Environmental Health in the News . . .

November 3, 2009

Turning Algae Into Bioplastic Could Slash Petroleum Use by 50%
ENN, From: Andrew Williams , Cleantechnica
California-based company Cereplast has revealed that it is developing breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics, and predicts that it could replace 50% or more of the petroleum content used in traditional plastic resins. Cereplast already makes plastic from renewable material such as corn starch, tapioca, wheat and potatoes, but is keen to trumpet the advantages of the new approach.

FDA Urged to Ban Feeding of Chicken Feces to Cattle
ENN, From: Jerry Hirsch , LA Times
A coalition of food and consumer groups that includes Consumers Union and the Center for Science in the Public Interest has asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the practice of feeding chicken feces and other poultry farm waste to cattle. McDonald's Corp., the nation's largest restaurant user of beef, also wants the FDA to prohibit the feeding of so-called poultry litter to cattle. Members of the coalition are threatening to file a lawsuit or to push for federal legislation establishing such a ban if the FDA doesn't act to do so in the coming months.

Coping With Climate Change: Which Societies Will Do Best?
ENN, From: Gaia Vince, Yale Environment 360
Following the disastrous tsunami of December 2004, the government of Bangladesh embraced upgraded storm-alert systems that warn communities in a coordinated way and improved social support networks, resulting in a drastic reduction in typhoon deaths. In neighboring Myanmar, by contrast, deaths from natural disasters have risen in recent years. Indeed, the deaths that occurred there last year in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis cannot be separated from the fact that Myanmar has an authoritarian regime that prevents international assistance from reaching those in need, rendering its citizens unable to cope with extreme weather disasters — events that are expected to become more frequent with climate change.

November 2, 2009

Unanticipated Long Term Consequences of Nuclear Waste From Bomb Making
ENN, From: Frank Clifford, L A Times
Radioactive debris has been found in canyons that drain into the Rio Grande, but officials at the Los Alamos National Laboratory say there's no health risk. More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico.

Chemical spills after ship accidents in China
From: Reuters
Chinese workers are trying to clean up dangerous chemicals in the central reaches of the Yangtze river and an oil spill near an eastern Chinese port, after two shipping accidents this weekend.

October 30, 2009

Cash Cows: Farm Converts Cattle Manure into Electricity
ENN, From Jace Shoemaker-Galloway, Triple Pundit
A Vermont dairy farm is producing something other than milk. Earlier this month, state officials were on hand to visit Vermont’s newest methane facility. Westminster Farms Inc., along with Green Mountain Power (GMP), have been working together in an on-site plant that converts methane gas released from cow manure into electricity. Cow manure is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gasses and the runoff from manure pollutes water. Taking a liability and converting it into an asset just made environmental and economic sense to the farm’s Shawn Goodell.

Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone
ENN From: David Ljunggren, Reuters
The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.

Water Use in the US Less in 2005 Than in 1975
ENN From: Roger Greenway
Just when you think all human activities are making the environment worse, news comes that our efforts to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impacts (0ur environmental footprint) are doing some good. According to a new U.S. Geological Survey report, the U S is using less water now than during the peak years of 1975 and 1980, despite a 30 percent population increase during the same time period.

October 16, 2009

Drinking From Plastic Bottles Raises BPA Levels by 70 Percent
ENN, From: David Gutierrez, Natural News
Drinking water from plastic bottles made with the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) increases urinary levels of the chemical by nearly 70 percent, according to a study conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. BPA, an industrial chemical that makes plastics hard and transparent, is widely used in plastic drinking bottles, infant bottles and other consumer products, and also in resins that line cans of food and infant formula. The chemical has been shown to disrupt the hormonal system, potentially leading to reproductive defects as well as brain damage, cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

Global Warming Threatens to Upset Arctic Carbon Trapping
ENN, From: R. Greenway, The US Geological Survey
The US Geological Survey, in partnership with the Ecological Society of America, University of Alaska Fairbanks published the results of a study on the changing climate and the important role that the Arctic plays in sequestering carbon. The study shows that the arctic could potentially alter the Earth’s climate by becoming a possible source of global atmospheric carbon dioxide. The arctic now traps or absorbs up to 25 percent of this gas but climate change could alter that amount, according to a study published in the November issue of Ecological Monographs.

October 15, 2009

EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, Dept. of Energy Agree to Complete Cleanup of Middlesex, NJ Superfund Site
From: R. Greenway, ENN
Soil remediation is finished while groundwater remediation remains to be done, at the Middlesex Sampling Plant site in Middlesex, NJ. This site had first been added to the National Priorities List (Superfund) in 1999, ten years ago. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Department of Energy (DOE) covering federal facilities, which details responsibilities for completing the cleanup of the site. The property was used by the Atomic Energy Commission as part of the nation’s early atomic energy program to handle various radioactive ores.

October 14, 2009

China’s Largest Lead Smelter Admits to Poisoning Children
ENN, From: Lucy Hornby, Reuters
BEIJING - China's largest lead smelting firm has acknowledged partial responsibility after nearly 1,000 children living near some of China's biggest lead plants showed excessive levels of lead in their blood, the Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. Some plants and production lines in Jiyuan, Henan Province, have been suspended since the poisoning of children living near smelters in other provinces became public in late August, triggering protests by parents in several regions. The area is home to China's biggest cluster of lead smelters.

Ocotber 13, 2009

London Testing a New Way to Refill Your Water Bottle
ENN, From: Mary Catherine O'Connor, Triple Pundit
Finding a way to refill your reusable water bottle is as hard as finding a public restroom in most cities. London is testing a new-tech "fountain" to do just that in an effort to reduce the number of water bottles in trash.

October 8, 2009

Apples, Pumpkins and Squash — Time to Switch our Local Food Radar to Autumn
ENN, From: Christopher Peake Green Right Now ABC7, Organic Consumers Association
Eating locally can be a healthier, wiser way to go - fresher food is more nutrient rich. But shopping for local produce means we must learn to take control of our menu, work with what's in season and let go of what's heading out. Now that it's fall, we have to say goodbye to berries, hello to pumpkins, and dig through our cookbooks for that squash soup recipe.

October 2, 2009

Emissions Targets, Costs Stall Climate Talks
ENN, From: David Fogarty, Reuters
Efforts to convince rich nations to toughen emissions cuts have failed to make much headway at climate talks in the Thai capital, the U.N. said on Friday. Delegates from about 180 nations are meeting in Bangkok to try to narrow differences on ways to broaden and deepen the fight against climate change.

October 1, 2009

Urban Mobility - It's Not Getting Better
From: ENN, GLOBE-Net via, The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
In 2007, congestion caused urban Americans to travel 4.2 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 2.8 billion gallons of fuel for a congestion cost of $87.2 billion - an increase of more than 50% over the previous decade. This was a decrease of 40 million hours and a decrease of 40 million gallons, but an increase of over $100 million from 2006 due to an increase in the cost of fuel and truck delay.

September 30, 2009

E.P.A. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions
By JOHN M. BRODER, The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Unwilling to wait for Congress to act, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities.

At 60 M.P.H., Office Work Is High Risk
By Chang W. Lee, The New York Times
JOPLIN, Mo. — Looking back, Paul Dekok wonders what he was thinking that May morning when the urgent call came in. Mr. Dekok, a manager at the Potash Corporation, learned that a 25-ton truckload of the company’s additive for livestock feed had been rejected by a customer as contaminated. Scrambling to protect his company’s credibility with a big customer, he grabbed his cellphone to arrange a new shipment, cradling it between his left ear and shoulder, and with his right hand e-mailed instructions to his staff from his laptop computer — all while driving his rental car in a construction zone on a two-lane highway in North Carolina.

Air Pollutants From Abroad A Growing Concern, Says New Report
From Science Daily cited in ENN
Plumes of harmful air pollutants can be transported across oceans and continents -- from Asia to the United States and from the United States to Europe -- and have a negative impact on air quality far from their original sources, says a new report by the National Research Council. Although degraded air quality is nearly always dominated by local emissions, the influence of non-domestic pollution sources may grow as emissions from developing countries increase and become relatively more important as a result of tightening environmental protection standards in industrialized countries.

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