Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 04/25/2008
This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles. You are welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more information on any of the articles listed here.
Titles here, abstracts below:
- Precious metal plating and the environment
- Toxic stock syndrome: how corporate financial reports fail to apprise investors of the risks of product recalls and toxic liabilities
- Researchers look to make environmentally friendly plastics
- Take the guesswork out of green
- A hybrid life cycle inventory of nano-scale semiconductor manufacturing
- Integrating environment and human health: A report on the Seventh National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment
- Let 'lean' guide you to 'green'
- Laundering socks with nano particles possible health, environmental risk
- Corporate voluntary environmental programs don’t perform as well as expected
- Puzzle, precaution over plastic
1. Precious metal plating and the environment
Author: Burling, Steven
Source: Plating & Surface Finishing, April 2008, pp26-35
Abstract: Traditionally, precious metal plating has not been considered a major polluter of the environment. The high costs of the precious metal itself have acted to police the industry in the past, ensuring that precious metals are not lost to the various effluents. With changes in legislation and current perceptions regarding the environment, changes to the chemicals used in precious metal plating are now being seen. This articles shows the trends and current developments in eliminating potentially hazardous chemicals from both the plating bath and from the deposited metals. The difficulties this could bring to both the decorative and industrial/electronic markets are also discussed. The need to develop more environmentally friendly products and how this has been approached will also be covered.
WWW: http://www.nasf.org/staticcontent/PASFApr07.pdf
2. Toxic stock syndrome: how corporate financial reports fail to apprise investors of the risks of product recalls and toxic liabilities
Authors: Lewis, Sanford; Liroff, Richard; Byrne, Margaret; Booth, Mary S.; Baue, Bill
Source: The Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN), 2008
Abstract: While a few companies are relatively transparent regarding product toxicity issues in their financial reports or on their websites, if they even say anything at all, most companies rely on boilerplate statements on compliance, while providing little or no specific information on risks and opportunities presented to the particular company.
With regard to lead-related toy recalls, we found that information was available to industry insiders in the years prior to 2007 to suggest that products sourced from China could contain lead paint. However, the companies who were hit hardest, like RC2 and Mattel, disclosed little about these risks in financial reports prior to the 2007 recalls.
Looking toward the future, there are profound risks of product lock-out from European markets as a result of the new chemical regulatory framework known as REACH. Even though the initial requirements of REACH are operative this year, US companies disclose little about the potential impacts or their preparatory actions.
A few chemical manufacturers, like Hercules, Inc. and Celanese, qualitatively disclose potential implications of REACH, but none of the major chemical companies disclose what portion of their product lines will be under review for
prohibitions under the REACH authorization requirements for Substances of Very High Concern. Given that European manufacturing and sales can constitute a significant proportion of total business for US chemical companies like Dow Chemical, such omissions are troubling.
The REACH law does not only regulate chemical companies, it also has immense implications for companies that import other goods to Europe. A company that produces or imports goods is required to know and preregister chemicals foreseeably released from the products in ordinary use, or face the possibility of exclusion from EUmarkets. US companies that sell products to the EU need greater, more systematic knowledge of the materials contained in their products in order to comply with REACH.
WWW: http://www.iehn.org/documents/IEHN%20Toxic%20Stock%20Report%203-08.pdf
3. Researchers look to make environmentally friendly plastics
Source: Missouri University of Science & Technology, April 16, 2008
Abstract: Every year, more than 30 billion water bottles are added to America's landfills, creating a mountainous environmental problem. But if research at Missouri University of Science and Technology is successful, the plastic bottles of the future could literally disappear within four months of being discarded.
The Missouri S&T research team is constructing new breeds of biodegradable and bioavailable plastics in an effort to reduce the tons of plastic waste that ends up in the nation’s landfills each year. Bioavailable plastics contain substances that can be absorbed by living systems during their normal physiological functions.
By combining and modifying a variety of bio-based, oil-based and natural polymers, the team seeks to create optimal blends that can be used to make agricultural films, bottles, biomedical and drug delivery devices, and more.
The team is working under the direction of Dr. K.B. Lee, professor of chemical engineering at Missouri S&T, to improve the properties of the biodegradable plastics for real-life products. Although companies already sell biodegradable polymers, the products are often expensive, of poor quality or developed for specific applications. That’s why the team is investigating how bio-based fillers, such as starch and fibers, can be included to reduce the cost in a variety of commercial applications.
The group is also interested in incorporating glycerol – a major byproduct of the biodiesel process – in the new plastics.
Some of the group’s new polymers incorporate renewable resources, such as polylactic acid, which is created by fermenting starch. The group is very interested in renewable resources because their research and development efforts are also focused on developing efficient and cost-effective biodiesel and corn ethanol processes.
WWW: http://news.mst.edu/research/2008/new-plastics.html
4. Take the guesswork out of green
Author: Zyskowski, John
Source: Federal Computer Week, April 14, 2008, pp30-31
Abstract: You would have to be living in a cave for the past year not to know that the computers and data centers at your agency are generating the big numbers on your power bill. One industry- sponsored study from last winter suggested the government could save $1.3 billion in energy costs in five years by using new energy-efficient computers and improving data center operations.
But you will never know how much green products and practices might cut your agency’s energy costs — or come up with a plan for achieving those savings — unless you know your current information technology-related power consumption.
To discover that information, experts recommend doing a power audit.
“No serious green computing project should begin without first doing a baseline audit to know where you are starting from,” said Karen Larkowski, founder and chief evangelist at the Green Computing Impact Organization. The group offers free energy audits and education programs supported by businesses that are members of the nonprofit group.
WWW: http://www.fcw.com/print/22_9/technology/152208-1.html
5. A hybrid life cycle inventory of nano-scale semiconductor manufacturing
Author: Krishnan, Nikhil; Boyd, Sarah; Somani, Ajay; Raoux, Sebastien; Clark, Daniel; Dornfeld, David
Source: Environmental Science & Technology, March 19, 2008, pp3069-3075
Abstract: The manufacturing of modern semiconductor devices involves a complex set of nanoscale fabrication processes that are energy and resource intensive, and generate significant waste. It is important to understand and reduce the environmental impacts of semiconductor manufacturing because these devices are ubiquitous components in electronics. Furthermore, the fabrication processes used in the semiconductor industry are finding increasing application in other products, such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), flat panel displays, and photovoltaics. In this work we develop a library of typical gate-to-gate materials and energy requirements, as well as emissions associated with a complete set of fabrication process models used in manufacturing a modern microprocessor. In addition, we evaluate upstream energy requirements associated with chemicals and materials using both existing process life cycle assessment (LCA) databases and an economic input-output (EIO) model. The result is a comprehensive data set and methodology that may be used to estimate and improve the environmental performance of a broad range of electronics and other emerging applications that involve nano and micro fabrication.
6. Integrating environment and human health: A report on the Seventh National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment
Authors: Blockstein, David E.; McManus, Kelly M.
Source: National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), 2007
Abstract: The health of people and the health of the planet are intrinsically, intricately, and intimately interconnected. Unfortunately, the fields of health science and practice and environmental science and practice have grown increasingly apart over the past half-century. The Seventh NCSE National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment: Integrating Environment and Human Health brought together 850 environmental and health scientists, educators, practitioners, decisionmakers, activists and other interested professionals and citizens to explore this issue. Participants were asked to develop recommendations for improving the health and well-being of people and the planet by improving the connections between the science of the environment and the science of health.
Even semantic differences demonstrate the challenges of improving these connections. Environmental scientists and health scientists use similar terms such as “environmental health” or “environmental health sciences” differently. Newer terms such as “ecosystem health,” “planetary health,” and “eco-health” or “ecohealth” attempt to find common ground by extending the human health metaphor to the planet and all of its components.
WWW: http://www.ncseonline.org/2007conference/
NCSE%2007%20Conf%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
7. Let 'lean' guide you to 'green'
Author: Greener, Catherine
Source: Environmental Leader, April 16, 2008
Abstract: I meet with too many organizations that are still addressing sustainability as if it’s something new, something different, when in fact many of them have been working on it for over 30 years. They just know it by a different name, Lean.
Many of those companies are surprised to learn that they can take the tools, systems thinking and lessons learned from the process improvement methodology, Lean, and apply them effectively to the operationalization of sustainability.
What’s Lean? It really does mean more than just being skinny. Some argue that Henry Ford really introduced the fundamentals of Lean when he established the manufacturing flow of Rouge River Assembly Plant in the 1920’s and predicted the intersection of sustainability and manufacturing.
Henry Ford, in a 1934 interview with Modern Mechanix, envisioned a world where, “We shall be able to get out of the yearly crops most of the basic materials which we now get from forest and mine. We shall grow annually many if not most of the substances needed in manufacturing.”
In other words, nothing was wasted, processes were streamlined and inventory was non-existent. These systems were introduced to accelerate and provide efficiencies for our Industrial Revolution.
WWW: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/04/16/let-lean-guide-you-to-green/
8. Laundering socks with nano particles possible health, environmental risk
Author: Torres, Katherine
Source: Occupational Hazards, April 10, 2008
Abstract: Nanotechnology particles, valued for their antibacterial and odor-fighting properties, are used in a wide range of commercial products such as bandages, washing machines and socks. But researchers from Arizona State University discovered that these socks release silver nanoparticles when washed, raising concerns about the potential impact on environmental and human health.
Researchers Paul Westerhoff and Troy Benn hypothesized in their report, “Fate and transport of ionic and nanoparticle silver released from commercially available socks,” that silver nanoparticles could travel through wastewater treatment systems and enter natural waterways. Once there, they could have unwanted effects on aquatic organisms and possibly humans.
Benn and Westerhoff conducted an experiment with six pairs of name brand anti-odor socks impregnated with nanosilver. They soaked the socks in a jar of room temperature distilled water, shook the contents for an hour and tested the water for two types of silver – the harmful “ionic” form and the less-studied nanoparticle variety.
“From what we saw, different socks released silver at different rates, suggesting that there may be a manufacturing process that will keep the silver in the socks better,” said Benn. “Some of the sock materials released all of the silver in the first few washings, others gradually released it. Some didn’t release any silver.”
If sufficient nanosilver leeches out of these socks and escapes waste water treatment systems into nearby lakes, rivers and streams, it could damage aquatic ecosystems, said Benn. Ionic silver, the dissolved form of the element, does not just attack odor-causing bacteria; it also can hijack chemical processes essential for life in other microbes and aquatic animals.
WWW: http://www.occupationalhazards.com/News/Article/79677/
Laundering_Socks_with_Nano_Particles_Possible_Health_Environmental_Risk.aspx
9. Corporate voluntary environmental programs don’t perform as well as expected
Author: Laskowski, Tara
Source: George Mason University, March 6, 2008
Abstract: A new study by researchers at George Mason University suggests that companies which participate in voluntary environmental programs do worse in their attempts to help the environment than those that do not take on these programs.
The Environmental Protection Agency—the largest sponsor of environmental programs—contributed $69 million, or 1.6 percent of their budget, to funding Voluntary Environmental Programs (VEPs) last year. Yet according to research by Nicole Darnall, assistant professor of environmental science and policy at Mason, and doctoral student Stephen Sides, these programs do not appear to boost environmental performance. In the study of more than 30,000 firms, companies that did not participate in VEPs performed 7.7 percent better than participants.
The way these programs are monitored also appears to affect performance. Companies that are self-monitored—as opposed certified by an external third party—appear to do even worse in their overall environmental goals. Nonparticipating companies outperformed companies participating in self-monitored VEPs by 24 percent.
"Design deficiencies, specifically the absence of third-party oversight of performance monitoring, invite 'free ridership' on the part of some participants," says Darnall. "Companies are taking part in these programs and receive credit for doing so, but some aren’t really adhering to the goals."
WWW: http://condor.gmu.edu/newsroom/display.php?rid=668&keywords=
10. Puzzle, precaution over plastic
Author: Daley, Beth
Source: The Boston Globe, April 23, 2008
Abstract: Last week, hard plastic baby and water bottles were not considered harmful.
Now, in the eyes of many users, they are toxic. Yesterday, CVS said it will join Wal-Mart, bottle-maker Nalgene, and other companies in pulling tens of thousands of the shatter-proof, transparent products off store shelves. Some parents are tossing hiking bottles into the trash, feeding their babies with glass containers, and searching for a safer alternative to see-through sippy cups.
So how dangerous are these bottles? And what should consumers do about the risk?
"The truthful answer is that nobody knows" their full health impact yet, said David Ozonoff, a professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. "And because we don't know, it's prudent to avoid something that is avoidable."
WWW: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/23/puzzle_precaution_over_plastic/
You are welcome to send a message to jan@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.
This page updated Thursday April 24 2008