How bad am I, environmentally, if I grilled with these?

[NickB79]

http://uncooped.com/chris-weiss/posts/844-easy-camp-cooking-miracle-blaze

1-2-3 Miracle Blaze BBQ Bricks make camp cooking both easy and delicious. The bricks, which are wrapped and sold individually, are composed of a blend of charcoal and anthracite coal. What you get is a charcoal that is super easy to light, puts out some serious BTUs and up to 2 hours of cooking heat, and produces little smoke or ash. According to guidelines provided by the company, 2 bricks will cook a full chicken, 4 steaks, 20 hot dogs or 10 hamburgers.

I saw these at the local dollar store today, and noticed that they're made in China from mostly anthracite coal. I have a sinking suspicion that they're not the most environmentally friendly product on the market, but how do they stack up against regular brickettes? I mean on a scale of "just plant another tree and you're cool" to "you might as well cook baby seal and penguin kabobs with them, you monster!", how do you think these rate?

[PoliticAverse]

1. Do they glow in the dark ? n/t

[wandy]

2. I would be more worried about eating something cooked over anthracite coal.

When I was a kid we had a coal furnace and anthracite coal can produce some nasty orders.
Rotten egg smell comes to mind and should you smell that get away.
This can happen if the coal gets wet, like a rain storm.
I'd stick with regular charcoal.

[madokie]

3. I wouldn't want any coal anywhere near anything I was cooking is all I know

course my cooker is made of ceramic. The Big Green Egg. One hell of a cooker and it only takes a hand full of charcoal to cook anything you want to throw in it. When you're finished close the draft door and the next time you grill you will be able to finish using the left over charcoal from the last time. A bag of charcoal will last me a couple months and I cook on the Egg quite often.

Google the big green egg and check them out if you want to be environmentally friendly

[eppur_se_muova]

4. I wouldn't cook over coal, period.

Ever smell a coke plant ? That horrible odor is from the sulfur- and nitrogen-containing compounds formed from coal on heating. Incompletely burned coal also spews lots of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, some of which are powerfully carcinogenic. Yes, other fuels also forms PHCs, but coal is the champ.

I would think that even the Chinese use coal to heat cooking vessels, not to grill meat directly.

[XemaSab]

5. Given that it's Chinese

you might as well cook baby seal and penguin kabobs with them, you monster!

Hell, that's probably what's in them.

I have decided that China is evil.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I'm concerned that the member hasn't posted. Must have used the coal...

[XemaSab]

7. .