Day: 1 December 2000

Welsh businesses need to be eco-friendly to be competitive

Welsh companies have to respond to environmental pressures if they are to remain competitive, said the National Assembly of Wales’ Economic Development Minister, Michael German, at the re-launch of the Government’s environmental advice programme.

Tracked excavator boosts waste handling capability at Basingstoke

In order to improve operational efficiency in coping with the large quantities of domestic waste generated in the Basingstoke, Dean and Hart District Council areas, Basingstoke Skips has purchased a Case 1188CK Plus tracked hydraulic excavator for waste rehandling at the company's transfer station at Daneshill on the outskirts of Basingstoke.

JCB focuses on growth market in waste and recycling sector

JCB, the major British manufacturer of construction, agricultural and industrial materials handling equipment, highlights its commitment to the waste handling and waste management industries through an extensive range of established and recently introduced machines tailored for the waste sector

Purpose-built handling equipment meets specific needs of the recycling industry

German manufacturer, Fuchs, which is part of the Schaeff Group, is in the forefront of developing purpose-built handling equipment applied on many recycling and rehandling sites in the UK, including the scrap metals and general rehandling industries. LAWE takes a look at the company's approach to manufacturing equipment engineered to the meet the specifications of this demanding market

Warwick Business School pre-empts Blair’s green initiative

Prime Minister Tony Blair called for a "constructive partnership" between government, business and environmentalists in his recent 'green agenda' speech. Warwick Business School, through its Corporate Citizenship unit, is already geared to help organisations in the UK and world-wide to understand and adopt the processes that are being demanded by communities and stressed in the speech made by Mr Blair.

GAMBICA launch VSD training

GAMBICA, the association for instrumentation, control and automation, is launching a training course on the vital role of variable speed drives (VSDs) in saving energy, as well as improving manufacturing process control and reducing maintenance costs.

Qualified environmental decision making

The founding Dean of The Open University's Faculty of Technology, on the launch of its postgraduate programme in Environmental Decision Making late in 1996, said this: "I felt that a concern for and systematic study of the social and environmental aspects of technology was essential. Certainly environmental problems were approachable only by means of systemic and interdisciplinary methods and I felt convinced that any faculty of technology that did not concern itself with such problems could not claim to be modern or responsible, whether socially or academically."

Getting the best from environmental training

Or: Who to train, by whom, and effective strategies for avoiding "the anorak effect". By Andy Ellis, Sypol.

Ceramics avoid dioxin reformation

Worcester-based Caldo Environmental Engineering has supplied a complete pollution control system employing ceramic filtration technology for a mixed general and clinical waste incinerator to be installed in the Middle East.

VOCs: a market improvement

The key EU legislation buoying the European market for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) control equipment is Council Directive 1999/13/EC, "on the limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations". It specifies that EU Member States are required to adopt necessary measures to ensure that existing installations are in compliance with the Directive's stipulations by October 2007. By April 2001, EU Members are instructed to have implemented mandatory laws, regulations and administrative provisions to act in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Directive. (Fear not, with the exception of dry cleaning processes, all sectors included in the Directive are already covered to some extent by UK environmental legislation.)

Profits of doom

"Each American emits three times more greenhouse gases than a Frenchman." So emits Jacques Chirac. The Kyoto Protocol failed, not because of "vulgar macho" posturing, but because it attempted to carve up global emissions reductions with razor sharp, legally binding, punishable contracts, with the economic interests of 180 countries at stake. And so, Matt MacAllan argues, once again the regulators must look to the market.

EMS from above?

The root causes of an inadequate Environmental Management System (EMS) and the associated failures under audit conditions by a certification body can often be traced back to the management decision-making that initiated the EMS programme in the first place. David Clark, ETaC, follows the trail.

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