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SHAKEUP: A coal-burning plant in Washington, where a Senate subcommittee approved a bill to create a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide emissions. Support is not as strong in the House

Former Premier of NSW Bob Carr has argued that Governments serious about providing adequate solutions to climate change should see that recycled or recovered waste should be included in carbon emission trading schemes. Mr Carr, chair of the advisory board to the Australian Climate Institute, said a new report produced …

Councils in England are to be given the power to introduce pilot schemes to charge households according to the amount of rubbish they throw away. BBC reports that this news comes as MPs warn the UK could face fines of up to £180m a year from the European Commission if …

New York Daily News reports that while still voluntary this year, next year the use of biodegradable paper composting bags will be mandatory under city law, with violators facing fines. According to the Department of Sanitation, leaves should be placed in large heavy-duty paper lawn and leaf bags or in …

A new Government backed campaign that reveals we are throwing away a staggering third of the food we buy in the UK – most of which could have been eaten – was launched on November 1. The astonishing statistic follows pioneering research undertaken earlier this year by WRAP (Waste & …

Techtree reports that IBM has developed a new process for repurposing scrap silicon wafers from its chip manufacturing operations for use in energy-producing solar panels. Typically, Microsoft discards 3 million wafers every year, each of which contains some portion of IBM‘‘s chip designs. The new process uses a specialized pattern …

At present there is no Management of Hospital or Health care Waste anywhere in Pakistan. Although some good basic groundwork has been carried out in an attempt to bring about improvements, the situation remain deplorable and represents a grave health risk, not only to medical staff but also to general …

The new EU Battery Directive is taking shape in readiness for its formal adoption, probably later this summer. However, battery recyclers and manufacturers still have some concerns about the proposed text, notably in relation to exemptions, recycling efficiencies, capacity labelling of batteries and the funding of public awareness campaigns aimed …

Hospitals generate waste which is chemically hazardous, infectious and often radioactive. Such waste because of inappropriate disposal/treatment strategies contributes to serious health hazards in the community. The main concern of infectious hospital waste is the transmission of HIV and infectious hepatitis viruses. As regulatory measures, the Bureau of Indian Standards, …