·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal.

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that can be used to support public transit — both worthy goals.

Yet congestion pricing has dubious environmental value. Traffic jams, if they’re managed well, can actually be good for the environment. They maintain a level of frustration that turns drivers into subway riders or pedestrians.

Via Docuticker.

Hazardous Chemicals in Health Care: A Snapshot of Chemicals in Doctors and Nurses (PDF; 2 MB)
Source: American Nurses Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Health Care Without Harm
From press release (PDF; 58 KB)

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in partnership with American Nurses Association (ANA) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) released the “Hazardous Chemicals In Health Care” report today, detailing the first investigation ever of chemicals found in the bodies of health care professionals. The inquiry found that all of the 20 participants had toxic chemicals associated with health care in their bodies. Each participant had at least 24 individual chemicals present, four of which are on the recently released Environmental Protection Agency list of priority chemicals for regulation. These chemicals are all associated with chronic illness and physical disorders.

Via ResourceShelf.

NSF Releases Online Multimedia Package on Marine “Dead Zones”

The Earth currently has more than 400 so-called “dead zones” — expanses of oxygen-starved ocean covering hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles that become virtually devoid of animal life during the summer; the worldwide count of dead zones is doubling every decade.

Most dead zones, such as the Gulf of Mexico’s notorious dead zone, are caused by pollution that is dumped into oceans by rivers. But every summer since 2002, the Pacific Northwest’s coastal waters — one of the U.S.’s most important fisheries — has been invaded by massive dead zones that are believed to be caused by an entirely different and surprising phenomena: changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation that may, in turn, be caused by climate change.

How could climate change cause dead zones? What do dead zones look like and what are their ecological impacts? And how, on Earth, are scientists sleuthing out the causes of perplexing marine processes that cover such huge swaths of the sea? Find out in the National Science Foundation’s new online, multimedia package on dead zones.

Entitled Dead Zones: Mysteries of Ocean Die-Offs Revealed, the multimedia package is posted at http://nsf.gov/news/special_reports/deadzones. It features:

• a webcast with Jack Barth, an expert on Oregon’s dead zones from Oregon State University;
• a dynamic, narrated slide show;
• compelling videos;
• eye-catching photos;
• enlightening illustrations
• informative, easy-to-understand texts; and
• downloadable documents.

Dead Zones: Mysteries of Ocean Die-Offs Revealed is ideal for reporters, general readers, fishermen, water-enthusiasts, teachers, students, researchers and conservation organizations.

Source: National Science Foundation

Via Docuticker.

One year on: A progress report on the Government’s Greening Government ICT
Source: Cabinet Office
From Press Release:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is responsible for up to 20 per cent of carbon emissions generated by Government offices. Each year it generates around 460,000 tonnes a year, the same amount created by a million households in a month or a jumbo jet flying around the world more than a thousand times.

Last year the Government was one of the first in the world to introduce measures to tackle the huge financial and environmental cost of ICT. Departments were asked to take 18 key steps including turning off all machines at night, extending the lifecycle of computers, reusing as much IT equipment as possible and increasing server efficiency.

In the first year alone some of the success stories include:
• The Department for International Development (DfID) donating old equipment to charities in developing countries
• The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) saving £2.35million by replacing 9,500  computers and 2,500 printers every five years rather than every three
• The Home Office (HO) saving £2.4million a year by removing unused IT equipment and improving efficiency
• The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will save 200 million sheets of paper a year through cutting down the number of printers in the department and changing the default setting to double-sided printing

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 912 KB)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued the first test orders for pesticide chemicals to be screened for their potential effects on the endocrine system. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interact with and disrupt the hormones produced or secreted by human and animal endocrine systems, which regulate growth, metabolism and reproduction.

“After years of delay, EPA is aggressively moving forward by ordering the testing of a number of pesticide chemicals for hormone effects,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances. “These new data will be carefully evaluated to help identify potential hormone disruptor chemicals.”

On Oct. 21, EPA made available the battery of scientific assays and test guidelines for conducting the assays, as well as a schedule for issuing test orders to manufacturers for 67 chemicals during the next four months. The data generated from the screens will provide robust and systematic scientific information to help EPA identify whether additional testing is necessary, or whether other steps are necessary to address potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.

Testing, conducted through the agency’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, will eventually expand to cover all pesticide chemicals. Now that screening is under way for the first group of chemicals, EPA is preparing to review the responses, evaluate the data, determine the potential of endocrine interaction, and whether additional testing is necessary to guide further regulation.

The EDSP is the most comprehensive mandated testing program for hormone effects in the U.S. The program is the result of a multi-year effort that includes validation of the science through a transparent scientific review process.

More information about the screening program: http://www.epa.gov/endo

Read the full story in the Daily Illini.

The Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, or ISTC, held the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards at the I Hotel, 1900 S. First St., on Wednesday. Various companies and organizations throughout the state were awarded for their dedication to improving the environment through conservation and energy efficiency.

The first results from ongoing air toxics monitoring at two New Jersey schools and one New York school are now available on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Web site. A total of four schools in EPA’s Region 2 were selected as part of the agency’s national Schools Air Toxics Initiative. The initiative, which is monitoring 63 schools in 22 states, will help EPA and the states learn if long-term exposure to toxics in the outdoor air poses health concerns for school children and staff

Outdoor air at the schools is being monitored for 60 days, and air quality monitors will collect at least 10 daily samples during the sampling period. EPA will use this information to help determine next steps, which could include more monitoring, if needed. Results are posted at http://www.epa.gov/schoolair.

Today, EPA is posting data for Olean Middle School in Olean, New York, Mabel Homes Middle School in Elizabeth, N.J. and Paulsboro High School in Paulsboro, N.J. The fourth school, IS 143 in Manhattan, New York, had its first data posted previously and it is also available at the web site.  The Agency is monitoring the air around these schools for several contaminants associated with industrial and mobile sources such as cars, trucks and airplanes.

Early sampling at all the schools show that levels of air toxics are below levels of short-term concern. EPA scientists warn against drawing conclusions at this point since the project is designed to show if long-term, not short-term, exposure poses health risks to school children and staff. Once monitoring is complete, the full set of results from all of the schools will be evaluated for potential health concerns from long-term exposure to these pollutants. EPA will post this analysis to the Web once it is complete.

To learn more about EPA’s efforts to study outdoor air near schools, visit: http://www.epa.gov/schoolair

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

Google rolled out a new initiative today honoring efforts to use Google Earth to improve the human condition or the home planet.

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, has selected 37 forward-thinking energy research projects to receive a portion of $151 million in funding. The $151 million is part of the $400 million that ARPA-E has received from the Recovery Act.

ARPA-E received 300 applications for the initial round of funding. Ultimately, 37 research projects in 17 states received funding with 43 percent going to small businesses, 35 percent to educational research teams, and 19 percent to large corporations.

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

Farms, freeways and front yards are flooding underground aquifers with dangerous toxins, slowly poisoning many communities’ water supplies. But how can this happen?

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

In a win for the environment, New York will expand its deposit laws to include water bottles starting Oct. 31. A five-cent surcharge will be added to the cost of each water bottle sold, which customers can then return to stores for a refund. About 80 percent of unclaimed deposits will go to the state as much-needed revenue, resulting in some $115 million annually.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

A new analysis creates a better look at rising temperatures.

Read the full paper from the World Bank.

Climate change is anthropogenic – the product of billions of acts of daily consumption. That solutions need to be anthropogenic too is well accepted. Yet, suggested solutions are normally cast in the realms of finance and technology, often neglecting the primal root of the problem: individual behavior. An emerging body of social-psychology scholarship has examined the barriers and drivers of individual behavior in relation to both adaptation and mitigation. This paper reviews some of its conclusions, and suggests policy areas that should be considered in devising appropriate interventions.

Read the full paper from the Brookings Institution.

A cap-and-trade system to control U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as proposed in recent draft legislation, for example in H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), creates a limited and declining number of emissions allowances each year (the “cap”). Each allowance is worth one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. The program requires firms with emissions that fall under the cap (the “covered entities”) to surrender to the government enough allowances to cover their emissions. The cap declines each year in order to satisfy long-run emissions targets. For example, ACESA sets U.S. emissions goals for 2020 and 2050 that are 17 percent and 83 percent, respectively, below 2005 levels. To achieve the capped levels at least cost, the program allows firms to buy and sell allowances (the “trade” part of cap-and-trade), creating a market that induces the least-cost emissions abatement. The allowance market thus creates a transparent price for the right to emit greenhouse gases.

Policymakers are keenly interested in the likely effect of the cap-and-trade system on their constituents. This paper summarizes the economic literature on the “incidence” (a.k.a. the “distributional effects”) of cap-and-trade climate policy, meaning all the ways people may be made better or worse off as a result of the policy.

One often hears about how a particular climate policy approach might benefit corporations as opposed to individuals or vice versa. This paper takes the perspective of the economic literature, which examines the effects of climate policy on individuals and different categories thereof, not the effects on individuals vis-à-vis corporations. Only people can bear the costs and benefits of the program. Although the legal system treats firms as if they were people, the ultimate economic burdens and benefits of climate policy fall not on legal entities but on the owners of firms (shareholders), workers, consumers, and other individuals.

This paper considers the distributional effects of cap-and-trade across different sets of people, including consumers, shareholders, household income groups, and geographic regions, and it explores the role of policy design in determining those effects. The paper describes how the incidence of the program depends on how market forces transmit the costs of emissions abatement through the economy and how the program can create large transfers from one group to another, especially through the way the government doles out allowances. Finally, it explains how the allocation of allowances can lower or raise the overall costs to the economy by reducing other economic distortions or by inducing higher-cost abatement.

Section 2 of this paper reviews existing studies of the incidence of a cap-and-trade system and explains how and when market forces transmit the price on carbon from covered entities to consumers. Section 3 explains how the ultimate economic incidence of the program depends critically on how the government distributes the value of the allowances, either in the form of the allowances themselves or via the proceeds of allowance sales. Section 4 explores how the way in which the government devolves allowances can affect not only the distribution of costs but also the overall level of the costs to the U.S. economy. It also examines other potential uses of the value of allowances, such as enhanced energy research and development funding. Section 5 concludes.

Read the full paper from the Brookings Institution.

The potential range of affected sectors and the scale of impacts on domestic industries that would result from economy-wide climate legislation are unprecedented in the history of U.S. environmental regulation. Even a cursory consideration of how the balance sheets of American companies would be impacted by a price on their greenhouse gas emissions reveals the complexity of designing evenhanded domestic climate policies.

Pricing carbon emissions, either through a cap-and-trade system or an emissions tax, will not only adversely affect electricity and primary energy producers, but it will also hurt the competitive performance of heavy fossil-fuel users in downstream industries, especially in trade-exposed sectors such as steel and chemicals.

This gives rise to two overarching concerns. First, a small but prominent subset of domestic companies may be disproportionately burdened if carbon mitigation policies affect their operations but not those of their international competitors. Second, some of the environmental benefits might be eroded if increases in U.S. manufacturing costs from uneven international carbon pricing caused economic activity to shift to nations with weaker greenhouse gas mitigation policies or none at all.

This paper reviews the evidence on the competitiveness burdens imposed on domestic energy-consuming industries as a result of a unilateral or near-unilateral carbon pricing policy. We also examine the nature and magnitude of emissions leakage that could undermine the environmental effectiveness of such a policy. Subsequently, we analyze a range of options designed to address these concerns, with particular emphasis on the measures included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA). Overall, we find that this bill adopts a quite reasonable approach to the multiple challenges involved, although we do identify a number of possible refinements that might be considered as parallel legislation is discussed in the Senate.

Read the full story in InfoWorld.

Companies worldwide are recognizing the value of embracing green tech — and not just IT vendors such as HP, IBM, Cisco, and Dell. Organizations large and small, from universities to SMBs to sprawling corporations such as Procter & Gamble, have embraced sustainable technology practices for one (or more) of the usual reasons: saving money on various forms of waste, cutting carbon emissions, complying with current or future legislation, and simply being better environmental stewards.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Empowering young women through education will help reduce overpopulation in areas that cannot support it and avoid extremism in the children they raise.

An essay, poem and photo are among the winners of this year’s Rachel Carson Contest. The third annual intergenerational contest reflects Carson’s efforts through her writings to have adults share with children a sense of wonder about nature and help them discover its joys. This year, dance was a new category for entries.

The winners include an essay titled “A Fish with a Crab;” a poem called “Place of Peace;” a mixed media entry entitled “Pop-pop’s Garden;” untitled photo of a sunset on a beach; and a video by the Intergenerational School, Judson Park Assisted Living and the Shaker Nature Center.

Intergenerational teams, including the young and the old, explored the natural world to create their projects. Finalists in each category were selected by an intergenerational team of judges. The finalists were judged based on originality, its intergenerational teamwork and how the project brought the team in touch with the natural world.

The public selected the winners. More than 1,600 individuals from all over the country and world cast their ballots for the winners. The contest was sponsored by EPA, Generations United, the Dance Exchange, Inc. and the Rachel Carson Council Inc. Carson is considered the founder of the contemporary environmental movement.

More information: http://www.epa.gov/aging/resources/thesenseofwonder/2009/

Paved parking lots and driveways make our lives easier, but they often create an easy pathway for pollutants to reach underground water sources and alter the natural flow of water back into the ground. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced a study that will investigate ways to reduce pollution that can run off paved surfaces and improve how water filters back into the ground. EPA is testing a variety of different permeable pavement materials and rain gardens in the parking lot at the agency’s Edison, N.J. facility, which houses offices and its laboratory. Most major sources of pollution going into our waterways are well-controlled, but pollution runoff from hard surfaces remains a complicated problem.

“Runoff from parking lots and driveways is a significant source of water pollution in the United States and puts undo stress on our water infrastructure, especially in densely-populated urban areas,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “By evaluating different designs and materials, this study will help us develop strategies to lessen the environmental impacts of parking lots across the country and make our communities more sustainable.”

This summer, EPA replaced a 43,000-square-foot section of the parking lot at its Edison facility with three different types of permeable pavement and planted several rain gardens with varying vegetation for the study. Over the next decade, EPA will evaluate the effectiveness of each pavement type and the rain gardens in removing pollutants from stormwater, and how they help water filter back into the ground. The parking lot will be functional during the study to accurately evaluate how the different types of pavement handle traffic and vehicle-related pollution like leaking oil.

Stormwater runoff is generated when precipitation from rain and snow flows over land or impervious surfaces, like parking lots or rooftops, and does not readily flow back into the ground. As the runoff flows over the land or impervious surfaces, it accumulates debris, chemicals, sediment or other pollutants that could adversely affect water quality if the runoff discharged is not properly treated.

This study is part of an effort by EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory to evaluate permeable pavement as it relates to stormwater management practices on a national scale. While the installation of permeable pavement systems has become more prevalent, there is a lack of full-scale, outdoor, real-world permeable pavement research projects.

EPA also recognizes the potential of rain gardens as a green infrastructure management tool to lessen the effects of peak flows on aquatic resources. While local governments and homeowners are building many of these systems, relatively few studies have quantified the ability of rain gardens to allow the ground to better absorb and filter stormwater, which reduces peak flows.

For more information on how EPA manages and regulates stormwater, visit http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=6.

Check out my post on effectively finding, saving, and sharing environmental information over at the GLRPPR Blog.

Read the full story at Mother Nature Network.

Ever wonder what happens to a billboard after it’s been taken down? Assumed they just wound up in a landfill?

At CNN, the vinyl promotional campaigns are escaping the dump and finding new life as fashion accessories. The vinyl used for CNN’s outdoor billboards is being recycled into tote bags as the company transitions to digital boards. The idea came about as CNN developed its outdoor marketing campaign for Planet in Peril; the company did not want to just discard the vinyl once the campaign was finished. An intern (who later landed a full-time staff position) suggested the idea to reuse the boards.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.

Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book.

Only one problem: It’s not true, according to an analysis of the numbers done by several independent statisticians for The Associated Press.

The case that the Earth might be cooling partly stems from recent weather. Last year was cooler than previous years. It’s been a while since the super-hot years of 1998 and 2005. So is this a longer climate trend or just weather’s normal ups and downs?

In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.

Read the full story in the Green Guide.

You recycle, ride a bike to work, and buy organic food. You pay extra for “green” electricity and have an eco-friendly car. So can you rest easy, with a clean conscience that your life is as sustainable as it can reasonably be?

Well … although many of us try our best to minimize environmental impacts, our actions don’t always achieve as much as we believe.

Expensive products that are marketed as eco-friendly may help us to assuage our guilt while drawing our attention away from the more pressing issues.

Meanwhile, other actions and products can be useful, but only when used as part of a wider environmentally aware lifestyle. Most worrying of all, some things marketed as sustainable can have negative side effects for the environment—that’s called greenwashing.

The Green Guide talked to several sustainability experts who highlighted five eco-strategies and products that may not be all they are hyped up to be.

Read the full post at Lifehacker.

The Printliminator bookmarklet lets you selectively remove any element from a web page to make it printer friendly in just a few simple clicks.

It (almost) goes without saying that such a tool minimizes paper use. :-)

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

Cereplast, Inc., manufacturer of proprietary bio-based sustainable plastics, has been developing a breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics and intends to launch a new family of algae-based resins that will complement the company’s existing line of Compostables & Hybrid resins.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

Melting glaciers in the Alps may cause severe environmental damage due to the release of pollutants which have been frozen in ice for decades, according to research by Swiss scientists. With glaciers predicted to recede further due to global warming, the resulting melt may contain chemicals which have been banned or are not widely produced any more.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

Thirteen scientists and land use experts conclude in a new paper that an important but fixable error in legal accounting rules used to measure compliance with carbon limits for bioenergy could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging deforestation. Their paper is published in the 23 Oct. issue of the journal Science.

A separate paper published online in Science Express by researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole and MIT concludes that indirect land use change associated with global biofuels programs will be responsible for substantially more carbon loss (up to twice as much) than direct land use. Their model also predicts that because of predicted increases in fertilizer use, nitrous oxide emissions will be more important than carbon losses themselves in terms of warming potential.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

An analysis of sediment cores from an Arctic lake indicates that biological and chemical changes occurring there are unprecedented over the past 200,000 years and likely are the result of human-caused climate change, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. A paper on the work was published online 19 October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising—from 71% in 2008 to 57% in 2009. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem—35% today, down from 44% in April 2008, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted 30 Sept. to 4 Oct.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

A team at China’s Southeast University in Nanjing is developing a process to improve the thermal stability and heating value of bio-oil produced using catalytic fast pyrolysis. A paper on their work was published online in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels on 19 October.

Read the full story at Fox News.

For teacher Bob Smith, there’s no reason why his students’ brain power can’t help move them forward — literally.

Students at the small East Burke High School in rural Connelly Springs, North Carolina, are taking the chemistry lesson out of the lab by turning used cooking oil into bio-diesel.

In the past year, the students have made over 90 gallons of fuel from the used food product, which the local school district uses to power school buses.

Read the full story at In These Times.

As frugal consumers demand more from their vehicles, and bailed-out car companies scramble to manufacture affordable yet eco-friendly models, some drivers are turning to an alternative to the gas-guzzling status quo: vegetable oil.

Read the full story in Popular Mechanics.

A 1963 Chrysler turbine car and GM’s 1950s Firebird jet cars inspired Jay Leno to build another high-tech supercar. This new turbine supercar runs on biodiesel and could theoretically top 245 MPH.

Read the full story in USA Today.

New research suggests a link between women’s exposure to household insecticides — including roach and mosquito killers — and the autoimmune disorders rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

The scientist did not find a direct cause-and-effect relationship between insecticide exposure and the illnesses, and it’s possible that the women have something else in common that accounts for their higher risk. But epidemiologist Christine Parks, lead investigator of the study, said the findings do raise a red flag.

Read the full story at Plastics Today.

Bioresin manufacturer Metabolix Inc. (Cambridge, MA) has genetically engineered tobacco to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) as it works to create non-food sources for biobased polymers. Under a permit from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to perform an open-air field trial in March of 2009, Metabolix completed field-trial experiments in early October. The trial was undertaken on 0.8 acres of land, with the best plants producing 3-5% PHA. Metabolix said that the trial provided valuable data and information relating to polymer production, adding that the research “furthers development of Metabolix crop technologies for the co-production of biobased plastics in non-food bioenergy crops.”

Read the full story at New American Media.

When supermarket janitors in Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) rallied last month at Safeway and Lucky stores in San Jose, Calif., they weren’t only demanding improved wages and health benefits. They were calling for the adoption of green cleaning standards to make their jobs safer.

Earlier this year, SEIU janitors in Southern California made similar demands. Union members even dressed up as fruits and vegetables and picketed outside the 2009 National Grocers Association Convention in Las Vegas. They were calling attention to the safety of chemicals used to clean supermarkets.

Putting green cleaning standards on the agenda with wages and benefits is evidence that one of the country’s largest unions is broadening its idea of a safe and healthy workplace.

Luther, Linda (2009) Managing Electronic Waste: Issues with Exporting E-Waste (October 7, 2009). Washington, DC : Congressional Research Service.

Summary: Electronic waste (e-waste) is a term that is used loosely to refer to obsolete, broken, or irreparable electronic devices like televisions, computer central processing units (CPUs), computer monitors (flat screen and cathode ray tubes), laptops, printers, scanners, and associated wiring. E-waste has become a concern in the United States due to the high volumes in which it is generated, the hazardous constituents it often contains (such as lead, mercury, and chromium), and the lack of regulations applicable to its disposal or recycling. Under most circumstances, e-waste can legally be disposed of in a municipal solid waste landfill or recycled with few environmental regulatory requirements. Concerns about e-waste landfill disposal have led federal and state environmental agencies to encourage recycling. To date, 19 states have implemented some form of mandatory e-waste recycling program. These state requirements, mixed with increased consumer awareness regarding potential problems with landfilling e-waste, have led to an increase in recycling. With that increase have come new questions about e-waste management. Instead of questions only about the potential impacts associated with e-waste disposal, questions have arisen regarding the potential danger associated with e-waste recycling—particularly when recycling involves the export of e-waste to developing countries where there are few requirements to protect workers or the environment. Answering questions about both e-waste disposal and recycling involves a host of challenges. For example, little information is available to allow a complete assessment of how e-waste ultimately managed. General estimates have been made about the management of cathode ray tubes (CRTs, the only devices where disposal is federally regulated), but little reliable information is available regarding other categories of e-waste. For example, accurate data regarding how much is generated, how it is managed (through disposal or recycling), and where it is processed (either domestically or abroad) are largely unknown. Further, little information is available regarding the total amount of functioning electronics exported to developing countries for legitimate reuse. What is known is that e-waste recycling involves complex processes and it is more costly to recycle e-waste in the United States, where there is a limited recycling infrastructure. It also is known that most consumer electronics manufacturers (who provide the market for material recovery from recycled electronics) have moved overseas. As a result, the majority of e-waste collected for recycling (either for reuse or recycling) appears to be exported for processing. Although there may be limited data regarding how e-waste is managed, the consequences of export to countries that manage it improperly are becoming increasingly evident. In particular, various reports and studies (by the mainstream media, environmental organizations, and university researchers) have found primitive waste management practices in India and various countries in Africa and Asia. Operations in Guiyu in the Shantou region of China have gained particular attention. Observed recycling operations involve burning the plastic coverings of materials to extract metals for scrap, openly burning circuit boards to remove solder or soaking them in acid baths to strip them for gold or other metals. Acid baths are then dumped into surface water. Among other impacts to those areas have been elevated blood lead levels in children and soil and water contaminated with heavy metals. The impacts associated with e-waste exports have led to concerns from environmental organizations, members of the public, and some Members of Congress.

Source: Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, September 2009
Author: Monica Becker
Full report available at http://www.greenchemistryandcommerce.org/downloads/summaryreport_000.pdf

Consumer product companies need chemical information from their supply chains for many reasons, including the design of products that are safe for human health and the environment, regulatory compliance, participation in green certification programs, disclosure of chemical ingredients in products to retailers and customers, and preparation of Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). Companies with large, complex, global supply chains face many challenges in getting this information.

The Green Chemistry in Commerce Council (GC3), a project of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, commissioned three case studies of leading firms with complex supply chains to explore and share experiences on how companies gather chemical information from their supply chains and how they use this information to develop safer products. The three companies are Nike, S.C. Johnson (SCJ) and Hewlett-Packard (HP). The case studies conducted for this project examined a number of questions:

1. Why is the company seeking chemical information from their supply chain?
2. What types of chemical information is the company seeking?
3. How is the company gathering chemical information from its supply chain? What system is it using?
4. What systems are companies using to manage chemicals in products?
5. What systems are companies using to create safer products using chemical information?
6. What challenges have existed and what has worked well to gather chemical information, manage chemicals and design safer products?

All three firms studied are sizable, consumer product companies with large and complex supply chains. They are diverse with regard to the types of products that they manufacture and the types of raw materials that they procure from their supply chain. The reader should keep this in mind when reading the cases and lessons reported in this document.

Information gathered for the cases came from interviews with personnel at each firm, internal documents provided by the firms, and publicly available information. The companies were given the opportunity to review and comment on case study drafts. This summary report is designed to synthesize the lessons learned and best practices that were distilled from the case studies.

Read the full story at Wisconsin Radio News.

Legislation designed to keep old TVs and computers out of landfills is on its way to the governor’s desk.

The Senate on Tuesday gave final approval to the bill, which requires electronics manufacturers to take a more active role in recycling their old products. Currently, Dan Kohler of Wisconsin Environment says many of those end up in landfills, with an estimated 10,000 tons worth of computer monitors and 24,000 tons of old televisions being dumped each year in the state.

Read the full post at BoingBoing.

Let’s start this off with a quick clarification. When I say “LED light”, I’m not talking about the nifty, little blinky things that are frequently part of the ingredients list in Make projects. I’m talking about the Big Show: An LED light that can replace the incandescent bulbs and/or CFLs you have lighting up your home right now. To do it right, you don’t just need a single LED that works, you need an array of them…and you need them to produce enough light, and the right color of light, reliably enough that people can buy an LED bulb and know what they’re getting into.That ain’t easy. But it is getting easier.

Trouble is, they’re being oversold, like whoa. For about two-and-a-half years, I’ve been reporting on LED lighting for a trade magazine called Architectural SSL*. During that time, I’ve watched mainstream press and enviro blogs tout LEDs as the green energy miracle light. Often, with a level of enthusiasm seldom seen outside rooms full of puppies. Don’t get me wrong. LEDs are pretty cool. There are places where they’re useful now, and places they probably will be soon. But if you’re just hearing about the awesome, you aren’t getting the full story. And, as more LED products start showing up on store shelves, that really starts to matter.

Join me, won’t you, as we put on our Sober Assessment Goggles and take a peek at the current state of light bulb of the tomorrow…

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has brought attention to environmental concerns, but the biggest pieces of his agenda have either failed to win approval or are still awaiting action.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The Interior Department proposed to designate more than 200,000 square miles of land, sea and ice along the northern coast of Alaska as critical habitat for polar bears.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

New labels listing the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods are appearing on some grocery items and restaurant menus around the country.

Read the full post at the Renewable Energy Blog.

The corporate world is changing fast. With a carbon cap and trade program on the horizon and consumers demanding more environmentally and socially-responsible products, business leaders in every sector are being forced to integrate sustainable business practices in order to stay competitive.

It’s not all the energy sector, however. Most companies use dirty energy to run their operations, which makes those companies partly responsible for the problem. That means any regulatory changes will impact all kinds of businesses, big and small. Because of this, business leaders are turning to the concept of sustainability to drive business decisions moving forward.

A report just released by the National Research Council for the U.S. congress makes the need to shift business strategy even more urgent. According to the report, the dirty American energy sector creates $120 billion worth of damage to public health and the environment that is not accounted for on the books of the companies creating the problem. That’s the conservative estimate.

Read the full story in Renewable Energy World.

The numbers show that wind, water and solar energy would reduce world power demand by 30 percent, thereby avoiding 13,000 coal power plants.

Read the full story in Renewable Energy World.

U.S. states do not need to seek energy imports to meet their renewable energy goals. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the 35-year-old Institute for Local Self-Reliance entitled Energy Self-Reliant States. The report finds a total of 31 states can serve all their electricity needs with in-state renewable power, and that every state could reach its renewable mandate with domestically available renewable resources.

Read the full story at Renewable Energy World.

Ontario’s Green Energy Act, enacted last month, dominated discussions at the 2009 Power of Water Conference, held Oct. 15-16 by the Ontario Waterpower Association.

Read the full story at Renewable Energy World.

These two waste-to-energy plants dispose of garbage and produce power – efficiently and with low emissions.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

You don’t necessarily need an expensive MBA or a degree in environmental sciences to learn about social and environmental responsibility. In fact, many could learn from school children armed with about $17.

One of my favorite quotes I was lucky enough to hear in person. It was imparted by one of my favorite people — David Attenborough, the famous naturalist and owner of a voice that sends women over 60 weak at the knees (at least true in my mother’s case).

Asked when he first became interested in the natural world, he boldly replied, “I prefer to ask most adults when they stopped being interested … after all, you won’t find many children that aren’t fascinated by nature, it’s just that my adolescent curiosity just never went away.”

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Levi Strauss & Co. and Goodwill have teamed up on a new initiative to lower the lifecycle impacts of jeans by giving consumers advice on how to care for them and what to do with them when they are no longer wanted.

The initiative, A Care Tag for Our Planet, includes online and in-store messaging, and, starting in January 2010, a new care tag on jeans that encourages consumers to wash clothes less frequently, wash using cold water, line dry items when possible and, when items are no longer wanted, to donate the items to Goodwill.