Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY DEIRDRE MASON

AS production costs rise and environmental regulations tighten worldwide, manufacturers in the clothing and textile industry are looking for ways of dealing with their production waste as economically as possible. That, however, can never mean simply choosing the cheapest option, rather the smartest.…

BY CHARLES WALLIN

ALTERNATIVE fuels could gradually replace fossil energy sources and make transport sustainable by 2050, according to a report just presented to the European Commission by the European Union’s (EU) expert group on future transport fuels. It says the EU needs a fossil fuel-free and largely CO2-free energy supply to reduce road transport’s impact on the environment and boost the security of energy supplies – and its experts say this is possible.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GERMANY’S Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology has been testing how carbon dioxide at 30.1 Celsius and a pressure of 73.8 bar can become an effective dye carrier. It then "goes into a supercritical state that gives the gas solvent-like properties," said an institute note, and can be introduced into polymers.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

THE GLOBAL fashion and textile market has increasingly been influenced by green marketing buzzwords such as ‘organic’, ‘fair trade’ and ‘sustainable’, with the market for ethical and environmentally-friendly fashion growing slowly despite many challenges.

Assessing the size of this sub-sector is a tricky business, given there is no international standard about what is green and what is not green.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE BENEFITS nanotechnology offers to the paint and coatings industry has excited paint technology experts and researchers for several years. These range from anti-corrosive paints, primers and finishes that are durable, UV-resistant high scratch and impact resistant, anti-bacterial and water-resistant, coatings that protect iPod screens from scratching or make paper products waterproof.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL clothing and textile industry does not of course work in a vacuum – it must abide by the law – and where regulations tell it to reduce pollution or avoid using potentially-harmful chemicals, it can and does comply.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PAINTS, coatings and other construction materials containing hazardous substances will have to be clearly labelled to protect the health and safety of builders and other users, under a new European Union (EU) regulation. Covering the EU-wide sale of construction products, the European Parliament and EU ministers have struck agreement on the final text, which insists every product is sold with a "declaration of performance" by manufacturers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CANADIAN scientists have produced an adaptable high-grade nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) using a novel environment-friendly extraction process, which can be scaled-up for industrial applications. The country’s National Research Council’s (NRC) Biotechnology Research Institute, in Montréal, sought a new method of separating this nanomaterial from standard cellulose.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called for an increase in the extraction of phosphorous from waste solids and waste water to prevent environmental problems linked to fertiliser run-off and prepare for the day when phosphate rock reserves run out.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WIND-GENERATED energy – clean, safe, and increasingly economically viable, is facing an obstacle to its expansion: chagrin amongst conservationists that wind turbines can kill or harm wildlife, especially birds and bats. Recently, as a part of the European Union’s (EU) commitment to increase renewable energy to 20% of Europe’s total energy production by 2020, the European Commission published guidelines to prevent wind energy developments from harming wildlife in conservation zones included within its Natura 2000 network, which covers almost 18% of the EU’s land area.…