Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY MARK ROWE
EASTERN Europe, thanks mainly to the preponderance of Soviet-era facilities and Soviet-era standards of maintenance, has long been seen as a potential weak link for the nuclear power industry in safety terms. A vast group of international experts devotes time and resources to maintaining the industry’s record and the nuclear power industry has various arrangements for cooperation among utilities and internationally, among government and United Nations nuclear agencies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ENVIRONMENTAL health officers have been asked to assess the suitability of a new streamlined European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) system checking whether microorganisms used in food are harmful. This Qualified Presumption of Safety (QPS) procedure would assess the safety of groups of microorganisms, regardless of their use in food or animal feed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) Joint Research Centre (JRC) is opening three new reference laboratories this month (March 17) to monitor reliable testing of contaminated food items and animal feed. The new laboratories, at Geel, in Belgium, will test for heavy metals, mycotoxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), all key environmental health concerns.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have backed a European Commission plan to reduce by 25% the administrative costs suffered by businesses through burdensome EU legislation. In a debate ahead of the March 8-9 EU summit which should rubber-stamp the initiative, an EU Council of Ministers for competitiveness accepted a 2012 deadline for scrapping red tape.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) environment ministers have given informal backing to a European Commission plan to tighten EU controls on pesticides, a key pollutant of concern for water utilities. A formal vote will be taken at a June EU Council of Ministers meeting on a tabled regulation and a directive, which toughen environmental and health standards for pesticides undergoing market approval applications.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, in London
A WORLDWIDE standard for automotive safety glazing may only be a few months away, now that suppliers have agreed on the content and wording.

The new draft standard was finalized at a January conference in Brussels under the umbrella of CLEPA (the European Association of Automotive Suppliers), with representatives from the US, Japan, Canada, Belgium, France and Germany taking part.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE PARAMOUNT importance of nuclear safeguards is highlighted not just by the media spotlight when any incident occurs, but in the recognition that regular independent inspection is crucial for reinforcing the safeguard procedures of nuclear powers.

In Europe, at the level of the European Union (EU), this work is led by the EU’s Nuclear Safeguards Inspectorate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN today’s highly competitive energy sector, oil and gas companies and their suppliers are always looking for an edge over rivals, especially in technology. So it can only be good news that the European Union (EU) will from this year until 2013 be spending Euro 2.3 billion on energy studies through its ‘seventh framework programme’, its largest ever research spending scheme, commanding budgets worth Euro 53.2 billion in total.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ENVIRONMENTAL groups are urging the London Olympic Delivery Authority and the London 2012 Organising Committee to be mindful of potential pitfalls when executing the building of venues and parks for the games.

Indeed, the ‘Greening the Games Campaign’ group, which is backed by the UK landscape and horticultural industry approves of the sustainability programme recently launched by the Olympics authority, but fears contractors’ bottom line may get in the way of reaching the environmental goals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MEXICAN environmental group has lodged a formal complaint with a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)-linked tribunal, claiming a Mexican subsidiary of Canada’s Metallica Resources Inc has been given illegal authorisation to open a gold and silver mine.…