ON DECRYPT
Primarily additives, but also detergents, solvents and oil: more than 5,000 tons of chemicals burned at the Lubrizol plant last week. The authorities made this information public Tuesday night, five days after the incident. These products would be "not all dangerous", according to the prefecture. But what exactly do they contain? Did their combustion release hazardous substances? Europe 1 has tried to see more clearly.
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For chemists and toxicologists, it is a preverting list that is difficult to analyze, consisting of huge downloadable files with substance names and quantities. "Inorganic acids, phosphoric acids ...", lists Frédéric Poitou, legal expert in chemistry and pollution, interviewed by Europe 1. Impossible to list them and take them one by one.
A quantity of dioxins "considerable"
But for him, the essential element is the fact that these products came into combustion: "What I can tell you, and what any chemist would tell you, is that it is exactly the chemistry of incinerators and it creates dioxins, so the amount of dioxins that have spread to Rouen center and the northeastern suburbs of Rouen is considerable. "
Dioxins, dangerous toxic substances, have a long persistence and are listed in the list of certain carcinogens. The result of their measurements has not yet been made public: for the moment, it is the great unknown of the analyzes carried out.