WILTON, Conn., Nov. 2 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Startech Environmental
Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: STHK), a fully reporting company, announced
that it has received the 15% downpayment from GlobalTech Environmental
Corporation, the Company’s exclusive distributor for the Peoples Republic of
China, to start the production of the 20,000 pound-per-day Plasma Converter
System to be located in heavily-industrialized Northeast China. The
downpayment does not include the $250,000 distributor-fee paid to the Company
by GlobalTech. This first-of-its-kind Startech facility in China, scheduled
to go on-line in 2007, will be processing hazardous PCBs (Polychlorinated
Byphenyls) and POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants).
"In 2050 every second human being will die from cancer due to
contamination in food, water and the environment," according to the World
Health Organization in talking about POPs.
Steve Landa, Startech VP, said, "These are very nasty industrial
materials. The Plasma Converter System destroys each and every one of these
materials totally and irreversibly. The Converter is ideally suited to
completely and safely destroy POPs, PCBs and other hazardous products no
matter how persistent and no matter what the form or the chemical
composition."
Pat Quinn, GlobalTech Chief Executive Officer, said, "In addition to this
first system on the ground in China for hazardous waste, we also have many
other important projects in contract development for which we already have
executed Letters of Intent and also Agreements in China.
"Just on Waste-to-Alternative Fuels alone, we have a 100-TPD Tires and
Refinery Tank Bottoms project in Northern China, an initial 100 TPD project
for Black Coal in Mongolia, 250 TPD for Tires in Hunan Province, and 500 TPD
for Tires in Nanjing. We also have waste-to-hydrogen projects in South Korea
and hazardous waste projects in the Philippines."
Joseph F. Longo, Startech President, said, "With 20 percent of the world’
s population, and the challenges of its white-hot industrialization, China
has put environmental stewardship and sustainable development very high on
its list of priorities.
China is a very important market for the Company; one we’ve been working
on for the past five years."
What Are POPs and Why Harmful
The 8th International Forum on Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides was
held in Sophia in late May 2005. The Forum brought together governments, UN
agencies, industrial companies, international government organizations, non-
government organizations and private sector stakeholders to develop and to
implement a solution for the threat to the world of POPs, obsolete pesticides
and hazardous chemical waste.
An immediate focus is to establish Environmentally Sound Management (ESM)
practices on cleaning up obsolete stockpiles of pesticides for Central
European and the EECCA Countries (Eastern European countries, Caucasus and
Central Asia).
POPs means Persistent Organic Pollutants. They include materials such as:
Aldrin
Chlordane
DDT
Dieldrin
Endrin
Heptachlor
Hexachlorobenzene
Mirex
Toxaphene
Every human in the world carries traces of POPs in his or her body. They
damage the nervous and immune systems, cause cancer and reproductive
disorders, and interfere with normal infant and child development.
They all share four properties:
1-- they are highly toxic;
2-- they are stable and persistent;
3-- they evaporate and they travel long distances through the air and
through water ... and, worst of all,
4-- they accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and wildlife ...
especially in a woman’s breast ... even in a mother’s milk.
"In addition to producing death and sickness through direct contact, many
highly toxic chemicals and pesticides persist for years in the environment,
where they cause long-term damage to human health and to nature", said Klaus
Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, "These
substances travel readily across international borders to even the most
remote region, making this a global problem that requires a global
solution."
He also said, "A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that
exposure to very low doses of certain POPs -- which are among the most toxic
substances ever created -- can lead to cancer, damage to the central and
peripheral nervous systems, diseases of the immune system, reproductive
disorders and interference with normal infant and child development.
Another concern behind the initiative is the growing accumulation of
unwanted and obsolete stockpiles of pesticides and toxic chemicals,
particularly in developing countries. Dump sites and toxic drums from the
1950s, 1960s and 1970s are now decaying and leaching chemicals into the soil
and poisoning water resources, wildlife and people.
These highly stable compounds can last for years or decades before
breaking down. They circulate globally through a process known as
the "grasshopper effect." POPs released in one part of the world can,
through a repeated (and often seasonal) process of evaporation, deposit,
evaporation, deposit, be transported through the atmosphere to regions far
away from the original source.
In addition, POPs concentrate in living organisms through another process
called bioaccumulation. Though not soluble in water, POPs are readily
absorbed in fatty tissue, where concentrations can become magnified up to
70,000 times the background levels. Fish, predatory birds, mammals and humans
are high up the food chain and therefore absorb the greatest concentrations.
When they travel, the POPs travel with them. As a result of these two
processes, POPs can be found in people and animals living in regions such as
the Arctic, thousands of kilometers from any major POP source.
What are PCBs
PCB is the abbreviation for a family of manufactured industrial products
called polychlorinated biphenyls, and PCBs come in many forms. They are
complex molecular products comprised principally of chlorine and carbon atoms.
The major use of PCBs has been in industrial electric equipment
especially in transformers, capacitors, voltage regulators and
electromagnets. In operation, these devices produce undesirable heat and
PCBs help to remove that heat while operating as an effective non-flammable
dielectric (an electrical insulator). PCBs have also been used in hydraulic
systems, as plasticizers and as additives in lubricants. Among PCBs’
important industrial characteristics are its chemical stability and its
resistance to degradation. It is these very robust characteristics that make
PCBs so persistent and troublesome in the environment.
PCBs are dangerous and harmful, and PCB concentrations have been found in
water, soil, animals, plants and the food chain all over the world, even in
the polar ice caps ... a testament to the atmospheric transport of global
contamination.
Concentrations have also been detected in the fatty tissue of humans,
animals and fish. PCB biomagnifications concentrations have even been found
accumulated in "mother’s milk."
Why Are PCBs So Harmful
PCBs are pernicious materials that enter the body through the lungs,
digestive system and even through the skin, and tend to accumulate in the
fatty tissues of the body. The World Wildlife Fund reports that, "PCBs
interfere with many biological functions, including the immune system, the
nervous system and several endocrine systems, and fetuses appear to be
particularly vulnerable to these actions. Chronic low level PCB exposures
can cause liver damage, reproductive abnormalities, immune suppression,
neurological and endocrine system disorders, retarded infant development, and
stunted intellectual function.
About Startech -- an Environment and Energy Company
Startech Environmental is an environment and energy industry company
engaged in the production and sale of its innovative, proprietary plasma
processing equipment known as the Plasma Converter System(TM).
The Plasma Converter System safely and economically destroys wastes, no
matter how hazardous or lethal, and turns them into useful and valuable
products. In doing so, the System protects the environment and helps to
improve the public health and safety. The System achieves closed-loop
elemental recycling to safely and irreversibly destroy Municipal Solid Waste,
organics and inorganics, solids, liquids and gases, hazardous and non-
hazardous waste, industrial by-products and also items such as "e-waste,"
medical waste, chemical industry waste and other specialty wastes while
converting many of them into useful commodity products that can include
metals and a synthesis-gas called Plasma Converted Gas (PCG)(TM).
Among the many commercial uses for PCG, it can, for example, be used to
produce "green power," and Alternative Fuels such as ethanol and other
alcohol fuels, synthetic diesel fuels and also hydrogen for use and for
sale.
The Startech Plasma Converter is essentially a manufacturing system
producing commodity products from feedstocks that were previously regarded as
wastes. Startech regards all wastes, hazardous and non-hazardous, as
valuable renewable resources.
For further information, please visit http://www.startech.net or contact
Steve Landa at (888) 807-9443, (203) 762-2499 EXT 7 or sales@startech.net
Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including
statements regarding the Company’s plans and expectations regarding the
development and commercialization of its Plasma Converter(TM) technology.
All forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.
Factors that could cause such a difference include, without limitation,
failure of the customer to obtain appropriate financing for the project,
general risks associated with product development, manufacturing, rapid
technological change and competition as well as other risks set forth in the
Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-
looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this press
release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to
release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect
any change in the Company’s expectations or any change in events, conditions
or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
