Month: September 2002

Letter from the Editor: the cost of a clean environment

This week in edie’s bulletin, there’s good news for the recycling of office equipment and mobile phones. There’s profit in this, it seems. There’s also profit for banks considering environmental risk assessment in their lending, and religious groups are also practicing what they preach – as far as ethical investment goes, at least.

Unapproved pesticides found in UK food

Over 99% of food is safe to eat, says a government report on pesticide residues in food. The survey shows two-thirds of food in Britain is pesticide free, and the remainder has levels of legal residues below regulatory limits. But some of the food surveyed contained pesticides that are not approved for crop use in the UK, with some residues exceeding safety limits.

News Release: 10 Years for Membrane Supplier

MBR Technology®, the membrane division of the Aquator Group Ltd, are providing an unprecedented 10-year guarantee on submerged flat sheet membranes supplied, operated and maintained by them – a clear indicator of the company’s commitment to its product, quality and service.

UK Business Briefs: clean cars, pollution graduates and a recycled road

In this week’s UK Business Briefs, a new design for minute taxis, Cranfield graduates in water pollution and a road made from recycled industry waste.

International Business Briefs: certification, greenhouse gas software, bioremediation, and wastewater treatment

In this week’s International Business Briefs, environmental certification allows a Japanese company to save over US$1 million, one of the world’s largest power producers uses software to manage greenhouse gas emissions, the launch of a new partnership for bioremediation in Mexico, and the purchase of wastewater treatment services in Canada.

Mountain of waste mobile phones could become molehill

A UK company has launched a recycling scheme for mobile phones that will help solve the problem of the 15 million phones that are discarded every year in the country. It is the world’s first phone recycling scheme to have the backing of an entire nation’s network service providers.

SEPA’s budget boosted by £11 million

The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency is receiving an extra £11.2 million as part of its three-year budget allocated by the Scottish Executive. The bonus will go towards vital environmental work such as monitoring of shellfish and bathing waters and the development of an online pollution database.

Green taxes work when properly targeted

Green taxation needs well-designed policy packages, concluded a conference exploring the successes and failures of recent environmental taxation. European ministers are calling for a rethink in how taxes are structured to ensure maximum environmental impact with minimum costs for those with low salaries.

Remarkable recycling company a hit in the supermarkets

A UK recycling company has found that its stationery made out of products such as waste tyres and plastic cups from vending machines are becoming quite a hit in supermarkets across the country.

Scottish bathing water shows improvement

Fifty-five out of Scotland’s 60 officially identified bathing waters have passed mandatory European standards, an improvement on last year’s figure of nine failing waters, according to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).

Half of all streams and coastal sediments in US exceed pollutant guidelines

A new report into the state of the US environment has found that half or more of all streams and coastal sediments have at least one contaminant that exceeded guidelines for aquatic life. The report also revealed that there is insufficient environmental monitoring for authorities to develop sound environmental policies.

Do ecological footprints make poor predictors?

The recent “doomsday prophecy” of the planet’s ecological footprint by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature is scientifically flawed, says a new report. Rather than needing an extra planet to cope with future needs, humankind will continue to live below the Earth’s maximum biocapacity beyond 2050. The ecological footprint model “is a weak analytical tool that should not be applied in sustainability discussions”.

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