h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The deed is done. I've read up on it and wouldn't do it again, but the deed is done. In June I had a big fire and, desperate to get rid of all the rubbish, just chucked everything on it to get rid. This included an old paddling pool, an old vacuum cleaner, a kiddy's stairgate and an old kettle. I've read that that the residue could be poisonous.

How paranoid about this should I be?

Should I be getting someone in to test the earth?
Should I get rid of the earth?
How dangerous is it, exactly?

I wouldn't have thought that kettles would have anything burnable in them. As for the other stuff, recall that people who performed rescue work in the ruins of the Twin Towers tended to develop serious lung problems. if you breathed in the smoke form that fire, maybe you need to have your lungs examined....

Burning plastic gives of dioxins which are nasty persistent chemicals which eventually end up in watercourses and seas after being rained out of the atmosphere. They then work their way up the food-chain un-altered, from marine life to birds and eventually humans who eat said fish or birds.
There's gazzilions of stuff about this online if you search for dioxins.

Suffice to say, a one-off bonfire is unlikely to have harmed you unless you sat by it breathing in the fumes for several hours, but cumulatively, the burning of plastics worldwide (unless in conjunction with filters or 'scrubbers' as used in energy from waste incinerator power stations), causes significant environmental harm.

So, don't do it again

This site summarises it nicely http://www.greenfacts.org/en/pcbs/

I should also have mentioned PCB's. Did, in fact, then deleted it because I thought I had mis-remembered

I would have thought it was illegal. I'm pretty sure it's Verboten in Germany.

Many places require or strongly urge people to recycle plastics and other nonburnable stuff. That way, if anything is too useless to recycle, it gets properly disposed of.

I couldn't imagine why you would want to do it. You knew beforehand that it would smell awful, annoying not only you but probably neighbours as well. Just imagine, someone might have thought your house was on fire and called the fire brigade, what with the smell and the smoke. Why not just take it down the tip? Although, if it was going to be burnt there, anyway, perhaps that wouldn't be the eco-friendliest answer either.

Recycle? Make macs/raincapes for the kids and family out of the paddling pool plastic? Keep paintbrushes in the kettle? Use the stairgate as a trellis for climbing roses?