Search Results for: Environmental health

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN consultancies Wardrop Engineering and Micon International are to offer joint advice on mining and metallurgical projects, from initial resource estimation, feasibility studies and operational analysis, to site closure. The two companies have decided they can work well together as their areas of expertise dovetail, rather than duplicate each other’s.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA, in Columbo
SRI Lankan legislators are considering proposals to create a powerful national electricity regulator, which would combine the functions of the Ceylon Electricity Board and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. This new Power Supply Committee would have an expanded remit, being tasked with ensuring the smooth operation of electricity transmission in a country where cuts in service are common.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE CRUCIAL question of whether the European Commission’s new proposed directive on tobacco advertising will stand up legally is still unclear after a hearing on the subject in the European Parliament. Last year the measure was rejected on the grounds that it attempted to set health policy, an area where the EU has no constitutional role.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
RESEARCHERS at the Harvard School of Public Health have found that eating too many hot dogs is bad for your health. Their study, published in an American diabetes journal, found that a diet heavy in processed meats – typically five or more portions a week – including hot dogs and bacon, increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes by about 50 per cent in men.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to order tests on all imports of shrimps from Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, (Burma),and poultry from Thailand to ensure antibiotic residues do not exceed EU health limits, following concerns raised by spot-checks on cargoes from these countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend First Quantum Minerals Ltd up to Euro 14 million to expand the Bwana Mkubwa hydrometallurgical copper production facility in Ndola, in the Zambian copper-belt.

Its aim is to boost its copper production from 10,000 tonnes per annum to 30,000 tonnes per annum, extending the useful life of the plant by at least six years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has approved the lending of Euro 300,000 to help finance a Euro 1.8 million feasibility study into the viability of extracting strontianite ore at Kangankunde, in Malawi, southern Africa, and then processing it into marketable strontium carbonate.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Agency for Safety and Health at Work has released a public appeal for project proposals tapping a Euro 4 million funding scheme to encourage higher safety and health standards in small and medium-sized businesses. The agency will provide co-financing grants of between Euro 25,000 and Euro 200,000, with applications being accepted from businesses themselves, as well as commerce organisations and public sector groups.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICA’S Environmental Protection Agency is looking to add certain waste materials, now classified as hazardous, to their programme promoting alternative fuels.

The EPA is trying to expand the country’s use of gasification, a process that puts materials under high temperatures to convert them into synthetic gas.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
A FINE-GRAINED red mud left after alumina has been extracted from bauxite is showing promise as a way of cleansing waste- water, a potential new environment-friendly market for the mineral.

The residue can remove phosphorous and heavy metals from water with a lower pH level than normal, which can then be released within quality limits.…