Showing posts with label pollution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pollution. Show all posts
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ADB’s Citarum Project in Aljazeera

Sunday, August 15, 2010

 

 

ADB is planning several million dollars project to restore the quality of Citarum river in West Java, the main supplier of bulk water to downstream cities such as the capital, Jakarta. The ICWRMIP will restore riverbanks along the Citarum. The project involves the resettlement of hundreds of households currently residing in the riverbanks. NGOs argued that not enough room for public participation is provided, something which the ADB denied.  NGOs also claim that the project will not likely to change anything as no mechanism for pollution control is included. I am not able to confirm any of these allegation but some documents relating to the project is available in the ADB website.

 

Read also: Finding a cure for Indonesia’s sick river (CNN)



 

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Wilson center issued a report on handling Nanowaste

Friday, July 27, 2007

The institutional capacity for handling nano waste is put under scrutiny. Wilson Center adresses the issue:

A new report from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Where Does the Nano Go? End-of-Life Regulation of Nanotechnologies, addresses these issues. Authored by Linda K. Breggin and John Pendergrass, legal experts from the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), the report presents the most comprehensive analysis to-date of two key Environmental Protection Agency laws that regulate the end-of-life management of nanotechnology. These are the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund statute.

The report is timely. Today, there are over 500 company-identified nanotechnology consumer products on the market, all of which will sooner or later be disposed of. These products can be seen in an online inventory maintained by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. This inventory does not include nanotech products being sold but not identified as such, or the hundreds of nano raw materials, intermediate components, and industrial equipment items used by manufacturers today.

The webcast and report is downloadable here.

 

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Using nanotech to prevent pollution - EPA Conference

Friday, July 20, 2007

EPA will hold a conference in utilizing nanotechnology to prevent pollution. These are the three main questions to be addressed to the participants:

1. Which nanotechnologies show the greatest promise for preventing pollution?

Considerations:

  • This question should be viewed through the lens of life-cycle thinking to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences.
  • Which pollution prevention applications are the most likely to find real-world applications?
  • What barriers exist to the adoption of nanotechnology-enabled pollution prevention applications?

2. What are the most promising areas of research on pollution prevention applications of nanotechnologies?

Considerations:

  • Which research areas could improve our understanding of the full life-cycle of nanomaterials?
  • How can the beneficial properties of engineered products of nanotechnology such as increased surface activity, greater conductivity, improved strength-weight ratio, altered optical properties (changes in color or opacity), and flame retardancy be used to improve materials and products and reduce the production of pollutants at their source?

3. What recommendations do conference participants have for promoting and encouraging pollution prevention in the development and application of nanotechnology?

Considerations:

  • What actions could be taken, and by whom?
  • What mechanisms, programs, or associations could promote the research, development, and adoption of such applications?
  • What role can EPA programs play?
Check the conference's website here.