burning (42-46%), coke production (15-19%) and motor vehicle emissions (1-1.5%) (19,20). Since the vast majority of these emissions are from stationary sources, local levels of air pollution obviously vary. Benzo[aJpyrene levels of less than 1 pg/1,000 m correspond to clean air (20). At this level, it can be estimated that the average person would inhale about 0.02 pg of benzo[aJpyrene per day, and this could increase to 1.5 pg/day in polluted air (21). 

This behavior is typical of loose powders, and points out the potential danger of confining mixtures that burn quite sluggishly in the open air. 

In the open air, HN supports combustion, but the flame was extinguished upon removal of the ignition source. To achieve stable burning Shidlovskii (Ref 14) found that addition of 10 wt—% of K2Cr207 was necessary. 

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