European Union (EU) transport and finance ministers have agreed to call on the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to remove the exemption on aviation fuel taxation as a way to help reduce carbon dioxide emission and other environmental pollution from commercial jet planes.

The tax is imposed to reduce the financial burden on local authorities as the cost to them for collecting the glass containers for recycling is too high. Used glass containers have been collected by private manufacturer of packaging glass since 1974, but in 1995, the firm began charging municipalities a disposal fee to cover the costs for sorting out unwanted debris and transportation charges. According to Swiss environmental officials, the disposal fee currently runs at around Sfr120 (US$73) per metric ton of glass collected and the total bill for local authorities is more than Sfr30 million (US$18 million) per year.

Representatives from the 159 Member States of the International Maritime Organisation have adopted the Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships. The new Convention calls for a global prohibition on the application of organotin compounds that act as biocides in anti-fouling systems on ships by 1 Jan 2003 and a complete prohibition by 1 Jan 2008.

The agreement would enter into force 12 months after 25 countries representing 25% of the world's merchant shipping tonnage ratify.

Under the terms of the Convention, Parties are required to prohibit and/or restrict the use of harmful anti-fouling systems on ships flying their flag, as well as ships not entitled to fly their flag but which operate under their authority, and all ships that enter a port, shipyard or offshore terminal of a Party.

Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Notre Dam in United States have developed a new method to remove toxic metals from polluted waters. They packed the dried yeast-plant mixture that remained after the manufacture of ethanol and ground corncobs from the production of animal feed into tubes and pumped contaminated wastewater through them. The waste agricultural products acted like a magnet to attract toxic metals such as copper, cesium, molybdenum, nickel, lead and zinc from the wastewater. The tubes with the metals trapped inside could be treated as hazardous waste and burned in a special incinerator.

The consultant tested the method on dead pigs and cows. The carcasses were immersed in liquid nitrogen at less than -196^oC and bombarded with ultrasound waves to crack open the tissue so that the nitrogen could penetrate and deep-freeze the carcasses right to the core. A vacuum was then applied to remove water from the remains and produce a hygienic, odourless powder with less than 1% of water.

According to the consultant, cremation can release toxic chemicals, such as mercury vapour from dental fillings and cancer-causing polyaromatic hydrocarbons, into the atmosphere. Burial is also not that green because a corpse buried in a coffin will take 50 to 60 years to decompose, and in the process, embalming chemicals such as formaldehyde can pollute the groundwater. In comparison, the new method can safely return all organic compounds to the soil within six months.

An engineering graduate student from Virginia Tech in United States has discovered that air bubbles released during water treatment processes could result in the escape of pathogens and other particles.

The graduate student found that during the first stage of the water treatment process, if air bubbles were present, pathogens and other particles could attach to them and float on through the treatment plant. In the final filtration stage of the treatment process, a burp of the air bubbles could create holes in the filters and allow the particles and pathogens to escape into the water that goes out to the customers. The air bubbles could also cause a dilemma for treatment plant operators at the end of the treatment process as the water quality test may wrongly identify the bubbles as dirt particles or pathogens, even though the bubbles themselves are harmless. This would then decrease the validity of and confidence in the water quality tests.

The Department of Justice, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency prosecuted three landlords who failed to warn their tenants of potential lead hazards at almost 10,000 apartments in Chicago and Cincinnati. Under the Lead Disclosure Rule, landlords and sellers of houses constructed prior to 1978 are required to provide each purchaser or tenant with a lead hazard information pamphlet, any information and/or reports concerning lead-based paint hazards in the property and a Lead Warning Statement to be signed by the parties. Sellers are required to provide purchasers with an opportunity to conduct a lead-based paint evaluation.

The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC), an Atlanta based non-profit organisation, is starting a cost-free recycling program for spent rechargeable battery packs. RBRC collects all spent rechargeable batteries, including nickel-cadmium, nickel metal hydride, lithium ion and small sealed lead rechargeable batteries, from communities and retailers across North America and ships them to a recycling plant in Pennsylvania for processing.

At the recycling plant, cadmium from the nickel-cadmium batteries is reduced using carbon, vaporised, and condensed to produce cadmium metal that is 99.5% pure. The recovered cadmium is either recycled back into batteries, used in the manufacture of corrosion-resistant coatings, or sold as pigment. Nickel metal hydride rechargeable batteries are recycled back for metal manufacturing to make stainless steel.

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an independent, international campaigning organisation that investigates and exposes environmental crimes, found that there has been an increase in the illegal trading of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances in developing countries across Asia.

The investigations conducted by EIA showed that hundreds of tons of illegal ozone depleting substances were smuggled into India every year. Between early 1999 and March 2000, more than 800 tons of ozone-depleting substances were smuggled into India, totalling 12% of the national consumption and much of this was smuggled through Nepal. The EIA investigators also documented similar activities in Bangladesh. In Calcutta, a recent seizure obtained 281 illegal cylinders of CFCs and HCFCs smuggled from Bangladesh. In Malaysia, authorities recently seized four containers containing 4,600 cylinders of CFCs.