Backyard burger and wiener roasts targeted by EPA

Posted on March 14, 2015 Written by washingtonexaminer.com

The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency has its eyes on pol­lu­tion from back­yard barbecues.

The agency announced that it is fund­ing a Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia project to limit emis­sions result­ing in grease drip­pings with a spe­cial tray to catch them and a “cat­alytic” fil­tra­tion system.

The $15,000 project has the “poten­tial for global appli­ca­tion,” said the school.

The school said that the tech­nol­ogy they will study with the EPA grant is intended to reduce air pol­lu­tion and cut the health haz­ards to BBQ “pit mas­ters” from propane-fueled cookers.

Charged with keep­ing America’s air, water and soil clean, the EPA has been increas­ingly look­ing at home­own­ers, espe­cially their use of pol­lu­tion emit­ting tools like lawn mowers.

The school is propos­ing two fixes to reduce emis­sions from bar­be­cues. First, they want to cut back on grease flare-ups. The idea: “A slot­ted and cor­ru­gated tray is inserted imme­di­ately prior to meat flip­ping, and removed imme­di­ately after. This short con­tact time pre­vents the tray from over-heating and volatiliz­ing the col­lected grease. This col­lected grease will then drip off into a col­lec­tion tray and can be used at the pit master’s discretion.”

But, total cap­ture isn’t “prac­ti­cal,” so a fil­ter and fan are pro­posed for instal­la­tion. “The sec­ondary air fil­tra­tion sys­tem is com­posed of a sin­gle pipe duct sys­tem which con­tains a spe­cial­ized metal fil­ter, a metal fan blade, a drive shaft, and an accom­pa­ny­ing power sys­tem with either a motor­ized or man­ual method. This sys­tem can be pow­ered by either an exte­rior elec­tric motor with a chain-driven drive shaft, directly spin­ning the fan blade, or a hand-powered crank,” said the project write-up.

The grant is part of the EPA’s “National Stu­dent Design Com­pe­ti­tion for Sus­tain­abil­ity Focus­ing on Peo­ple, Pros­per­ity and the Planet (2014).”

The expected results, accord­ing to the proposal:

“We expect to limit the over­all air pol­lu­tion PM [par­tic­u­late mat­ter] emis­sions from bar­be­cu­ing and to alle­vi­ate some of the acute health haz­ards that a bar­be­cue pit mas­ter can expe­ri­ence from inhala­tion. The par­tic­u­late mat­ter present dur­ing cook­ing with and with­out the grease diverter and PM2.5 fil­ters will be tested and com­pared to that of cur­rent data using a con­ven­tional propane bar­be­cue using a fume­hood cham­ber with detec­tors at CE-CERT. Per­sonal expo­sure of PM2.5 will also be mon­i­tored through­out the exper­i­men­ta­tion period to deter­mine the degree of acute expo­sure of par­tic­u­lates to the cook.”

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  Filed Under: Climate Change, Property Rights, Sustainability
  http://agenda21news.com/2015/03/backyard-burger-and-wiener-roasts-targeted-by-epa/
  Comments
  Will somebody please close the EPA ?
  Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader