The environmental and occupational health impacts of end-of-life management of stuff (not people!) are often downplayed. Unless the landfill or incinerator is in your backyard, the management of stuff as waste is generally ignored. Throwing away stuff is a subconscious activity for most people, but probably not the families and friends of the waste management […]
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released its report and recommendations yesterday on the December 19, 2007 explosion at the T2 laboratory in Jacksonville, Florida. The violent explosion took the lives of four individuals: Charles Budds Bolchoz, 48, Karey Renard Henry, 35, Parish Lamar Ashley36, and Robert Scott Gallagher, 49. The CSB compared to blast to one […]
A country’s gross domestic product, or GDP, is often used as shorthand for its success – but, as Robert F. Kennedy pointed out four decades ago, it doesn’t capture the toll of our damaging practices or the benefits of hard-to-measure qualities like the ability of the public to have high-quality debates about important issues. If we […]
The Associated Press is reporting that urgent recommendations proposed by the Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) hands-on investigators of the ConAgra Slim Jim factory explosion, which killed three workers in June 2009, were rejected by the CSB’s Board. The AP story reads: “Documents obtained by The Associated Press show that staff members of the U.S. Chemical […]
The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute® (ACS GCI) has teamed with stakeholders from industry, non-governmental organizations, and Federal and State agencies to develop a Sustainable Chemical and Process Technology Standard for the chemical industry. As stated in the January 2009 memo from the ACS GCI, the new Standard is intended to⦠â¦establish consistent requirements […]
The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (a partnership between the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts) compiles an inventory of nanotech-enabled consumer products, and they recently announced that they’ve identified 1,000 nano products. Given the many concerns about effects of nanoparticles on workers’ health, human tissues, and even our water supply, […]
by Kas Universities nation-wide welcome students to their campuses for the start of a new academic year. With âsustainabilityâ on the lips of many university administrators and faculty, it comes as no surprise that new student orientations and university move-in programs have âgone green.â Some specific examples of âgreenâ activities at The George Washington University […]
by Kas In August 2006, the National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program (NVMSRP) was established by the USEPA in a cooperative effort with auto manufacturers, steelmakers, dismantlers, shredders, State governments, environmentalists, and trade associations. The NVMSRP was designed to recover mercury-containing materials from scrap vehicles, specifically mercury switches used in convenience lighting (the reason the […]
One of the most e-mailed articles on the New York Times website today is Dickson D. Despommierâs op-ed âA Farm on Every Floor.â He has an intriguing proposal: grow crops inside tall buildings, a practice known as vertical farming. Since climate disruption is altering rainfall patterns and causing more floods and droughts, farmers are finding it […]
As evidence about the health risks associated with smoking accumulated, the tobacco industry responded by funding its own research, which concluded that cigarettes aren’t so bad after all. They recruited spokespeople who’d proclaim tobacco’s safety without revealing that they were being paid handsomely by cigarette manufacturers. These activities (and others in the same vein) helped […]