Fire at Plastics Plant Sends Toxic Smoke Over North Texas

A plastics plant near Dallas,Texas caught fire midnight Wednesday, sending a column of toxic smoke billowing over North Texas.
The smoke could be seen for miles and was picked up on a weather camera in Denton, about 40 miles away, WFAA reported. No injuries were reported and no evacuations were ordered, but people with underlying medical conditions were warned to avoid the smoke and self-evacuate if needed.
"Anybody with any breathing problems, any asthmatics, I mean it is the combustion from plastic so it's not good to breathe," Grand Prairie Assistant Fire Chief Bill Murphy told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth.
Our #radar captured the #smoke plume from the #GrandPrairie industrial #fire. #dfwwx #txwx #polyethylene pic.twitter.com/OjQR21LohY
— NWS Fort Worth (@NWSFortWorth) August 19, 2020
The fire broke out at Poly-America factory in Grand Prairie, which manufactures polyethylene and petroleum-based products such as trash bags, drop cloths, plastic sheeting and vapor barrier film.
Firefighters think the blaze started when a powerline fell on an area where plastic rolls were being stored.
"All of their storage there at Poly-America, for their rolled plastic, is underneath those towers so it ignited the plastic rolls. It just spread to all the inventory that they have back there," Murphy told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth.
TEXAS FIRE: Local media reports a major fire and explosions at the Poly America industrial facility in Grand Prairi… https://t.co/kf5VPU8uVw— NowThis (@NowThis)1597846640.0
Because of the nature of the plastic fuel, firefighters initially thought the fire would burn through Thursday, but they managed to contain it by 4 p.m. Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.
"Plastic is hard to put out and it's just gonna burn," Murphy said.
Another difficulty was train tracks that ran between the firefighters and the factory building, WFAA reported. One train car filled with paint caught fire.
"It was a solid wall of 15-foot flames all night long," Murphy said.
The factory building itself was removed from the fire and not expected to be damaged.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Grand Prairie officials said they would continue to monitor air quality, The Associated Press reported.
"The State of Texas is monitoring the industrial fire in Grand Prairie and working closely with local officials and first responders to address safety concerns in the community," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement reported by WFAA. "The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Grand Prairie officials are continually checking air quality conditions and the State will provide any necessary resources to the area. I ask Texans in the Grand Prairie community to heed the guidance of local officials and pray for the safety of the first responders combating the fire."
This isn't the first time Poly-America has caught fire. Another blaze 32 years ago took a day to put out.
Texas environmental groups said the fire exemplified the dangers of producing plastics.
"This is a dramatic and frightening example of why we must reduce our dependence on toxic plastics," Texas Campaign for the Environment senior strategy director Corey Troiani told Green Source DFW. "The plastics industry has targeted Texas to expand dangerous facilities like this one to produce more unsustainable single-use products. Incidents like this remind us that we must transition to a cleaner economy and protect our health and environment from plastics. Our hearts go out to the residents of Grand Prairie and neighboring cities who live near this fire."
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By Brett Wilkins
While some mainstream environmental organizations welcomed Tuesday's introduction of the CLEAN Future Act in the House of Representatives, progressive green groups warned that the bill falls far short of what's needed to meaningfully tackle the climate crisis—an existential threat they say calls for bolder action like the Green New Deal.
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- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>Trending
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