Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has announced a project to prevent blindness in children that will be initially funded by a US$3.75 million Lions Clubs International Foundation donation. The strategy would include funding immunisation against measles and rubella, improving supplies of vitamin A, supplying prophylaxes against eye diseases in babies, (including gonococcal infection), and deterring the use of harmful eye medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT holy grail of environmentalists, an economy that grows, yet imposes a declining burden on the environment, has yet to be achieved in the European Union, although some important steps have been made in the right direction, claims the European Environment Agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STONE discards stored by a quarry for future sales, should be classified as waste under European Union regulations, even if they do not “pose any real risk to human health or the environment” the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

KEITH NUTHALL
AQUACULTURE takes centre stage in the new proposals for reforming the European Union Common Fisheries Policy in which the need to conserve dwindling wild fish stocks is clearly recognised. With Brussels moving to limit and reduce the size of fishing fleets, the European Commission’s new ‘road map’ for a reviewed CFP highlights fish farming as “a valuable alternative source of employment in coastal areas as well as offering quality fisheries products to consumers.”…

BY MARK ROWE
THE JAPANESE electronics giant Sharp says it has created an air conditioner that not only cools your office but also cleans up the air, cutting down on the colds and sniffles that plague air-conditioned environments.

Tests carried out by scientists at the Japanese Ministry of Health and Labour Welfare, found that Sharp’s air conditioner reduced the airborne bacteria count (E.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN, Italian, Greek and Portuguese governments may soon be ordered to pass laws insisting that motorised outdoor gardening equipment used in their countries abide by European Union noise legislation.

Formal legal proceedings at the European Court of Justice has been threatened against all four governments by the European Commission, which claims that they failed to meet a July 2001 deadline to implement the directive 2000/14/EC on noise emissions from outdoor equipment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ARCANE procedures of the world’s food standards body the Codex Alimentarius could be made simpler and more transparent, because of the launch joint review of its work by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
Delegates to the annual meeting of the Institution for Occupational Safety and Health in Manchester this week were told of “serious setbacks” in the struggle to make Britain’s workplaces less dangerous. “Not only has a plateau effect in national accident trends been noticed but in some sectors things have actually worsened,” said Mr David Eves, who was deputy director of the Health and Safety Executive between 1989 and 2002 and is now IOSH Hon vice president.…

BY PHILIP FINE

AN INFLUENTIAL environmental group is taking the world’s largest poultry company to court for allegedly failing to quell noxious releases emanating from its contracted farmers’ properties. The Sierra Club alleges that Kentucky-based Tyson Foods failed to report releases of ammonia at four of its suppliers’ chicken houses.…

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.…