A team of researchers from the Ohio State University has made a breakthrough to replace solid plastic with dense plastic foams, eliminating the use of ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) in the process.

The plastic foam, created by using reinforced clay particles for strength, is found to be lighter than the nanocomposites materials made from solid plastics.

The first global-scale manufacturing facility of its kind - NatureWorks^TMPLA and NatureWorks Fibers in Nebraska - is turning corn into plastics, resins, fabrics and food packaging materials instead of using petroleum-based raw materials.

The process works by using the carbon stored in simple plant sugars. Through fermentation and distillation, carbon is extracted and used as the basic building block for commercial grade plastics and fibres.

Milwaukee-based Astronautics Corporation of America unveiled the world's first room-temperature refrigerator recently. This refrigerator could be 50 percent more efficient than the cooling cycle in existing refrigerators. It uses powdered gadolinium, an element that is also used in medical magnetic resonance imaging machines and a permanent magnet to achieve chilling.

The gadolinium is alternately magnetized and demagnetized by spinning it in and out of a magnetic field in a wheel. When the gadolinium magnetizes initially, the spins of its atoms align and give off heat. During demagnetization, the atomic spins return to a random distribution, cooling the gadolinium to well below its original temperature, which in turn chills a set of water pipes that extend into the refrigerator.

According to a report by the New Scientist, a study carried out by the British government had suggested an impact on the marine environment food chain that may be caused by the use of chemicals in salmon farms.

Researchers found a drop in the number of nematode worms in the sediment close to the salmon farms and an almost complete absence of copepods, tiny crustaceans that are an important source of food for young fish.

A report by the National Academy of Sciences, reported that atrazine, one of the world's top-selling weed killers, has been found to be disrupting frogs' sexual development when exposed at concentrations as much as 30 times lower than the levels allowed by the US EPA. The herbicide "demasculinises" tadpoles and turns them into hermaphrodites with both male and female sexual characteristics at levels as low as 0.1 ppb. It also lowers levels of the male hormone testosterone in sexually mature male frogs by a factor of 10, to levels lower than those in normal female frogs.

This new finding raises serious concerns on the use of atrazine to destroy weeds in food crops such as corn, soybeans and other products. Atrazine at levels of 40 ppb have been measured in rain and spring water in parts of the Midwestern US, while levels in agricultural runoff can be present at several parts per million.

Atrazine-contaminated water has led to concerns about its effect on children, infants and fetuses. The effect of atrazine on humans is still unknown as it does not accumulate in tissues and humans do not spend their lives in water as frogs do.

The US passed an energy bill on 25 Apr 02 as a process of weaning the US from imported fuels to domestic sources including natural gas, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Some of the aspects of the bill passed include:

1. Loan guarantees and expedited approval for an Alaska natural gas pipeline
2. Tax incentives for new energy-efficient home and business construction
3. Consumer tax credits for new qualified fuel cell and hybrid vehicles
4. Manufacturers' tax credits for energy-efficient washers and refrigerators that will be passed onto the buying customers
5. Grants for state weatherization assistance programmes
6. Funding for clean and efficient energy research and development programmes
7. Ten percent of electricity generated by utilities must be from renewable energy resources by 2020 and
8. Access for clean energy users to sell excess energy to local electricity utilities.

Scientists at the University of California at Riverside (UCR) said that wet biological wastes, including sewage sludge and grass clippings, could be turned into a synthetic diesel fuel.

The technique could reduce the need for landfill space and provide a cost effective alternative to mulching and other restricted uses of the wastes.

Wet waste has previously been difficult to use as a fuel source because previous technologies required the waste to be dried before conversion into fuel. By adapting the hydro-gasification conversion process, developed to produce clean burning gases from coal, the researchers expect to be able to convert water and carbon-based waste feeds into clean burning fuels and electricity.

The European Parliament is expected to pass compromise legislation dealing with environmental noise this month. Each EU nation will have to produce strategic noise maps showing population numbers in dwellings and in certain areas in the countryside that are exposed to various levels of noise from different sources.

New Hampshire became the first state in the US to pass legislation aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The Clean Power Act is a bipartisan bill that targeted reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury from the state's three fossil fuel burning power plants.

The stipulated emissions reductions under the Act are as follows:

1. Carbon dioxide emissions - About 3 percent, back to 1990 levels. The bill also provides for future requirements that emissions be cut by an additional 7 percent below 1990 levels, the amount set in the Kyoto treaty on climate change.
2. Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions - 75 percent and 70 percent below the year 2000 federal requirements respectively, within the next 5 years.
3. Mercury emissions from the plants are to be measured. A cap on mercury emissions will be determined after the US Environmental Protection Agency issues the new power plant emissions standard for mercury next year.

Carmakers in the European Union must pay for the cost of recycling scrap vehicles in a new directive and become the first to shoulder "producer responsibility" in the EU, despite intense lobbying.

Contractors would have to control the diesel emissions from their off-road equipment in the near future, according to a special diesel emissions forum at the annual convention of the Associated General Contractors held in Las Vegas.

Greenhouse gas emissions trading began in UK this month. Thirty-four organizations took part in last month's bidding to pledge specific reductions in their annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over a five-year period. An equivalent amount of more than 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide was pledged, which is above 5 percent of the reduction planned in the UK's annual GHG emissions in 2010.