Recently in Compliance Category

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is setting the first standards that will reduce emissions of formaldehyde, benzene, acrolein and other toxic air pollutants from certain stationary diesel engines. These pollutants are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health problems and environmental damage.

"Improving air quality is one the agency's top priorities," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. "Controlling emissions from these engines will save lives and protect our communities from serious health problems, including heart attacks, asthma and other respiratory illnesses."
   
The emission limits apply to existing diesel engines meeting certain criteria for age, size, and use. EPA estimates that more than 900,000 of the engines generate electricity and power equipment at industrial, agricultural and other facilities. The engines also are used in emergencies to produce electricity and pump water for flood and fire control. Emergency engines used at most residences, hospitals and other institutional facilities, and commercial facilities such as shopping centers are not covered by this rule.

To meet the emissions requirements, owners and operators of the largest of the engines will need to install emissions controls, such as catalysts, to engine exhaust systems. Emergency engines covered by this rule need to comply with operating requirements that will limit emissions.

EPA estimates that the rule will reduce annual air toxics emissions by 1,000 tons, particle pollution by 2,800 tons, carbon monoxide emissions by 14,000 tons, and organic compound emissions by 27,000 tons when fully implemented in 2013.
 
EPA will issue final emissions standards for similar existing stationary engines that burn gasoline, natural gas and landfill gas, known as spark ignition engines, by August 10, 2010.  

More information: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/new.html

TitrIC combines the advantages of direct measurement of pH value and conductivity, of titration and ion chromatography in a single system that provides fully automatic drinking water analyses.

All ionic components are determined reliably, quickly and reproducibly. The results are saved in the integral database and can be processed to produce a combined report. Intelligent control and thoroughly tested technology guarantee reliable analyses regardless of the time of day or night. Up to one hundred samples can be analyzed fully automatically. This reduces the time required and inreases the precision of the measurements.

Metrohm is a worldwide leading manufacturer of precision instruments for chemical analysis. In the field of electrochemical ion analysis Metrohm has been the leader for many years. This is reflected in the company's comprehensive product range:

• pH meters, ion meters, conductometers
• Potentiometric, thermometric and Karl Fischer titration
• Polarography, voltammetry and CVS
• Ion chromatography
• Stability measurement of fats, oils and biofuels
• Process analysis
• Automation in titration, voltammetry, ion chromatography and process control

Metrohm offer much more than just instruments. In their laboratories they develop customized applications to help their customers safeguard the quality of their products, comply with regulations and optimize processes.

Metrohm is exclusively represented in more than 80 countries, in more than 40 of which they have their own subsidiaries. This guarantees a tight network for sales and service.

Head office: Herisau CH-9101 Switzerland 

In an ongoing effort to increase recycling in California, support environmental education and keep litter out of our waterways, the American Chemistry Council (ACC)  joined LA City Councilman Ed Reyes and representatives of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps on the banks of the LA River to announce a $100,000 contribution from ACC's Plastics Division, Progressive Bag Affiliates and Plastic Foodservice Packaging Group to the LA River Keepers program.

LA River Keepers Program

This program, developed in partnership with the Los Angeles Community Development Department and the Bureau of Sanitization, works to restore and revitalize sections of the LA River.

Remove and Recycle Litter and Debris from LA River

"Thanks to this new partnership , the LA River Keepers program will be able to continue its efforts to remove and recycle litter and debris from the LA River and promote environmental education, as well as provide ongoing opportunities for job skills training for our area youth," said Bruce Saito, Executive Director of the LA Conservation Corps.

The LA River Keepers' vision lies in the premise that the Los Angeles River environment is an excellent location for training, education and green job skill development through classroom and outdoor environmental restoration projects.

"This generous donation from the American Chemistry Council pumps much-needed dollars into two of the City's most valuable resources--our youth and our environment," said Councilmember Ed P. Reyes, who spearheaded the City's Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan to transform the concrete-corseted L.A. River into a continuous greenbelt linking communities.

The L.A. River Keepers, mostly inner-city young adults, pick up trash, remove bulky items and provide an ongoing presence at the River as it undergoes revitalization. 

The LA River Keepers provides these service projects:

• watershed education
• native plant landscaping
  
• weekly restoration work including removal of debris and illegal dumping,
• removal of graffiti
• recycling,
  
• fire hazard and fuel reduction
  

"The LA River Keepers program will help increase recycling, improve environmental education, and keep litter out of our waterways, which are goals we all share," said Sherri McCarthy, Manager, State Affairs, American Chemistry Council. "We're very pleased to support this program and to help increase awareness of the many plastics that can be recycled in Los Angeles."

Recycling Programs to Collect Plastic Debris

The LA Conservation Corps is the latest partner to join the statewide recycling awareness campaign, "Plastics. Too Valuable to Waste. Recycle.(SM)," which has found success in a variety of areas. The campaign began in 2008 when representatives from the California Department of Parks and Recreation, ACC and Keep California Beautiful (KCB) launched a recycling program that placed - and continues to maintain - hundreds of permanent and seasonal recycling bins at State Parks sites in the Los Angeles and Central Coast areas. The program soon spread to State Parks beaches in the San Diego, Monterey and Santa Cruz areas, the City of Woodland, California, and to California highway rest stops through its new partnership with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). 

About the LA Conservation Corps:

The LA Conservation Corps was founded in 1986 with the primary mission to provide at-risk young adults and school-aged youth with opportunities for success through job skills training, education and work experience with an emphasis on conservation and service projects that benefit the community. Over the past 24 years, the Corps has grown into the largest urban conservation corps in the nation with a full-time staff of over 150 employees serving over 17,000 young people each year

About the American Chemistry Council's Plastics Division:
The American Chemistry Council, whose members include major plastics manufacturers, recognizes the importance of keeping plastics out of the marine environment best management practices. 

Web Site: http://www.2valuable2waste.com/

The United States is dipping its toe into the "green chemistry" trend, but where does the world stand?  Will the world suffer or benefit from chemical products of the future in our manufacturing of vehicles, electronics, even food and drinks?  Because rapidly rising economies such as China and India are entering the manufacturing marketplace, their chemical proficiency becomes a global issue because winds carry toxins to neighboring regions, waters carry toxins, and lands harbor toxins  -- known and yet to be discovered and evaluated -- for centuries.

Globalization Trends

Globalization is one of the most important megatrends currently affecting society. Its impact on the chemical industry is far-reaching, being both a source of opportunity but also a driver for change in the industry itself.

Globalization can create growth opportunities for many chemical companies, who are actively looking for ways to enter into the higher-growth regional markets of the world. Meanwhile, India is forecast to become a low cost manufacturing hub for passenger vehicles in the coming years, and trends such as this will have a major impact on where materials need to be supplied to in the future.

Urbanization Trends

And alongside globalization, the related trend of urbanization is also creating its own set of opportunities for chemical companies.

Consumer awareness and action will grow as chemicals accumulate in our environment, our food supply and our water supply.  Solutions are needed... BEFORE problems are created.  Regulation of chemical products is a new challenge that we must face, as difficult as it is to understand the technical language used to obfuscate understanding of what's in our products, and the waste stream affected by un-tested product ingredients.

Frost & Sullivan's Global Chemicals and Materials team have completed extensive analysis on Global Chemicals market.

California Department of Toxic Substances Control Director Maureen Gorsen explains how, by using wiki technology, California shares with the public at large its mandate to create Green Chemistry regulations.

Director Gorsen also instructs wiki users on how to participate in this innovative approach to advancing California's green product revolution. California is implementing the first body of green chemistry law in the world and DTSC, the agency charged with its implementation is making history by writing the regulations on real time along with stakeholders and the people of the State of California.


Wiki for Green Chemistry

The Green Chemistry Revolution: A New Paradigm for Reducing and Managing Hazardous Wastes - 2008
 
An hour long panel discussion about the manufacture of goods and affect chemical waste. The linkages of product design, production, distribution and use around the world.

California's green chemistry initiative grew out of a legislative mandate based on a worker poisoning problem in 1977-78.

Problems that lead to clarification of the chemical issues facing us:

• Chemical regulatory policies and controls
• Safety problems for workers
• European Union has directives (hazardous substances, cosmetics, REACH initiative) for chemical policies that have brought economic ties and impact to the US

Motivations for rethinking chemical policies

• Total daily California sales of chemicals
• Total tanker trucks rolling through the state
• Product waste is a huge problem
• Global transport of hazards
• Hazardous waste sites leaking into groundwater
• 600 new waste sites will be needed every month until 2033
• 94% of hazardous waste sites pose health hazards
• Chemicals are found in breast milk
• Global chemical production is doubling very 25 years
• Accountability gaps
• Difficulty to find what's in chemicals
• Very little incentive for investment in green chemical alternatives
• Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 has some data gaps and regulatory gaps.
  

The release of the California Green Chemistry Initiative Final Report in December 2008 signified the beginning of the Department of Toxic Substances Control's efforts to implement a comprehensive green chemistry program in California. The Final Report for the California Green Chemistry Initiative culminated in six policy recommendations that are aimed at ushering in a new consumer products economy that will focus on inventing, manufacturing and using toxic-free, sustainable products. These landmark policy recommendations will continue California's leadership in fostering innovation, prompting market changes, and building on current environmental protection laws.

The number of chemicals entering the US marketplace continues to escalate.  Many of these chemicals have not been tested for their effect on human and environmental chemicals.  If you need to know what chemicals are being introduced and/or tested, the Center for Disease Control provides a starting point for your research. 

The National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (National Exposure Report) is a series of ongoing assessments of the U.S. population's exposure to environmental chemicals by measuring chemicals in people's blood and urine, also called biomonitoring.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s Environmental Health Laboratory at the National Center for Environmental Health has measured chemicals or their metabolites in blood and urine from a random sample of participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

The Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals (Fourth Report) presents exposure data for 212 environmental chemicals for the civilian, noninstitutionalized U.S. population. This Fourth Report includes results from 2003-2004, and more.

The Fourth Report includes results for 75 chemicals measured for the first time in the U.S. population. These chemicals are in the following groups:

• acrylamide and glycidamide adducts;
• arsenic species and metabolites;
• environmental phenols, including bisphenol A and triclosan;
• perchlorate;
• perfluorinated chemicals;
• polybrominated diphenyl ethers;
• volatile organic compounds; and
• some additions to chemical groups previously measured.

A complete listing of the 75 new chemicals and the full listing of the chemicals included in the Fourth Report is available at www.cdc.gov.

The toxicity of a chemical is related to its dose or concentration, in addition to a person's individual susceptibility. Small amounts may be of no health consequence, whereas larger amounts may cause adverse health effects.

Research studies, separate from the National Exposure Report, are required to determine the levels of a chemical that may cause health effects and the levels that are not a significant health concern. For some chemicals, such as lead, research studies provide a good understanding of health risks associated with various blood levels.

For most of the environmental chemicals included in the Fourth Report, more research is needed to determine whether exposure at the levels reported is a cause for health concern. CDC conducts and provides biomonitoring measurements for this type of research in collaboration with other agencies and institutions.

Chemical safety affects us all.  But how do laws support chemical safety?

Out of more than 62,000 synthetic chemicals that are part of our everyday lives, fewer than 200 have been tested for safety.

The Chemical Industry and Safety Best Practices

Thanks to effective lobbying by the chemical industry, laws are written so that every synthetic chemical is "innocent until proven guilty." The legal burden weighs on those seeking to prove the harm a substance can cause.

Find out more in "Toxic Ignorance is Not Bliss," by author and writer Dominique Browning.

Human Guinea Pigs

Browning reveals the shocking truth when it comes to potentially toxic chemicals -- you're basically on your own.

"We should be worried about what amounts to a huge, uncontrolled human testing experiment. Without agreeing to it, without understanding it, without even knowing it, we have become the chemical industry's guinea pigs."

Of highly visible concers of late is Bisphenol A (BPA), found in baby bottles, possibly the water bottle sitting by your desk and plastic dental sealants.

BPA is increasingly suspected of causing a variety of serious ills, yet factories continue to produce six billion pounds of it each year.

In the coming months, Congress may review the process by which we regulate toxic chemicals -- or, as Browning points out, mostly don't regulate them.

"Society needs to pay much more attention to this problem," says Dr. Richard Denison, Senior Scientist at EDF. "We've been complacent about it." Denison maintains an influential blog tracking the debate over chemical safety.

In 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Unfortunately, the 62,000 chemicals on the market at that time were given a free pass: no requirement they be tested or assessed for safety.

EPA's Role in Chemical Regulation

Although the Environmental Protection Agency has garnered some information about chemicals through voluntary submissions by industry in a program that EDF helped start, limited testing has been required on a mere 200 chemicals over the past three decades.

Worse, EPA has managed to restrict only five substances--and even that overstates the agency's efficacy.

The only group of chemicals entirely banned was PCBs, because Congress required it.

Even Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council, commented on EPA's incapacity in this matter: "EPA cannot make a determination on whether or not a chemical is safe for its intended use."

Read more at: "Toxic Ignorance is Not Bliss,"

Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Therefore, stewardship of both natural and human resources is of prime importance. Sustainable farming systems are biologically-based and designed to be productive in both the short- and long-term.

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--

• environmental health,
  
• economic profitability, and
  
• social equity
  

Because it is more a philosophical approach to agriculture than a set of farming practices, the specific practices that can be called sustainable vary depending on the crop and the specific environmental and social issues important to a region. Therefore, it is important that all those interested in making agriculture more sustainable--consumers, growers, environmentalists, farm workers, processors, retailers--educate themselves on the related issues.

Does sustainable agriculture and organic farming mean the same thing?

No. Agriculture can be "sustainable" without being "organic." And some organic operations may not be sustainable. Organic farming excludes the use of any synthetic agricultural chemical and then certifies this to be true. Often, however, approaches to management of healthy soils can be similar between organic and sustainable farming systems.

Can chemicals be used in a sustainable system?

Yes. Growers frequently ask if synthetic chemicals are appropriate in a sustainable farming system. Sustainable approaches are those that are the least toxic and least energy intensive, and yet maintain productivity and profitability. There may be situations where the use of synthetic chemicals would be more "sustainable" than a strictly non-chemical approach.

For example, one technique for weed control may involve mechanical cultivation. A hoe,  weed knife or other implement may need to make several passes in a season to do what one application of Round-Up (a relatively safe, effective, and economic herbicide) could accomplish in terms of weed control. The passes with the mechanical device have associated environmental and social risks (i.e., soil compaction, soil erosion, fuel consumption, potential worker injury). The manager needs to decide which is the most appropriate method based on a particular situation and resource concerns at a particular site. The manager may decide that the chemical option has less environmental, economic, and social risks than the non-chemical option.

Converting to sustainable practices does not mean simple input substitution. Instead, sustainable farming substitutes enhanced management and scientific knowledge for conventional inputs, especially inputs that may threaten the natural or human resources. One goal of sustainable agriculture is to develop efficient, biological systems that do not need high levels of material inputs.

Read more about sustainable farming...and applications in vineyard mangement at Central Coast Vineyard Team

Adapted from materials from the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UCSAREP) www.sarep.ucdavis.edu.