Scientists have started reviewing some everyday and industrial chemicals used in such products as carpets and medical equipment to determine whether they should be added to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), the United Nations-backed treaty banning hazardous chemicals. Twelve chemicals dubbed the Dirty Dozen, and including the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, hexachlorobenzene, heptachlor, toxaphene and mirex are already on the Conventions list.

Chemicals have contributed to human well-being across a range of areas from medicine and foodstuffs to agriculture and industrial processes, said Mr. Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, under whose auspices the treaty was negotiated. However, some of these substances now pose real risks to humans and the wider environment, and Eliminating, restricting and accelerating a switch to better alternatives must be our goal, he added.

Five more substances have already been shortlisted, and the POPs Review Committee will assess four more for possible elimination. Most of these nine chemicals are used in products such as flame retardants in textiles and carpets, and for photo imaging and fire-fighting.

Source: www.un.org

The Government of India has proposed to extend Bharat Stage IV emission norms for four-wheelers to 11 mega cities and Bharat Stage III emission norms throughout the country from April 2010. This is as per the Auto Fuel Policy of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The government will enforce Bharat Stage IV emission norms in Delhi/National Capital Region, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Kanpur and Agra from 1 April 2010. State-run oil companies have undertaken fuel quality upgrade projects for the supply of required upgraded fuel by the target date.

Source: pib.nic.in

Sri Lanka has approved two more waste disposal sites, with private sector participation, to handle the garbage generated in the densely populated Western Province that includes the capital, Colombo, said Information Minister Mr. Anura Yapa. The government has approved the use of a 14 acre site in the Enderamulla area, and a 27 acre site in the Ekala area to be used as waste treatment sites. The province is estimated to generate 1,683 tonnes of solid waste a day. About 62 per cent of it is organic waste and 6.5 per cent paper, allowing most of it to be composted, Mr. Yapa said.

Source: www.lankabusinessonline.com

Chinese consumers, on average, trash over 5 million TV sets, about 5 million washing machines, and about 4 million refrigerators in a total more than 15 million discards each year.

Chinas home appliance giants are entering the environmental protection industry, as the government is to issue regulations on the recycling of discarded electronic appliances. The TCL Group recently founded an environment protection investment company jointly with the Omeet Group. Haier and Changhong have already set up recycling centres for discarded electronic appliances, respectively in Shandong and Sichuan.

Overseas environmental barriers are an important reason for TCLs entry into the e-waste management industry. According to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives issued by the European Union (EU), home appliance exporters to EU must pay 3-5 per cent of the total price of their exports for the recycling and treatment of electronic waste. However,
if the Chinese companies take the discarded appliances back to China, they wont need to pay this fee. At present, China has banned import of discarded home appliances to prevent domestic companies from illegally refurbishing them and reselling them as new ones. The largest discarded product recycling and treating company, Omeet, has been licensed to import discarded home appliances for disassembly.

Source: www.chinastakes.com

The Republic of Korea will increasingly use waste materials as an energy source, as part of the countrys shift towards alternative power sources. The Environment Ministry hopes recycled materials will fuel 10 per cent of the countrys total energy needs by the year 2050.

A main part of the plan is to construct energy reclamation facilities next to landfills across the country over the next four years. Officials hope the measure will save W3.2 trillion (US$2.058 billion) in annual energy costs, while lowering around 1,500 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

Source: english.chosun.co

IRecycling of waste materials left by garment factories has emerged as a good income generating source for many people. As the informal sector requires small investment, it attracts a good number of investors who are employing thousands of people in Bangladesh, mostly from the under-privileged classes. The leftovers from garment manufacturing, called jhoot by the people involved in the trade, are converted into useful materials. Jhoot includes everything from cut-pieces of clothes, buttons, thread, elastic fasteners and empty bobbins to rejected pants, shirts and T-shirts.

Rags discarded by one are treasure for another. We are helping to relieve the garment industry of a huge burden that was once thrown away in dumpsters, said Mr. Md. Abdur Rashid Sheikh, the Secretary of a garment waste traders association. Each garment factory announces an auction for waste raw materials every alternate week. The best quality waste cloth sells at Tk 35-40 (US$0.50-0.58) per kg while the price can be as low as Tk 1 (US$0.14) for per kg low quality cloth.

Recycling starts with sorting, usually by the colour, type and condition of fabric. The usable cloths are bought by small garment factories for reproducing clothes with it. The unusable parts and shredded cloths are recycled into waste cotton. Dhakas mattress industry is dependent on these shredded cloths. Buttons, zippers, elastic fastener, hangers and plastic bags are resold to mini garment accessory sellers.

Around 500 textiles and garments waste processor units are currently under operation in the country and they produce around 500 tonnes of processed waste cotton every day, said sources at Bangladesh Textile and Garments Waste Processors and Exporters Association. Mirpur Section 10 hosts the largest centre, where around 400 stores have employed about 10,000 people, most of them women, for collecting and sorting of the jhoot items.

Source: www.thedailystar.net

Stroll around the shopping areas in Makati City in Metro Manila, the Philippines, and one will see many green plastic recycling bins into which one may discard old mobile phones, batteries and other small consumer electronics items. This is the first stop of an old gadgets journey to the afterlife.

The bins are owned and emptied by HMR Envirocycle Inc., the only licensed electronic waste (e-waste) recycling facility in the Philippines and one of only two such facilities in Southeast Asia. The Australia-based HMR Group also operates the electronics thrift shops, as part of what may well be a sustainable e-waste recycling business model. It offers, among others, e-waste demanufacturing and disposal services, as well as scrap and waste management, crap purchase and asset-value recovery.

HMR also provides data security, meaning, the total destruction of confidential records and assured destruction of discarded and recalled electronic equipment. Asset- tagging inventory and confirmation services are also provided to enable corporate clients to accurately track the lifecycle of each piece of equipment they own so that those items can be disposed of with the least possible environmental impact. The company is reported to manually process approximately 6,995 kg of e-waste a month.

After processing, some wastes, like lead-contaminated glass, are shipped overseas for safe disposal. Materials that can be salvaged locally such as metals, plastic and glass are recovered in compliance with stringent local and international environmental standards. The salvaged components are separated, sorted, quality-graded and thereafter sold to manufacturers, as well as other recyclers.

Source: businessmirror.com.ph

Mr. Fadillah Yusof, Deputy Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation (MOSTI) of Malaysia has said that a Sarawak-based company is carrying out a pilot project to extract fuel from plastic waste. The company has set up a plant in Shah Alam, Selangor to extract fuel from the waste products.

The Ministry will fund the research and development work, under the MOSTI e-Techno Fund if the pilot project proves successful in a years time, the Minister declared. The company had submitted an application for M$10 million (US$2.68 million) to MOSTI e-Techno Fund. Mr. Fadillah said the Ministry welcomed the pilot project, as it would help save the environment and address the use of non-biodegradable plastic.


Source: www.bernama.com.my