Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has already started reviewing the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive, whose provisions are only now bedding in. Facing complaints from recyclers, businesses and local authorities about the law’s complexities and the contrasting ways it has been implemented in the European Union’s (EU) 25 member states, Brussels is reassessing its terms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ENERGY study projects of all kinds could tap earmarked energy research budgets of Euro 2.2 billion from 2007-13 under a draft rewritten European Union (EU) seventh framework programme for research. Other relevant budgets include Euro 1.8 billion on environmental studies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has unveiled plans to lend up to Euro 727.50 million to build up to 30 wind farms in Spain, with a combined capacity of around 900 MWe. These medium and large scale wind farms would be set up this year and next in economically hard pressed areas across Spain, classed by the European Union (EU) as ‘Objective 1’ and so eligible for various EU regional aid programmes.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London

EUROPEAN Union (EU) lawmakers are stepping up the development of a legally binding technical standard to ensure the safe operation of hydrogen fuel cells in road vehicles. The European Commission has begun a public consultation (which runs until September 15) on the matter, seeking to ensure that the rapid technical development of hydrogen power by automakers is not held back by safety fears and conflicting national safety rules.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

AMERICAN researchers have found that paint manufacturers continue to produce and sell consumer paints with dangerously high levels of lead in countries with weak environmental health controls. A University of Cincinnati study, to be published in the journal Environmental Research, found 75% of all tested paint in India, China and Malaysia contained high levels of lead, with more than 50% of samples containing levels 30 times higher than the permitted US standard.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

ACCOUNTANTS who feared that a change in UK rules would curb the growing trend in environmental accounting need not worry. Although the Business Review, which replaced the Operating and Finance Review (OFR) earlier this year, only requires quoted and large private companies to report significant environmental issues, the business case for companies and organisations to keep track of their environmental footprint continues to grow.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has already started reviewing the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive, whose provisions are only now bedding in. Facing complaints from recyclers, businesses and local authoritues about the law’s complexities and the contrasting implementation amongst the European Union’s (EU) 25 member states, Brussels is reassessing its terms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A BRITAIN-based consultancy firm has concluded a planned recycled-gas electricity generator at a Ukraine steel plant would create significant environmental benefits, encouraging the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to support the project. The EBRD is considering part-funding a new 300MWe Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plant within the Alchevsk Iron & Steel Works.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has called for a series of reforms to nuclear radiation safety and environmental checks at and around Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power plant.

The good news is that its radiation protection unit satisfied itself that "routine discharge of active process waters from Ignalina are physically impossible" and that airborne radiation sampling and monitoring "is satisfactory".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has declared legal special funding systems in Austria for combined heat and power for public district heating and renewable energy, after the Austrian government partly changed the operation of these subsidies. The system for renewables had drawn particular criticism from the Commission, because it involved consumers paying a fixed price for green energy consumed in Austria.…