ES&T Online News: E-waste recycling spews dioxins into the air

Environment, Health No Responses »
Jul 122007

ES&T Online News: E-waste recycling spews dioxins into the air

When computers, televisions, music systems, and other electronic products reach the ends of their lives, they often end up in China or other developing countries as e-waste. Such waste is a serious environmental threat in these parts of the world because of the poorly regulated conditions under which the waste is dismantled. A new study published in ES&T (DOI 10.1021/es0702925) shows that Guiyu, a major e-waste recycling center in China, has the highest documented levels of atmospheric polychlorodibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorodibenzofurans (PCDFs) in the world.

In e-waste recycling centers in China, discarded products are dipped into open pits of acid and heated over grills fueled with coal blocks to extract precious metals, such as gold. These processes often release toxic metals, such as lead, and organic compounds, such as dioxins. The emissions are not regulated, and occupational exposure is high because of the poor working conditions for e-waste recycling laborers.

In March 2007, researchers at Hong Kong Baptist University showed that soil at e-waste recycling sites in China has high levels of dioxins and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. (Read the paper at ES&T‘s ASAP website.) More recently, another study published in ES&T showed that the workers at these sites have blood levels of the heavy PBDE, BDE–209, 50–200 times higher than those previously reported. Whereas dioxins are potentially carcinogenic for humans, PBDEs affect thyroid metabolism and brain development.

In the current study, Ping’an Peng of the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (China) and his colleagues sampled the air from Guiyu for a week in both the summer and the winter and analyzed the samples for 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs. The levels varied between 64.9 and 2765 picogram per cubic meter (pg/m3). The toxic equivalents (TEQ)—a value used to account for the different levels of toxicity of the individual dioxins—was 0.909–48.9 pg TEQ/m3. Given that Guiyu has no municipal or medical solid-waste incinerators, which are known to be major sources of dioxins, the authors attributed the elevated dioxin levels to e-waste recycling.

The team also found that the dioxin concentrations in the air around Guiyu were 12–18 times higher than those in Chendian, a town 9 kilometers (km) from Guiyu, and 37–133 times higher than those in Guangzhou, which is 450 km from the e-waste site. The results suggest that dioxin pollution from e-waste recycling is spreading to nearby areas.

When they calculated the exposure of adults to dioxins through inhalation, the researchers found that it (68.9 and 126 pg TEQ per kilogram per day in the summer and winter, respectively) was a whopping 15–56 times higher than the World Health Organization recommended maximum of 1–4 pg TEQ/kg/day.

Posted by oliveridley at 11:55 am

Organic agriculture can feed the world

Environment, Food, Open Access No Responses »
Jul 112007

That’s the conclusion reached by the authors of this study based on 293 examples in the developing and developed world.The authors also conclude that yields in the developing world are higher for organic agriculture than for conventional agriculture. Why? Well, since the paper is not open access, I can’t read it, or critique it, I’ll have to wait to get to the library before I can download it. But, maybe it’s because organic agriculture tends to be more labor intensive than conventional agriculture as practised by the developed world, and in the developing world, labor is cheap!

Anyway, this is a good news study and should be examined a little more thoroughly.

CJO – Abstract – Organic agriculture and the global food supply

The principal objections to the proposition that organic agriculture can contribute significantly to the global food supply are low yields and insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilizers. We evaluated the universality of both claims. For the first claim, we compared yields of organic versus conventional or low-intensive food production for a global dataset of 293 examples and estimated the average yield ratio (organic:non-organic) of different food categories for the developed and the developing world. For most food categories, the average yield ratio was slightly 1.0 for studies in the developing world. With the average yield ratios, we modeled the global food supply that could be grown organically on the current agricultural land base. Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. We also evaluated the amount of nitrogen potentially available from fixation by leguminous cover crops used as fertilizer. Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystems suggest that leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen to replace the amount of synthetic fertilizer currently in use. These results indicate that organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Evaluation and review of this paper have raised important issues about crop rotations under organic versus conventional agriculture and the reliability of grey-literature sources. An ongoing dialogue on these subjects can be found in the Forum editorial of this issue.

Posted by oliveridley at 12:42 pm

Public Service Message!

Uncategorized No Responses »
Jul 112007

If you want uncluttered, unbiased, independent news, go no further than the Mcclagtchy group (formerly Knight Ridder).

McClatchy Washington Bureau | Homepage

Posted by oliveridley at 8:54 am

Tuesdays with Turtles – SSTCN Website promo

sea turtles 2 Responses »
Jul 102007

My favorite turtle organization, the Chennai students’ sea turtle conservation network is in the process of getting a website together. It will be at http://www.sstcn.org, which is not much to look at right now!

Posted by oliveridley at 8:43 pm

No sun link to climate change

Environment No Responses »
Jul 102007

In response to a stupid “global warming sceptics”, scientists waste their precious time to prove the obvious all over again.

BBC NEWS | UK | ‘No sun link’ to climate change

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain’s Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

“All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that,” he told the BBC News website.

“You can’t just ignore bits of data that you don’t like,” he said.

Posted by oliveridley at 8:38 pm

Greencard woes

Personal No Responses »
Jul 102007

Sometimes, it’s hard to think and blog when stuff like this happens to you…

Immigration lawyers to sue over change in U.S. visa policy – International Herald Tribune

The hopes of thousands of foreigners who have been working legally in the United States were unexpectedly raised and then abruptly dashed as a result of the disagreement. They had responded last month to an announcement that permanent residency visas would be available, but on Monday learned there were none.

The immigration lawyers said the about-face by the immigration system had no precedent in at least three decades of legal practice, and said that it violated the immigration agencys regulations. The American Immigration Lawyers Associations legal action arm was preparing the lawsuit, said Crystal Williams, deputy director.

U.S. officials said a misunderstanding had arisen from an effort by both agencies to reduce huge backlogs of applications for permanent residence visas, known as green cards. Immigration officials acknowledged that the effort was poorly handled.

Posted by oliveridley at 8:22 am

US legislator proposes a carbon tax

Environment No Responses »
Jul 072007

Of course, he’s not serious. Dingell (D – Auto Industry) floats a carbon tax proposal for the US that is sure to be shot down.

Counting on Failure, Energy Chairman Floats Carbon Tax – New York Times

A powerful House Democrat said on Friday that he planned to propose a steep new “carbon tax” that would raise the cost of burning oil, gas and coal, in a move that could shake up the political debate on global warming.

The proposal came from Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and it runs directly counter to the view of most Democrats that any tax on energy would be a politically disastrous approach to slowing global warming.

But Mr. Dingell, in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on C-Span, suggested that his goal was to show that Americans are not willing to face the real cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. His message appeared to be that Democratic leaders were setting unrealistic legislative goals.

Posted by oliveridley at 8:07 am

EPA scales back rules on wetlands

Environment No Responses »
Jul 052007

Where for the n’th time, you get to use “EPA”, and “scales back rules” in one sentence.

E.P.A. Scaled Back Rules on Wetlands – New York Times

After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams. The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway. But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.

This is the consequence of a tortured Supreme Court ruling from June of last year where Justice Kennedy could not make up his mind on what was a wetland and what was not, so he helped hand down a very confusing verdict open to all kinds of interpretation. At that time, here’s what I said…

This will make things confusing for a while, and you all know who confusion favors!

Well, I told ya!

Posted by oliveridley at 9:39 pm

CNN Finds Indian Widows Ostracized – 200 years late on the story

bizarre, South Asia 2 Responses »
Jul 052007

cnnscreenshot.jpg

Umm, CNN, not exactly headline or breaking news, is it? Raja Ram Mohan Roy crusaded against it in the 1800s, Deepa Mehta made a movie about it recently. So, why was this on my cnn front page? God knows…

Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die – CNN.com

Ostracized by society, thousands of India’s widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.

Posted by oliveridley at 5:36 pm

Brazil successfully hardballs Abbott on AIDs drug

Health, Pharma No Responses »
Jul 052007

I mentioned in May that Brazil had introduced compulsory licensing on a Merck AIDs drug Efavirenz, and heartily recommended that Brazil and other third world countries continue to play hardball with big pharma whenever they could. It looks like Merck decided to not bargain, but Abbott did on Kaletra. Note that Abbott got into a similar controversy with Thailand, and agreed to drop the price when Thailand rejected the Kaletra patent.

Keep it coming, third world countries. Bargaining is perfectly acceptable in the marketplace!

Brazil says Abbott to cut price of AIDS drug | Health | Reuters

razil’s health ministry said Wednesday that Abbott Laboratories Inc. agreed to cut the price of its Kaletra AIDS drug by 29.5 percent.

The lower price for the drug, also known as lopinavir and ritonavir, will help Brazil supply free drugs for its AIDS treatment program.

In May, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva authorized Brazil for the first time to break the patent on an AIDS drug, one made by Merck & Co.. It then started importing a generic version of the drug Efavirenz from India.

Under WTO rules, countries can issue a “compulsory license” to manufacture or buy generic versions of patented drugs deemed critical to public health.

Drug makers often reduce prices to keep countries as clients and avoid compulsory licenses.

Posted by oliveridley at 4:01 pm
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