Greenlist Bulletin
From the Toxics Use Reduction Institute
at the University of Massachusetts Lowell
November 2, 2012
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This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Greenlist Bulletin provide s previews of recent publications and websites relevant to reducing the use of toxic chemicals by industries, businesses, communities, individuals and government. You are welcome to send a message to mary@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here, or if this email is not displaying properly.
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| Hurricane Sandy Spills Sewage, Triggers Toxic Troubles | |
Source: Huffington Post, October 31, 2012
Authors: Lynne Peeples, Saki Knafo, Lila Shapiro
NEW YORK -- Raw sewage, industrial chemicals and floating debris filled flooded waterways around New York City on Tuesday.
Left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the toxic stew may threaten the health of residents already dealing with more direct damages from the disaster.
"Normally, sewer overflows are just discharged into waterways and humans that generate the sewage can avoid the consequences by avoiding the water," said John Lipscomb of the clean water advocacy group Riverkeeper. "But in this case, that waste has come back into our communities."
One particular concern is the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn, which abuts a 1.8 mile canal that was recently designated a Superfund cleanup site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency due to a legacy of industrial pollution and sewage discharges.
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| USDA Patents Method to Reduce Ammonia Emissions | |
Source: United States Department of Agriculture, November 1, 2012
Author: Ann Perry
Capturing and recycling ammonia from livestock waste is possible using a process developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) researchers. This invention could help streamline on-farm nitrogen management by allowing farmers to reduce potentially harmful ammonia emissions and concentrate nitrogen in a liquid product to sell as fertilizer.
The work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists Matias Vanotti and Ariel Szogi at the agency's Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center in Florence, S.C. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA priorities of responding to climate change and promoting international food security.
The system uses gas-permeable membranes that are similar to materials already used in waterproof outdoor gear and biomedical devices. Using these materials, the scientists recorded an average removal rate from 45 to 153 milligrams of ammonia per liter per day when manure ammonia concentrations ranged from 138 to 302 milligrams of ammonia per liter.
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| EN-Boron Coatings Take Shine Off Hard Chrome | |
Source: Products Finishing, October 1, 2012
Author: Tim Pennington
Like gold-seekers in the California gold rush of the 1800s, platers searching for the often-elusive replacement to hard chrome protection have looked far and wide for a suitable stand-in for arguably the best corrosion-prevention coating known to man. In the search for the "next best thing," some platers are turning to an electroless nickel bath with boron, often with remarkable success and outstanding results.
The chemists and researchers at KC Jones Plating in Hazel Park, Mich., discovered 12 years ago that adding boron to their electroless nickel bath yielded a new coating, nickel boron (NiB), with unique properties and surprising hardness to go along with very good wear, abrasion and corrosion resistance.
Brian Harrick, vice president of KC Jones, says its proprietary Miccrolloy electroless nickel boron plating system has benefits over chrome in its ability to accurately coat complex shapes (steel, stainless steel, Inconel and aluminum) with no post grinding.
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| ACI Launches Cleaning Product Ingredient Inventory | | Source: American Cleaning Institute, September 6, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 6, 2012 -- The American Cleaning Institute® (ACI) launched a detailed online inventory of ingredients used in consumer cleaning products as part of ACI's Cleaning Product Ingredient Safety Initiative. The new Cleaning Product Ingredient Inventory is available on ACI's Science website, www.ACIscience.org. The Inventory features a list of more than 900 chemical ingredients used by ACI members to manufacture consumer cleaning products, including laundry care products (e.g., laundry detergents, fabric softeners), dish care products (automatic dish detergents, hand dish detergents) and hard surface cleaners.
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| EU to Phase-out Mercury Blood Pressure Devices | |
Source: Health Care Without Harm, October 3, 2012
Brussels -- Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), the European Environment Bureau (EEB) and the Zero Mercury Working Group today applauded the EU's decision to take off the market mercury sphygmomanometers and other measuring devices for industrial and professional use starting April 2014.
"This is an important step forward that will move the entire European Union quickly toward mercury-free health care," said Anja Leetz, Executive Director of HCWH Europe. "The mercury column sphygmomanometer will soon become an historical relic in Europe."
"Substituting such devices not only takes 7,6 tons of mercury off the market, " said Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, Project Coordinator 'Zero Mercury Campaign' at the EEB, "but in doing so, EU governments send a strong signal that they will likely call for similar measures to be enshrined in the global mercury treaty text that is currently entering the final stages of negotiation."
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For additional information, read a fact sheet developed in 2003 by the UMass Lowell Sustainable Hospitals program: Comparing Mercury and Aneroid Sphygmomanometers.
Background information from EU on sphygmomanometers.
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| Air pollution, gone with the wind | |
Source: Concordia University, November 1, 2012
Montreal, November 1, 2012 -- As urban populations expand, downtown buildings are going nowhere but up. The huge energy needs of these skyscrapers mean that these towers are not only office buildings, they're polluters with smokestacks billowing out toxins from the rooftop. Our cities are dirtier than we think. New research from Concordia University just might clean them up.
By examining the trajectory and amount of air pollution from a building to its neighbours downwind, Concordia researchers Ted Stathopoulos and Bodhisatta Hajra have come up with environmentally friendly building guidelines for our modern cities. This provides a much-needed update to the industry standards developed decades ago by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers - the international technical society that sets the rules for building ventilation.
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| Please send a message to mary@turi.org if you would like more information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly interested in monitoring, and who else should see Greenlist. An online search of the TURI Library catalog can be done at http://library.turi.org for greater topic coverage.
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Greenlist Bulletin is compiled by:
Mary Butow
TURA Program Research Assistant
Toxics Use Reduction Institute
University of Massachusetts Lowell
600 Suffolk St., Wannalancit Mills
Lowell MA 01854
978-934-4365
978-934-3050 (fax)
mary@turi.org
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