Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 11/18/2005
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:
- New Energy for Campuses: Energy-Saving Policies for
Colleges and Universities. 2005
- Groups Ask FDA to Restrict Triclosan in Household
Products. November 2005
- Wind Turbine Plans for Mountain Resort Put in Motion. November 2005
- HP to Eliminate Brominated Flame Retardants from External
Case Parts. November 2005
- With Green Chemistry, Green Tea Makes a Potent Brew. November 2005
- Groups Build Support for the Toxics Release Inventory. November 2005
- Green Washing: Get Your Company to Clean Up Its
Janitorial Act. November 2005
- French Industry and Sustainable Chemistry: The Benefits
of Clean Development. October 2005
- NIST Seeking Cure For Electronics-killing Whiskers. November 2005
- Third World bears brunt
of global warming impacts. November 2005
1. New Energy for Campuses: Energy-Saving Policies for
Colleges and Universities
SOURCE The Apollo Alliance
and Energy Action
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT College and university campuses are uniquely placed
to affect America’s
energy future. The higher education sector is a $317 billion industry that
educates and employs millions of people, maintains thousands of buildings and
owns millions of acres of land. It spends billions of dollars on fuel, energy
and infrastructure. And the footprint of higher education is widening —
enrollment between 2000 and 2013 is expected to increase by 23%.2 If every one
of the 4000 campuses in the U.S. used 100% clean energy, it would nearly
quadruple the current renewable electricity demand in the U.S.3 Campuses can
set an example for their communities and the nation by implementing alternative
energy, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability projects on campus
to demonstrate their feasibility and cost effectiveness. They are centers of
intellectual power, capable of leading experiments on new technologies, and
using these projects as teaching tools and research opportunities to better the
education of the next generation of voters, consumers, politicians, and
business leaders — people who will be making energy decisions for years to
come. Academia has traditionally been at the forefront of cultural and
technological change, and campuses once again can be the catalyst that drives
this county into sustainable energy independence.
2. Groups Ask FDA to Restrict Triclosan in Household
Products
AUTHOR Sissell, Kara
SOURCE Chemical Week, v167 n36, November 2, 2005, p27
ABSTRACT Consumer advocacy groups are asking the Good and
Drug Administration (FDA) to restrict the use of the antimicrobial agent
triclosan in consumer personal care and cleaning products, saying it could pose
a danger by making bacteria more resistant and eventually harder for consumers
to fight off. Consumer groups sought the restriction after an FDA panel found
no evidence that antibacterial products are more effective for killing germs
than soap and water.
3. Wind Turbine Plans for Mountain Resort Put in Motion
AUTHOR Viscarolasaga, Efrain
SOURCE Mass High Tech, November 14-20 2005, p9
ABSTRACT In Hancock, Massachusetts, the Jiminy Peak
Mountain Resort is working to cut its energy costs and reduce its environmental
footprint with the construction of a new wind turbine, due to be completed by
next fall. The project will cost the resort approximately $2.1 million, but
thanks to a grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, $582,000
will be subsidized. The wind turbine, which will stand approximately 320 feet
and be positioned approximately 300 feet below the summit, represents the first
wind turbine at a ski resort in the United States.
4. HP to Eliminate Brominated Flame Retardants from External
Case Parts
SOURCE HP
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT HP has announced a goal to eliminate the
brominated flame retardant (BFR) tetrabromobisphenol A from external case parts
of all new HP brand products introduced after Dec. 31, 2006. HP eliminated more
than 95 percent of the BFRs used in the external case parts of its products
more than 10 years ago, including two, PBDE and PBB, which were subsequently
among the substances restricted by the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances
directive. During the same timeframe, the company also eliminated polyvinyl
chloride from the external case parts of its products.
5. With Green Chemistry, Green Tea Makes a Potent Brew
AUTHOR Seitz, Sandra
SOURCE The Shuttle, University of Massachusetts
Lowell, November
2, 2005,pp1-2
ABSTRACT Green tea gets a mixed reputation in scientific circles.
While green tea has reportedly been effective in the treatment/prevention of
several cancers, including breast cancer, the findings have been inconsistent
and controversial due to lack of quality control and consistency in the
commercially available preparations. Now an interdisciplinary team at the University of Massachusetts Lowell is making rapid
progress in modifying an active component of green tea -- a catechin -- using
benign green chemistry techniques, which make it remarkably effective against
breast cancer cells while it doesn't harm normal cells. The key breakthrough is
the use of naturally occurring enzymes to "stitch together" green tea
catechins -- yielding polycatechins that are effective selectively against
breast cancer.
6. Groups Build Support for the Toxics Release Inventory
SOURCE OMB Watch, www.ombwatch.org, November 15, 2005
ABSTRACT The many public interest groups that oppose
EPA's recent proposals to gut the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) are now
working in concert to produce materials and resources that support the
environmental right-to-know program. OMB Watch is hosting an Online Resource
Center, developed with
participating organizations to act as a clearinghouse for concerned groups and
individuals to learn about the program and to take action to defend it. The
anti-right-to-know proposals have caused wide-spread concern among state
officials, labor unions, firefighters, and members of Congress. Officially
announced on Sept. 21, the proposals would allow polluting facilities to
withhold critical details about their toxic emissions and, notably, releases of
persistent bio-accumulative toxins (PBTs), like lead and mercury. A second
proposal, which was announced as a rulemaking one year from now, would cut TRI
reporting in half, requiring facilities to report every other year, instead of
annually, as is currently the case. Critics of the proposals are creating the Resource Center to inform parents, teachers,
community leaders and other concerned citizens that their right to know about
pollution is in jeopardy if these proposals move forward. The Resource Center
is a repository for:* Background materials and supporting data on the TRI from
EPA and public interest groups;* Full text of EPA's anti-right-to-know
proposals;* Numerous press stories and editorials critical of the proposals;*
Success stories of community groups, companies, enforcement officers, and
others that have used the TRI to reduce pollution in their neighborhoods; and *
Action alerts that enable concerned citizens to call on EPA and Congress
directly to preserve the public's right-to-know about toxic pollution.
7. Green Washing: Get Your Company to Clean Up Its
Janitorial Act
AUTHOR Makower, Joel
SOURCE Grist Magazine [online], November 1, 2005
ABSTRACT Three years ago, the National Geographic
Society's director of general services wanted to clean up his cleaning
operations. Bob Cline launched an investigation into the impacts of maintaining
the society's facilities, examining everything from the chemical composition of
cleaning products to the decibel level of vacuums, from filtration systems to
fuels. "Basically, it was a matter of goal congruency," Cline says.
"Conservation is part of the National Geographic Society mission, and we
felt that it would be good if our facilities matched our vision." As he
discovered, cleaning up can be a dirty business. Consider this: Institutional
cleaning uses some 6 billion pounds of formulated chemicals a year, according
to consultant Stephen Ashkin. Commercial buildings also use 4.5 billion pounds
of hand towels and toilet tissue, much of it chlorine-bleached and from virgin
pulp, and some 35 billion plastic trash bags a year. But all that's changing.
Green cleaning -- using products and processes that reduce the environmental
and health effects of housekeeping on both the indoor and outdoor environments
-- is catching on in companies, schools, and government agencies, thanks to
some powerful players.
8. French Industry and Sustainable Chemistry: The Benefits
of Clean Development
AUTHOR Ackerman, Frank; Massey, Rachel
SOURCE Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT The French economy is one of the five largest in
the world, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of €26,500 per person. French
workers are remarkably productive, with output per hour of labor higher than in
the US, Japan, and
almost all EU nations. Thus it is not surprising that French citizens enjoy a
high standard of living and extensive social benefits. France produced
5.3% of the world's chemicals in both 1980 and 2004, confirming that the
country is holding its own in a changing, competitive global market. The French
chemical industry is clearly succeeding in producing, exporting, and expanding
in a competitive global market. Unfortunately, this success in the marketplace
has been accompanied by continuing hazards to the health of workers and
consumers. The 2001 explosion at Atofina's AZF fertilizer factory in Toulouse,
which killed 30 people and damaged more than 11,000 buildings, was the worst
accident in recent years -- but not the only one. From 1992 through 2004,
accidents in the chemical industry accounted for a total of 73 deaths,
including 10 in 2003 and 14 in 2004. Chemical products are involved in 17% of
all occupational accidents in France,
including many outside the chemical industry. Less visible than accidents and
explosions, but much more deadly in the long run, are the occupational and
environmental illnesses caused by exposure to dangerous chemicals. Recent
research in France
has found that childhood leukemia is related to home and garden insecticide
use, and that deaths of farmers from bladder cancer are linked to exposure to
pesticides in vineyards. It is often more effective to reorganize production so
that pollution is not created in the first place, rather than cleaning it up
after the fact. Cleaner production has frequently been found to save money for
companies, for example by reducing the need for raw materials purchases
(because chemicals are being recovered and reused, or are simply being used in
smaller quantities). Many case studies from France and around the world
document the successes and the opportunities for pollution prevention via
cleaner production techniques.
9. NIST Seeking Cure For Electronics-killing Whiskers
SOURCE National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST)
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT Environmental groups around the world have been
campaigning for years to replace lead-containing solders and protective layers
on electronic components with non-hazardous metals and alloys. In response, the
European Union (EU) will ban the use of lead (and five other hazardous
substances) in all electrical and electronic equipment sold in EU nations
starting in July 2006. U.S.
manufacturers must comply with this requirement in order to market their
products overseas. However, pure electroplated tin and lead-free tin alloys tend
to spontaneously grow metallic whiskers (thin filament-like structures often
several millimeters long) during service. These defects can lead to electrical
shorts and failures across component leads and connectors. Whiskers--and more
benign raised formations called hillocks--are believed to be a metal's means of
relieving stress generated by the electroplating process, so National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers--working with the International
Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI)--have been trying to identify the
origins of such stresses and better understand the resulting mechanisms for
whisker and hillock growth. In a recent paper in Acta Materialia,* they
reported that the surfaces of tin-copper deposits developed extremely long
whiskers while pure tin deposits (the simplest lead-free plating finish) only
produced hillocks. By comparison, the soon-to-be-banned tin-lead deposits did
not form either type of deformity (a characteristic known since the 1960s). The
NIST researchers determined that whiskers and hillocks form when the boundaries
between individual grains in a deposit have a column-shaped structure. If the
boundaries move laterally, hillocks form. When copper impurities hold the
columnar boundaries immobile, whiskers are the result. A tin-lead deposit
possesses randomly structured boundaries that do not create either of these
actions. Based on these findings, the NIST researchers are exploring ways of
eliminating the stresses and creating deposit structures without column grains
that elicit whiskers and hillocks. One possibility involves using an
alternating current on/current off electroplating process instead of the
traditional continuous current method. This could disrupt the formation of
columnar boundaries, yielding a structure similar to that of a tin-lead deposit
but without lead's environmental danger.
10. Third World bears brunt
of global warming impacts
AUTHOR Basu, Paroma
SOURCE University of Wisconsin-Madison
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT In a recent chilling assessment, the World
Health Organization (WHO) reported that human-induced changes in the Earth's
climate now lead to at least 5 million cases of illness and more than 150,000
deaths every year. Temperature fluctuations may sway human health in a
surprising number of ways, scientists have learned, from influencing the spread
of infectious diseases to boosting the likelihood of illness-inducing heat
waves and floods. Now, in a synthesis report featured on the cover of the
journal Nature, a team of health and climate scientists at UW-Madison and WHO
has shown that the growing health impacts of climate change affect different
regions in markedly different ways. Ironically, the places that have
contributed the least to warming the Earth are the most vulnerable to the death
and disease higher temperatures can bring. According to the Nature report, regions at highest risk for enduring the
health effects of climate change include coastlines along the Pacific and
Indian oceans and sub-Saharan Africa. Large
sprawling cities, with their urban "heat island" effect, are also
prone to temperature-related health problems. Africa
has some of the lowest per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases. Yet, regions
of the continent are gravely at risk for warming-related disease. "Many of
the most important diseases in poor countries, from malaria to diarrhea and
malnutrition, are highly sensitive to climate," says co-author Diarmid
Campbell-Lendrum of WHO. "The health sector is already struggling to
control these diseases and climate change threatens to undermine these
efforts."
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