toxics

A big train wreck leaves it all over the place

Gristmill reader Grevangelical was in Ukraine when this happened, and he says people there are nervous about it. Wonder why? Deputy Prime Minister Olexander Kuzmuk, who on Tuesday compared the spill to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, has since insisted there is no health risk to surrounding villages … By the way, the highly toxic […]

The worst good news/bad news tale ever told

The bad news is that we're doing it by eating the fish that are eating the concentrated mercury in the food chain, further concentrating it in ... us. Mad as hatters we are!

This could also have been titled, "Another reason that coal is the enemy of the human race (or at least those members of it that like to eat)."

New study reveals chlorine plants could actually make money by switching to mercury-free technology

Hot off the presses are new findings that show it's actually cheaper for chlorine plants to make their product using mercury-free technology.

Oceana says so in the most extensive report to date focusing on the conversion of mercury-cell chlorine factories to more environmentally and economically sound mercury-free technology.

What's more, the findings have prompted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to reintroduce legislation that requires chlorine and caustic soda manufacturing plants to switch to mercury-free technology by 2012.

It's good to see politicians recognizing the need for this type of legislation. Shifting not only benefits the environment and our health, it benefits the company pocketbooks, too -- and that's the bottom line.

Shocking

I am shocked, shocked at the N.Y. Times report:

The Japanese operator of a nuclear power plant stricken by an earthquake earlier this week said Wednesday that damage was worse than previously reported and that a leak of water was 50 percent more radioactive than initially announced.

For the third time in three days, Tokyo Electric Power apologized for delays and errors in announcing the extent of damage at the plant in this northwestern coastal city, which was struck Monday by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake. The company also said that tremors had tipped over "several hundred" barrels of radioactive waste, not 100 as it reported Tuesday, and that the lids had opened on "a few dozen" of those barrels.

Why is it you never read, "Wind Farm Damage Worse Than Reported"? The L.A. Times has more alarming news:

It’s easy being not green

In an effort to keep expanding the flow of oil, companies such as BP have been trying to extract oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is like trying to drink coffee after you've dumped it into sand. The process is so energy-intensive that there is talk of putting the world's largest nuclear power plant on top of the tar sands in order to heat them up enough to use them, and lakes of toxic water have been created there.

And where will that goop go to get processed? BP has decided that it would like to process much of it on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, at its huge refinery, and they have been given a waiver by Indiana and the U.S. EPA to expand their pollution dumping, according to the Chicago Tribune:

The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes.

Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs.

Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.

Clothing companies start to come clean on chemicals

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine invited me to an apparel industry environmental seminar chock full of good industry types. Seminars of this nature are always dreadfully boring, but it's worth it because you get the inside scoop on what the industry is (and unfortunately isn't) talking about. The principle topic was regulated substances and chemicals, how to move toward green chemistry alternatives, and how to manage all the issues associated with regulations. The meeting was the first important step in getting companies like Ann Taylor, Liz Claiborne, L.L. Bean, and others to begin taking the steps needed to beef up their consumer-protection standards.

The buzzword of the day was RSL, or "Restricted Substance List." Most RSL's are either proprietary information or outdated. That is all changing thanks to the American Apparel & Footwear Association's Environmental Task Force, which spearheaded the seminar.

On June 27, AAFA released an RSL to help textile, apparel, and footwear companies take the first step in regulating -- and, in some cases, eliminating -- certain contaminants from their products. I emphasize "first step" because many of the companies sitting in the auditorium were only marginally aware that so many chemicals and substances made up the DNA of their outfits.

Umbra on mercury in CFLs

Dearest Umbra, For the past 10 years or so I have been patiently and methodically replacing the incandescent light bulbs in my house with the more efficient compact fluorescent ones. Even though they cost more than incandescents, I have been confident that their lower energy requirements and longer life span more than made up for […]

Another reason the well-off do well

Here's a story that tracks with older reporting (such as from Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly) about the pernicious social consequences of lead.

Boy, there's a superhero quartet we could really use: Environmental Justice Crusaders, a band with superhuman powers to counteract our pervasive (and worsening) racial and economic segregation that puts the people on the bottom of the socio-economic divide into the places where the better off folks dump their environmental insults.

Communities taking action for clean water

Communities around the country are getting wise to the threat posed by the common practice of flushing old drugs, which inevitably end up in rivers after passing straight through sewage treatment facilities, feminizing fish, mutating frogs, and worse, probably.

One recent effort in coastal Maine collected hundreds of pounds of drugs for proper disposal, but this impressive total was crushed by another grassroots "clean sweep" that collected over a ton of pharmaceuticals plus an estimated $500,000 in narcotics in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in April.

These initiatives make the point very well that there is no "away" when it comes to society's waste. More resources and collection program info for Berkeley, Calif. and the states of Missouri, Maine, and Washington are listed by the Green Pharmacy Campaign here.