Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY MATTHEW BRACE

THE BIG question with solar energy is whether it will become sufficiently profitable for major utilities to provide comprehensive services. After all, solar energy is more abundant than all other renewable resources; it’s free and it can be harnessed almost anywhere in the world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

COSTA Rica has long been hailed as a model for generating sustainable wealth from eco-tourism, selling holidays based on its abundant wildlife that avoid damaging the country’s pristine environment. However, in recent years, this success story has been challenged by deforestation, illegal harvesting of resources, and national park management inefficiencies.…

BY MARK ROWE

A FUEL marker so complex that it is all but impossible for thieves to replicate has been developed by scientists; the marker is so sensitive, it can identify illegal stolen fuel by using nanotechnology-based components.
This nanotech-based tracer, developed by Authentix, a nano-science company based in Dallas, Texas, uses hand-held LSX-based technology, and which has already been taken up by Luke Oil, Shell and BP in the United States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s agriculture committee has warned the Fischer Boel wine reforms will face opposition from MEPs. Italian conservative MEP Giuseppe Castiglione, handling the brief for the committee, said changes could be sought on proposed labelling rules, which “must not sow confusion”, the abolition of chaptalisation and must aid, on which “views differ”, and scrapping distillation aid, which raises “environmental concerns”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR international study has detected a direct link between cleaning products delivered through aerosols and asthma or other respiratory problems in adults. Spain’s Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology and Municipal Institute of Medical Research coordinated research institutes in Britain, Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden and Canada to assess 3,503 men and women aged of 20-44 with no previous asthma problems who were told to use cleaning product aerosols regularly.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to investigate the risks of using nanotechnology in food and packaging amidst growing concern about potential health risks. These were raised earlier this year by the European Union’s scientific committee on emerging and newly identified health risks, which warned current risk assessment systems for chemicals were not appropriate for nanoparticles.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TOBACCO sector has always been a worldwide business, relying on raw materials and products being shipped to and from all continents, and with the growth of new emerging markets, it is if anything becoming increasingly globalised. As a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming more important.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) REACH legislation for the registration and authorisation of chemicals came into effect on June 1 and will have a major effect on the tobacco industry. The industry’s detractors have long been keen to use REACH to control the chemicals added to cigarettes in particular, and the European Parliament had pressed for the law to single out tobacco as a sector requiring scrutiny under the law.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PRODUCTION of one kilogram of beef creates more greenhouse gas emissions than motoring for three hours, leaving the lights on at home, according to a new Japanese study. The country’s National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, Tsukuba, examined CO2 emissions emitted by way of methane from beef cattle; the energy required to create the beef (including feed production, husbandry, transport, slaughtering, butchering and packaging); plus the environmental effects of production methods, for instance water acidification and eutrophication, with excessive nutrient runoff into lakes, rivers and ponds reducing oxygen content and CO2 absorption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission’s formally proposed wine market liberalisation reforms face a stormy passage as approval is sought from the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. EU agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel announced early July (4-7) proposals to abolish all EU aid programmes for crisis distillation, support for by-product distillation, private storage aid, export refunds.…