The Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) has been investigating mercury-added skin lightening products (SLPs) for several years, primarily due to their health risks, their illegality under many national laws, and the prohibition by the Minamata Convention on Mercury against the manufacture and trade of mercury-added SLPs, which generally became effective …
The us state of Vermont has taken a small step forward in combating the threat posed by mercury. It is now mandatory for manufacturers of fluorescent lamps in the state to label all lamps and packages containing the liquid metal. The step follows the nationwide ban on mercury thermometers in …
industrial emissions of Asia, particularly China, are a major source of mercury in rainwater that falls along the California coast of usa. So says a new study by researchers from the Santa Cruz-based University of California (ucsc). However, the researchers acknowledge that mercury in rainwater is not a health threat. …
This paper presents maps of anthropogenic Hg emissions worldwide within a 1°×1° latitude/longitude grid system in 1995. As such, the paper is designed for modelers simulating the Hg transport within air masses and Hg deposition to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Maps of total Hg emissions and its three main chemical …
Mercury distribution in the environment has been a focus of scientific attention because of the potential health risks posed by mercury exposure. Never before in the history of mankind has there been such a vast multiplicity of environmental risk factors, nor there has been such an expression of concern regarding …
The centuries-old silver mines of Mexico are even today lethal traps of toxic mercury. Workers who helped recover mercury and silver from the over 400-year mine waste from around a dozen old Spanish mining towns, have been afflicted with health problems. Yet, sadly, no comprehensive study has been conducted to …
Where gentle persuasion fails, shock therapy works. In an attempt to wean diners off shark fin soup, Singapore-based environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is planning to put up posters in schools and public places showing cooks in gas masks and chemical protection gear before serving bowls of the delicacy …
Philippines joins CNG bandwagon: Yet another country attempting to switch its public transport to compressed natural gas (CNG) mode is Philippines. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced that a bus company, will undertake a pilot project by 2003, which will include 100 buses to be fully fuelled by CNG. Devious strategy …
an internationally binding treaty could save millions from dying of mercury pollution exposure. This was the track recently taken by Global Mercury Assess ment Working Group of the United Nations Environment Prog ramme (unep). Among other things, the group has urged unep member nations to strengthen cooperation on information sharing, …
The most potent fallout from the September 15 earthquake that rocked the Andaman archipelago has been a 50-kilogramme leakage of lethal mercury from east island lighthouse in North Andaman. The local administration is said to be downplaying the implications of the spill, which poses a health hazard to the local …
What would you say of an industry that takes common salt and turns it into one of the most environmentally deadly substances we know of today, namely chlorine? And what if in its production process it uses yet another deadly substance, mercury? We are talking about India's caustic-chlorine industry. Centre …
See Score Card Raw material sourcing phase To rate the companies on the raw material sourcing phase, grp used the following indicators: the quality of input salt, transportation of salt, self-sourcing of water (water harvesting) and the use of renewable and clean fuels. The Indian caustic-chlorine industry has performed poorly …
Pondicherry-based Chemfab Alkalis Ltd (cal) has been rated as the greenest caustic-chlorine company in India. With an overall score of 46.7 per cent, it has been given the Three Leaves Award. Set up in 1985 by Krishnamurthy Rao, a technical expert, cal set the trend by going in for membrane …
Although there has been a belated shift from the polluting mercury cell technology to the membrane cells, mercury pollution in India is still very high. India does not produce mercury and relies completely on imports. Between 1998-2001, the annual mercury imports stood at 170-190 tonnes, which is 10 per cent …
It’s a Catch-22 situation. How does one rate an industry where the pollution is minimal at the production plant and peaks the moment the product leaves the factory gates? How does one rate an industry that is the mother of all chemical industries? How does one rate an industry that …
Trade a new thermometer for an old one. This is the message that a bill approved by the US senate seeks to give. While it bans mercury thermometers, it has provided US $20 million for the exchange programme. There is one gramme of mercury in a traditional fever-measuring device. However, …
Mothers to-be, infants and children: beware of eating shark, swordfish and marlin! This alert has been sounded by the uk Food Standards Agency in the wake of studies which reveal that these types of fish carry high levels of mercury in them. The agency carried out a survey that analyzed …
cleaner recycling of electronic waste is something the industry has been looking forward to for the last one decade. It might just have got lucky. Considering that in the us alone in 1988 5-7 million tonnes of e-waste was generated and that 50-80 per cent of it was exported to …
