Showing posts with label carbon footprint. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Greenpeace: E-waste is mounting problem for health and environment

By The Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: Millions of tons of disused electronic equipment containing toxic chemicals and heavy metals are being dumped every year without recycling or safe disposal, Greenpeace said in a report released Thursday.

More than 80 percent of televisions, computers, mobile phones and other equipment escape proper handling in the United States, and about 75 percent in the European Union, the environmental group said. In India, 99 percent of such "e-waste" is mishandled, it said. "The introduction of appropriate reuse, recycling and recovery technologies is not keeping pace" with growing sales, said the report, entitled "Toxic Tech: Not in My Back Yard." More than 1 billion mobile phones were sold last year alone. A mobile phone contains 500 to 1,000 components, many of them containing potentially dangerous metals like lead, mercury, cadmium and beryllium, as well as hazardous chemical flame retardants.

EU regulations require producers to be responsible for retrieving their branded products brought out after August 2005, a rule meant to encourage manufacturers to use more recyclable material to reduce their disposal costs. Greenpeace researcher Martin Hojsik said the report was timed to coincide with discussions with the European Commission on reviewing the directive for controlling electronic waste.

Within the 27-member EU, recovery works better in some countries than in others, Greenpeace said. About 6.6 million tons of the 8.7 million tons of equipment the EU produces annually is not collected or treated properly, it said. No precise data exists on what happens to this waste, it said. The United States has "a relatively unsophisticated infrastructure" to collect waste electronic goods, but several states are requiring producers to have take-back schemes, it said. Much of what Greenpeace calls the "hidden flow" of hazardous waste is exported to countries like India, China and Thailand. Workers in a thriving "informal sector" in those countries strip down the goods to recover components for second-hand equipment or to harvest valuable metals and raw materials. The process is dangerous to the health of the workers and to the environment, the report said.

Hojsik said exporting such waste is illegal in Europe, but the United States has no laws against exporting equipment for recycling. He said the report, which was one year in the works, draws on more than 100 sources, including reports from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a U.N. University study for the EU commission late last year, company reports and interviews with stakeholders.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Rabu 27 February 2008)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)

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Eco-protesters climb atop plane at Heathrow Airport

By The Associated Press

LONDON: Five environmental activists were arrested after they climbed onto a plane at London's Heathrow Airport on Monday to protest plans to build a third runway there.

Greenpeace said the activists walked across the tarmac and climbed onto the British Airways Airbus A320 after it landed on a domestic flight from Manchester in northern England. The three men and two women wrapped a banner around the tail fin reading: "Climate Emergency — No Third Runway."

Greenpeace opposes plans for a third runway at Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, saying it would make global warming worse by increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Heathrow operator BAA PLC said the protesters were arrested after about 90 minutes and taken to the airport's police station. The activists were later released on bail, police said. BAA PLC said the airport was operating normally Monday and that a full investigation would be launched.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Rabu 27 February 2008)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)

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Friday, February 22, 2008

Global warming complaint against carmakers is dismissed (Global climate change)

Global warming complaint against carmakers is dismissed

By Adam Liptak

NEW YORK: The courts do not have the authority or the expertise to decide injury lawsuits concerning global warming, a judge in San Francisco ruled in dismissing a suit brought by the State of California against six auto companies.

The decision Monday, by Judge Martin Jenkins, was welcome news for automakers, who had suffered a defeat last week in federal court in Vermont. In the decision last week, Judge William Sessions III endorsed Vermont regulations meant to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by cars and light trucks. More than a dozen states have similar rules, and a lawsuit challenging such regulations in California is pending. In the case decided Monday, California claimed that the six car companies produced vehicles that accounted for more than 20 percent of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and more than 30 percent of those emitted in California.

The suit claimed that the emissions were a public nuisance and sought billions of dollars in damages. Jenkins wrote that resolving the questions presented in the suit was not a proper task for the courts. "The adjudication of plaintiff's claim would require the court to balance the competing interests of reducing global warming emissions and the interests of advancing and preserving economic and industrial development," Jenkins wrote. The two decisions are not necessarily at odds. They collectively suggest that states may address climate change through their legislatures and executive branches, but not through the courts.

Given national and international debate on the issues, Jenkins wrote, "the court finds that injecting itself into the global warming thicket at this juncture would require an initial policy determination of the type reserved for the political branches of government." Indeed, he continued, a decision from the court on awarding damages for increasing global warming could potentially undermine the choices of the political branches.

SEC petitioned on climate State officials, pension funds and environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to force companies to disclose more to investors about how climate change might hurt the bottom line, Bloomberg News reported from Washington. The state treasurer of California, Bill Lockyer; the state attorney general of New York, Andrew Cuomo; and the chief financial officer of Florida, Alex Sink, were part of the group that filed the request with the SEC, according to Environmental Defense and to Ceres, a coalition of investment funds and environmental groups that is based in Boston.