Search Results for: Environmental Health⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a database that will contain environmental data from across the European Union (EU), as it proposed a directive harmonising the way that national governments record such information. The idea of the INSPIRE (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in the European Union) initiative is to enable environmental policy makers to draw on data culled from across the EU, rather than being limited to national information.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SHAKE UP in the World Bank’s lending guidelines for extractive industries will probably see natural gas given priority over oil and solid fuel projects, for environmental reasons. Board proposals would also tie future loans to good governance and transparency, boosting spending on energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy consumption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GROUND-LEVEL checks on the thickness of polar ice caps are being staged by the European Space Agency (ESA) to assess environmental monitoring data which will culled its oncoming Cryosat satellite mission. ESA has sent scientists to ice sheets in the north of Canada, Greenland and Norway.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE USA’S Environmental Protection Agency has warned against eating more than half a serving a month of Atlantic salmon and trout raised in federal hatcheries in the north-east United States because of high levels of dioxins and PCB’s.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW process for polystyrene production that sharply reduces the use of volatile organic compounds (VOC), including pentane, is to be developed commercially by the Dutch company Nova Chemicals and the German firm Teubert Maschinenbau. Stephen Long, Nova marketing manager, said it was “too early yet” to say what kind of investment would be required by manufacturers of polystyrene foam products, which include insulation and packaging materials, drinking cups and children’s toys.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN research network has developed a quality offset press that it claims is flexible enough to thrive in the plastic films, paper or aluminium packaging sectors. The independent EUREKA network’s ‘variable sleeve offset printing’ project had to reduce the cost of machine parts printing variable sizes “as there are no standard sizes in packaging applications”, said a project memorandum.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled it is prepared to allow governments across the European Union (EU) to subsidise pollution reductions in older lorries that are not covered by new EU emission rules. Brussels has authorised the Danish government to meet up to 30% of the cost of retrofitting Denmark registered lorries weighing more than 3.5 tonnes with particulate filters, using its power to regulate national state aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SHAKE UP in the World Bank’s lending guidelines for extractive industries will probably see future loans being tied to good governance and environmental safeguards. A proposal released by the bank’s board for public consultation says that the bank should use “explicit good governance indicators in assessing and designing projects” in the industrial mineral, oil, gas, metal ore and sold fuel sectors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE is flirting with potentially huge daily recurring fines from the European Court of Justice by ignoring three rulings ordering compliance with EU environmental laws. Judges told Paris last year to adopt pollution reduction programmes under the 1976 directive on discharges of dangerous substances to water, grant more access to environmental information and create extra protected nature sites.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WE don’t need reminding that industry is generally harmful to the environment but less understood is the potentially quite damaging ecological effect of rising agricultural production throughout the world. This theme came through pretty loud and clear at the Consumers, Farmers and Food conference held at the Royal Institute of International Affairs last week (5-6/July), in London.…