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The article reports on factors influencing the rate of cancer cases in the United States. It states that it is important for the United States population be aware of the disease that is considered a leading cause of death. It mentions several factors that hinder cancer prevention in the country which includes less federal support to researches concerning cancer prevention and environmental carcinogens, lack of legislative authority, suppression of data regarding carcinogenicity of vinyl chloride and distorted economic impact analyses.

Organic peroxides are materials that belong to one of the 13 classes of dangerous goods, i.e., class 5.2. They are characterized by specific hazards and, due to that fact, require strictly determined conditions of storage and transport. Regulations that govern the issue of the road transport of dangerous goods and the storage of organic peroxides are separately contained in various legal acts. Storage conditions of organic peroxides are determined in the legal regulations in the form of general guidelines, which need to be described in detail, based on expert knowledge from the entities engaged in this process. This article attempts to provide details regarding the conditions of the road transport and storage of C-type organic peroxides using the example of benzoyl peroxide (concentration 75%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is proposing a ban on asbestos, and the US Environmental Protection Agency has listed it among the first 10 materials it is investigating under the new Toxic Substances Control Act revisions. However, this effort is currently running up against enormous industry and political opposition. Here, we detail the activities in the early 1970s of the Friction Materials Standards Institute, an industry trade association, to stifle earlier attempts to regulate asbestos use in brake linings, one of the oldest and most obvious sources of asbestos exposure to mechanics, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EFSA is committed to assess and communicate the risks occurring in the food and feed chain from farm to fork and to provide other forms of scientific advice. This work, carried out by EFSA since its inception, has resulted in the adoption of thousands of scientific assessments. EFSA is obliged to re-assess past assessments in specific regulatory contexts such as those on food and feed additives, active substances in plant protection products and genetically modified food and feed. In other sectors, the consideration for updating past EFSA scientific assessments is taken on an ad hoc basis mainly depending on specific requests by risk managers or on EFSA self-tasking. If safety is potentially at stake in any area within EFSA's remit, the readiness to update past scientific assessments is important to keep EFSA at the forefront of science and to promote an effective risk assessment. Although this task might be very complex and resource demanding, it is fundamental to EFSA's mission. The present EFSA Scientific Committee opinion deals with scientific motivations and criteria to contribute to the timely updating of EFSA scientific assessments. It is recognised that the decision for updating should be agreed following careful consideration of all the relevant elements by the EFSA management, in collaboration with risk managers and stakeholders. The present opinion addresses the scientific approaches through which it would be possible for EFSA to increase the speed and effectiveness of the acquisition of new data, as well as, to improve the consequent evaluations to assess the relevance and reliability of new data in the context of contributing to the better definition of whether to update past scientific assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Flame Retardant Association (EFRA) combines leading companies offering the largest spectrum of flame retardants (FRs). EFRA conducted many studies on the recycling of FRplastics. This study concerns the recycling of plastics from liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and addresses the RoHS and WEEE directives (Restriction on Hazardous Substances and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), requiring a higher tonnage of recycled plastics. Recycling standards are developed within the committee IEC TC111. A new technical report IEC/TR 62635 Ed1.0: "Guidelines for End-of-Life information provision from manufacturers and recyclers, and for recyclability rate calculation of Electrical and Electronic Equipment", aims for better and higher quality of recycled materials. EFRA cooperated with REWARD, a project in the ECOINNOVATION program of FP7, with partners Recycling Consult, Coolrec/PHB and BRGM. Due to higher external fire safety requirements for TV housings in Europe, more FR-plastics need to be recycled following the recast of the WEEE directive. As a consequence WEEE plastics need to be processed by mechanical recycling instead of energy recovery. The EFRA and REWARD study describe composition, characterization, identification, size reduction and separation techniques. This article provides guidance to achieve the required plastic qualities and its limitations due to separation constraints and miscibility problems of the different plastics. A separation route on paper is developed for plastics from back covers of LCDs. It is found that a combination of mild size reduction, density separation and sensor based sorting gives the best results. Fractions are tested for their miscibility with virgin plastics by producers. The findings are of importance since presently solutions for FR-plastic separation are hardly offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses why the act of war defense failed and also highlights law for property owners who assert this defense. Topics discussed include liability standards under the U.S. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), types of defenses that people may raise against CERCLA liability, and the legislative history of the act of war defense clause. It also mentions government regulations on hazardous substances.

The article focuses on green chemistry which is defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the design of chemical products and processes that lessen or remove the utility or generation of hazardous substance. It states that a business-to-business standard for hazardous substance reduction is being crafted by the American Chemical Society (ACS), through its Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) with the collaboration of federal agencies, nonprofits, end users, and industry. It mentions the efforts of the Department of Defense (DOD) regarding the promotion of green chemistry. It also discusses the Registration Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemical Substance (REACH), the legislation that promotes green chemistry created by the European Union. INSET: The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.

The article discusses the failure of chemical regulation in the U.S. and explores regulatory reform that causes market competition between firms to produce information on chemical products toxicity. It explains how the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) affects the selection in the chemical market by failing to promote toxicity testing. It examines how competition-based approach to chemical regulation is appropriate within the regulatory toolkit and whether such measure can be transferred to the regulation of other products and polluting activities.

This article examines recent changes in toxic waste policy in the United States. It argues that major deviations from the framework established by the Comprehensive Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) have occurred. Examples include a shifting of program authority to the states, a modification of traditional command and control program structures, and perhaps most important, the adoption of economic development as a core program goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that the Center for Occupational Research and Development has released its Hazardous Materials Management Technology Skills Standard. Contact information; Retail price.

A risk assessment model is developed to relate adverse health effects to alternative carbon monoxide standards. The analysis requires information in the form of available data and expert judgments concerning factors such as ambient CO level, human exposure to CO, physiological responses, and dose-response relationships. Quantitative estimates, including probabilities, are obtained for selected summary measures of adverse health effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, the COSHH Regulations give specific guidance that employers have duties to inform, instruct and train their employees about occupational risks and provide them with suitable health surveillance. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the Regulations on employees with occupational asthma. One hundred consecutive patients attending an occupational lung disease clinic completed a questionnaire assessing the implementation of the COSHH Regulations in their workplace. Twenty-eight per cent had a pre-employment inquiry about asthma, 31% had regular health surveillance by questionnaires and 19% had regular lung function assessment at work. Pre-employment spirometry was carried out in 44% of the workers who were exposed to one of the original seven prescribed agents, significantly more than those who were exposed to other agents (19%) (p < 0.05). Moreover, figures for spirometry during employment were 31% and 8% respectively (p < 0.05). The patients who worked after ‘COSHH’ but before ‘MS25’ had a tendency to be provided with health surveillance more than those who worked after both ‘COSHH’ and ‘MS25’. Ninety-one per cent of the patients had never been informed about the risks of getting asthma at work and 73% had never seen the safety data sheets. The workers who (1) worked after ‘COSHH’ introduction; (2) worked in larger firms and (3) were exposed to one of the original seven prescribed agents, had a tendency to be informed, instructed and trained more than the rest. However, there were only significant statistical differences (p<0.05) in terms of the safety data sheet provision between the cases who worked before the time of the legislation and those employed afterwards. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hairdressers are known commonly to suffer work-related skin problems. To explore the steps taken by employers and employees to prevent or control such problems, we visited 12 randomly selected high street hairdressing establishments in North Wiltshire and interviewed the proprietors and 43 of the employees by means of structured questionnaires. Relatively few of the establishments had taken any steps to comply with the statutory requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous Health (COSHH) Regulations 1988. Some premises lacked basic skin care facilities and employers often failed to provide hand care training and health monitoring. More than half of the employees had experienced work-related skin problems, typically dermatitis. Those with skin problems more commonly identified precautionary skin care measures; however, many employees could not identify desirable skin precautions when questioned. A fifth had never received skin care training. For the remainder the median elapsed interval since last trained exceeded 6 years. Only one establishment had a satisfactory skin care programme. Future efforts should be directed at training and influencing the attitudes of hairdressing employers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at challenges facing industrial engineers in sustainable manufacturing. It identifies the causes of the emergence of sustainable manufacturing, including the belief that sustainability is the key to innovation. It also relates the trend to the introduction of a directive by the European Union (EU) to restrict the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.

The Swiss Centre for Applied Ecotoxicology (Ecotox Centre) was created in recognition of the urgent societal need to provide expertise, education and tools for assessing the risks and effects of anthropogenic chemicals in the environment. Founded in 2008, the Ecotox Centre conducts applied, practice-oriented research in the areas of aquatic (water and sediment) and terrestrial (with focus on soil) ecotoxicology, and provides further education and consulting services to its stakeholders. To date, its most important activities focus on (1) the validation and standardization of bioassays for use in monitoring of water, sediment or soil quality and (2) the development of tools for retrospective risk assessment, including approaches to assess mixture risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the developments of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty which was designed to protect the ozone layer. He stresses that the voting of the proposed regulation of hydrofluorocarbons by its member countries in Bali, Indonesia will be tough. The author believes that highly-industrialized countries will certainly not favor of the said regulation to protect their interests. Moreover, he expresses support for the proposal, and considers the regulation as a fair system.

First, I want to thank Megan Mullin for her careful review of my book, which raises several important issues worthy of careful consideration. These will be helpful to me in my continued research and analysis of global environmental governance. A main criticism offered by Mullin's review is that my book includes a great deal of empirical detail but is less focused on testing propositions. This is largely by design, however, and her critique reflects our different views on research design and our varying ways of approaching empirical case studies and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the plan of the European Union to implement a directive that would restrict the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment in 2006. The impact that the directive would have on manufacturers is stated. The purpose of the creation of the policy is also cited in this article.

The article presents the policy statement of the American Public Health Association concerning health hazards brought by naturally occurring radon. The association believes that radon exposure can cause lung cancer that is why it recommends performance of adequate testing for the determination of areas with high level of naturally occurring radon be done by federal and state governments. It also urges state and local governments to provide information and outreach programs regarding radon exposure as well as financial assistance to those households that need remediation and testing activities.