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Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 10/28/2005

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 them:

Synergistic Effects Between Alumina Nanoparticles and Conventional Additives. October 2005
ICCA Prepares for Launch of ‘Revitalized’ Responsible Care. October 2005
Environmental Factors Affecting the Spread of Bird Flu. 2005
Ethical Considerations for Research on Housing-Related Health Hazards Involving Children (Executive Summary). 2005
The Reputational Penalties for Environmental Violations: Empirical Evidence. 2005
Human Health Risks from Low-Level Environmental Exposures: No Apparent Safety Thresholds. December 2005
A Cheaper Way to Make Esters from Corn. October 2005
"Green" Cleaning for Carpet Cleaners. 2002
Aquatic Toxicity Due to Residential Use of Pyrethroid Insecticides. October 2005
Cool Pavement: Water-retentive Blocks Take the Heat Off Urban Areas. October 2005

1. Synergistic Effects Between Alumina Nanoparticles and Conventional Additives

AUTHOR Ferguson, Russell L.

SOURCE PCI Paint & Coatings Industry, v21 n10, October 2005, pp70-73

ABSTRACT Nanoparticles can improve the properties of a coating system drastically. One of the most investigated effects is the improved scratch and abrasion resistance, but UV-absorption, biocidal effects and others are also of interest. This paper presents combinations of alumina nanoparticles and specifically functionalized polymeric additives that lead to an enhancement of coating performance. On the basis of combinations of alumina nanoparticles with surface-active polymers, the enhanced scratch resistance in different coating systems is compared and discussed.

2. ICCA Prepares for Launch of ‘Revitalized’ Responsible Care

SOURCE Chemical Week, v167 n33, October 12, 2005, p12

ABSTRACT The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) will formally launch a “revitalized approach” to Responsible Care and Product Stewardship at a conference in Dubai next February, according to DSM chairman and Cefic president Peter Elverding. The “new and updated global charter” for Responsible Care follows an ICCA review of the program, and includes input from Europe, Japan, and the U.S. The new approach aims to raise the program’s environmental safety and performance standards worldwide, and improve perception of the chemical industry.

3. Environmental Factors Affecting the Spread of Bird Flu

AUTHOR Rothstein, Josh

SOURCE Foundation for Environmental Security & Stability (FESS), USAID

DATE 2005

ABSTRACT For nearly two years, conditions in Asia have set the stage for a global avian influenza pandemic. Developed countries are strengthening their own defenses by rehearsing scenarios, stockpiling drugs and vaccines, and improving public health systems. However, many nations, including those home to avian influenza or threatened by its immediate spread, are far behind in preparedness measures. The mobility of today’s global economy and society makes prevention of avian influenza in every country an international concern. Addressing environmental links to the spread of avian influenza may provide essential information to delay, minimize, or even prevent a costly pandemic. Possible environmental links that should be addressed include: deforestation and other methods of habitat destruction affecting the routes of migratory birds, farming environments that facilitate the spread of bird flu to other animals or humans, the human utilization of water sources that contact infected birds or animals, and market environments that facilitate the spread of avian influenza to other animals and humans. International cooperation in addressing these issues is essential. Once a pandemic begins, nations likely will devote their resources to the protection of their own population. It is, therefore, necessary to commence immediately international programs identifying environmental links contributing to the spread of avian influenza and developing effective and appropriate countermeasures.

4. Ethical Considerations for Research on Housing-Related Health Hazards Involving Children (Executive Summary)

AUTHOR Lo, Bernard; O'Connell, Mary Ellen

SOURCE National Academy of Sciences

DATE 2005

ABSTRACT A home is considered a place where children grow and flourish. However, homes may also contain hazards that can cause physical illness, compromise children’s growth and development, and lower school performance. These hazards are particularly serious for young children because they spend significant amounts of time in their homes, because their normal exploratory behaviors increase the likelihood of exposure to hazards, and because the effect of exposure may be particularly harmful because of their small size and developmental immaturity. Research on housing health hazards involving children is necessary to understand how hazards affect health and to develop interventions that can ameliorate or eliminate them. Such research, typically conducted in children’s homes, has contributed significantly to knowledge about the risks of health hazards in homes. However, because housing health hazards research is conducted in homes, some ethical issues arise that are not as common in biomedical and other types of research. • Research conducted in homes intrudes on the privacy of all residents and reveals many things about the residents that would not otherwise be apparent or shared. • The research is almost always based in the community and frequently involves community concerns about the safety and quality of local housing. • Because some hazards occur disproportionately among children in low-income families who live in poor-quality housing, they are more likely to be candidates for housing health hazards research, and disproportionate enrollment of children in low-income families may raise questions about targeting or inequitable selection of subjects.• The residents of poor-quality housing in low-income communities often face a range of housing health hazards and may be concerned about hazards other than the one being studied or may mistakenly believe that research designed to test an intervention may actually eliminate the hazard.• Parents of potential subjects and community residents may be concerned about the housing risks that persist after the research interventions and the study are completed. Some of these issues may also affect other types of research conducted in homes. Similarly, at least two other features of some housing health hazards research raise general ethical issues, especially as they interact with the ones just noted: • Economic and educational disadvantage and limited literacy among low-income parents may place them at a disadvantage in the informed consent process. • Financial or other material incentives may present undue influences for parents in the decision to allow their children to participate in a research project.

5. The Reputational Penalties for Environmental Violations: Empirical Evidence

AUTHOR Karpoff, Jonathan M.; Lott, John R., Jr.; Wehrly, Eric W.

SOURCE Journal of Law & Economics, October 2005

ABSTRACT This paper examines the sizes of the fines, damage awards, remediation costs, and market value losses imposed on companies that violate environmental regulations. Firms violating environmental laws suffer statistically significant losses in the market value of firm equity. The losses, however, are of similar magnitudes to the legal penalties imposed; and in the cross section the market value loss is related to the size of the legal penalty. Thus, environmental violations are disciplined largely through legal and regulatory penalties, not through reputational penalties.

6. Human Health Risks from Low-Level Environmental Exposures: No Apparent Safety Thresholds

AUTHOR Wigle, D.T.; Lanphear, B.P.

SOURCE Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine, v2 n12, December 2005, e350

ABSTRACT In contrast with animal studies, epidemiologic studies can be used to assess health risks at exposure levels prevalent in human populations. Findings from some of the most thoroughly studied and widely dispersed environmental contaminants indicate that there is no apparent safe exposure level. Indeed, in some cases, there are greater risks for a given exposure at the relatively low exposure levels most prevalent in human populations. Environmental chemicals should be thoroughly evaluated for toxicity before they are marketed, but when available, epidemiologic data should preferentially be used to develop environmental standards and to assess the adequacy of existing standards based on experimental animal studies. The public depends on decision makers, scientists, and regulators to restrict exposure to widespread toxins that have known or suspected serious potential health effects. We hold that risk assessments should not assume thresholds for noncarcinogens as well as carcinogens, especially for toxins shown in epidemiologic data to exhibit no apparent threshold and those not yet adequately tested for developmental toxicity. The four major toxins reviewed here [lead, tobacco smoke, radon, chlorination disinfection by-products] are widely dispersed in the environment and emerging evidence indicates that exposures must be virtually eliminated to protect human health. It would be imprudent to assume that there are not other widely distributed environmental toxins or chemicals with the potential to cause adverse human health effects at exposure levels currently considered to be “low.”

7. A Cheaper Way to Make Esters from Corn

SOURCE Chemical Engineering, v112, n10, October 2005

ABSTRACT Researchers at Michigan State University and the National Corn Growers Association have developed a continuous process, based on reactive distillation (RD), for producing organic acid esters from corn-derived sugars. These esters have favorable properties for use as solvents and plasticizers, says Richard Glass, NCGA's vice president of R & D. Using ethyl lactate as a first target compound, experimental and modeling studies indicate that the process can produce the ester at a cost substantially lower than current production technologies, he says.

8. "Green" Cleaning for Carpet Cleaners

SOURCE Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

DATE 2002

ABSTRACT Because carpet cleaning generates wastewater, it is your responsibility to properly manage and dispose of this by-product. This fact sheet discusses how the carpet cleaning industry operates, why wastewater is a concern, ways to properly dispose of wastewater, and offers suggestions on environmentally friendly carpet cleaning processes.

9. Aquatic Toxicity Due to Residential Use of Pyrethroid Insecticides

AUTHOR Weston, D.P.; Holmes, R.W.; You, J.; Lydy, M.J.

SOURCE Environmental Science and Technology ASAP, released October 19, 2005

ABSTRACT Pyrethroids are the active ingredients in most insecticides available to consumers for residential use in the United States. Yet despite their dominance in the marketplace, there has been no attempt to analyze for most of these compounds in watercourses draining residential areas. Roseville, California was selected as a typical suburban development, and several creeks that drain subdivisions of single-family homes were examined. Nearly all creek sediments collected caused toxicity in laboratory exposures to an aquatic species, the amphipod Hyalella azteca, and about half the samples caused nearly complete mortality. This same species was also found as a resident in the system, but its presence was limited to areas where residential influence was least. The pyrethroid bifenthrin is implicated as the primary cause of the toxicity, with additional contributions to toxicity from the pyrethroids cyfluthrin and cypermethrin. The dominant sources of these pyrethroids are structural pest control by professional applicators and/or homeowner use of insecticides, particularly lawn care products. The suburbs of Roseville are unlikely to be unique, and similar sediment quality degradation is likely in other suburban areas, particularly in dry regions where landscape irrigation can dominate seasonal flow in some water bodies.

10. Cool Pavement: Water-retentive Blocks Take the Heat Off Urban Areas

AUTHOR Kato, Yuzuru

SOURCE Daily Yomiuri [Japan], October 10, 2005

ABSTRACT It was blazing hot this summer, especially in urban areas where temperatures did not fall below 25 C even at night. The cities were hit especially hard because concrete and asphalt retain solar heat, giving rise to higher air temperatures in a process known as the heat island phenomenon, a growing problem across the nation. To help solve the problem, Matsuo Corp. in Ibaraki has developed a water-retentive pavement named Eco-Pavers: Tamochi-mannen (We'll keep it!). The blocks of pavements are equal in strength to ordinary pavement blocks but they absorb and retain rainwater and groundwater. When the retained water evaporates, it reduces the heat on the surface of roads through vaporization, resulting in lower temperatures in the area. This mechanism works much like a sprinkler system to reduce temperatures. The product is also environmentally friendly: It uses recycled waste materials such as concrete, asphalt and the incinerated ash of urban garbage; it saves energy by reducing the need for air-conditioning; and it contributes to the development of a recycling-oriented society. In July, the blocks were designated as "This Year's Product" under the Osaka prefectural government's "Model Program for Promoting the Active Order Placement of New Technologies of Venture Companies," which aims to use new technologies developed by venture firms for public works projects.

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://greenlist.turi.org/ for greater topic coverage.

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Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 10/28/2005