Environment

Dempsey under pressure as greenhouse gases soar	Fluoride Fine Gael has pledged to end the controversial compulsory practice Fluoride and Health
Revolutionary Waste Treatment processes The Herhof system The reCulture process Alternatives to Landfill disposal of Waste!	coming soon More Information On Herhof The Herhof System is an integrated system for the treatment of household and commercial waste requiring neither presorting, landfill, nor mass burn......
The Air Powered Car Zero Emissions & Toyota 39 gas-electric hybrid cars	New BSE test "will save millions of cows" Foot and mouth: watching out for the warning signs When you move animals across borders, you also move the disease
Recycling in Muingnaminane & Killarney new!	The Dumpsite Survey, dumpsite news, from Sliabh Luachra

Breakthrough in Paper Recycling	Kerry County Council Composting Kit for 10 pounds
Litter in the Kerry countryside Local councilor speaks out	worm composting Turn your kitchen waste into clean useful organic compost & The perfect bait
Poor quality drinking water poses risk to 400,000	Water pollution Poor quality drinking water poses risk to 400,000 people
Carbon dioxide emissions	Genetic Engineering.
GM bug, a danger to all life Super-weeds Spread Across	Forestry

June 11th, 2001, by Micheal O Coileain,

Home Composter Kit,

Home composters will be available to anyone who requires them, there is no limit on the number. Available in Castleisland Mon. 9th- Wed 11 of July Castleisland Car Park from 10.00am -5.30pm.
Newspaper and glossy magazines recycling at certain sites is being done by Cork based Company called Indaver. The material is being exported to England.
On the issue of cardboard, we have sought tenders to build a materials recovery facility in Killarney, which will separate and bale cardboard from commercial outlets, and later domestic houses. This will be build in the coming year, and the land filling of cardboard, glass county wide, and commercial organic waste from Killarney and Tralee will be banned.
Technically speaking the burning of cardboard and paper as fuel is not to be encouraged. The EPA in the United States have proven that 40 families burning waste at home creates the same amount of dioxins as an incinerator for a far greater population.
There are good markets for Glass, Aluminium and food cans. Still only 30% of glass is recycled, despite having 60 Bring Bank sites in Kerry. Glass for commercial outlets is being collected more and more on a individual basis, and we will make it illegal for commercial outlets to use public bring banks.
The plastic bottle recycling (and possible tetra-pack), is being done by a company from Co.Down. It is a pilot project to cover Clare, Limerick and Kerry. There is no levy being imposed in the Drinks Company's, KCC are paying for the 13 sites in Kerry. We see it as an interim measure, until there is a dry recyclable collection in all towns over 1000 population.

Micheal O Coilean

What the minister Noel Dempsey suggests,

Walking, car sharing, buying small engine cars, public transport, cycling, buying food with less packaging, consume less generally is what the poor have always done.

The future for them is more of the same, now even more virtuous, poverty, which is an affective way of forcing people from the countryside , into the urban centres, leaving the countryside to the rich who can continue to consume and drive around the countryside wherever they like, buy expensively, packaged food, country holiday homes, they don't need public transport.

Dempsey under pressure as greenhouse gases soar

By Treacy Hogan/ Senan Molony

Environment Minister Noel Dempsey came under fire yesterday following EU confirmation of Ireland's failure to contain greenhouse gas emissions. Ireland exceeded every other EU member state except Spain with emmisions such as carbon dioxide up by over 22pc, nine per cent higher than the rise allowed up to 2010 under the Kyoto Protocol.

Mr. Dempsey faced criticism after confirming the introduction of green taxes on fossil fuels from next year. He said the money raised from the new taxes would be used to offset hardship effects on groups such as the elderly. But Fine Gael Leader Michael Noonan accused the minister of having "frightful neck" in criticising US President George W Bush over the Kyoto deal.

The latest figures released by the European Environment Agency for the period 1990- 1999 made "frightening reading", said Labour's Eamonn Gilmore. He said the Government's climate change strategy was gathering dust while emission levels continued to go through the roof. "Mr. Dempsey seems oblivious to this catastrophe. His failure to tackle the issue is storing up environmental and economic disaster for the future" A rise of over 22pc, while the EU as a whole managed to reduce greenhouse gases by 4pc, was also attacked by the Greens. Party TD Trevor Sargent said it was embarrassing to watch the Government condemn Mr. Bush's rejection of Kyoto when its own record was nothing short of disgraceful. "The European Environment Agency completely exposes the Government's environmental record for what it is- a complete shambles".

Ireland has also failed to meet its commitments on nitrogen oxide emissions and is unlikely to meet targets on sulphur dioxide.

Degradable witches knickers
Irish Times, Dec. 23rd, 2001

This plastic bag will turn into water a small amount of carbon dioxide and natural mineralisation, Says Tom Robinson working with Symphony Plastics in the UK.

It has been independently tested and was found to be suitable for direct contact with food. It is also completely harmless when buried in soil after it had degraded because plastic comes from oil, and oil originally comes from biomass compressed over many years. It can take 60 days, or up to six years, depending on how the degrading process has been programmed beforehand, and other factors.

Tom Robinson, originally from Thomastown, Co Kilkenny is one of the chemists responsible for the concept of a "Bag for Life", which he sees as a limited success. Although a good idea, it required shoppers to change their habits which, apparently, is not something that comes easy to most.

Irish retailers alone use almost 300,000 tons of plastic a year, two-thirds of this is plastic carrier bags, which end up in landfill or blowing about in trees and hedges.

The degradable bag won't cost retailers any more than they are already paying for their carrier bags, and the shopper won't have to pay for them either. www.degradable.net

A car that costs one cent a kilometer to run The car is for real and has the solution to the rising fuel cost, because it runs on compressed air. The car, called the e.volution, will be on show at the Auto Africa Expo 2000 at Nasrec. One tank of air will drive 200km at urban speeds. It’s made from light composite materials. The piston-driven engine weighs just 35kg but can produce 37kw using compressed air. To find out more http://news.bbc.co.uk look for world/africa/newsid or world/americas/newsid	engine at the rear Compressed air only 35 KG Tank
The vehicle, is currently being produced in France, where the first factories have already been installed. The car's creator, French engineer Guy Negre, says it is the first viable alternative to vehicles that run on conventional fuel. Mr Negre says a tank-full of air - on which a car can travel up to 200km (120 miles) at a speed of about 90km/h - is equivalent to two litres of petrol. If fleet owners install their own air stations, filling a car with 300 litres of compressed air could take three minutes.	The first models of air-powered vehicles - taxis, small pick-ups and delivery vans - are expected to be on the market this year. There are already plans for five production units in Mexico, as well as others in South Africa, Australia, the United States, Spain and Switzerland
May 30, 2001 Toyota Motors Wednesday delivered to the city of Denver 39 gas-electric hybrid cars that register 52 miles per gallon in city driving.	The cars will be used by the Denver Fire Department, Parks and Recreation and other city agencies Toyota also delivered seven RAV4-EVs, or electric vehicles, that get 126 miles (200 km) on "one tank" or charge, that will be leased by companies in the Denver area. The purchase of the 2001 Prius sedan models, which run on both an electric motor and a conventional engine, will bring to 14 percent the share of the city's light vehicle fleet that runs on alternate fuels, city officials said.The four-door Prius sedan, which seats five, does not need to be recharged because it generates power when the driver steps on the brake. Because of this, the car, which retails at $19,995, gets better mileage in the city than on the highway, 52 mpg (83 kilometers) compared with 48.

Revolutionary waste treatment process

What Herhof developed was a “closed loop” recycling system.

Municipal waste is taken in, shredded and then dried out for six days in large composting boxes. Afterwards, using a variety of technological devices, all of the recyclables- metals, glass, plastic and minerals- are recovered.

Some of these materials, especially aluminium and other non –ferrous metals, are valuable and their sale helps to reduce the overall treatment costs to 71 pounds per tonne. The residue, amounting to some 50 per cent of the original waste volume, which has a calorific value equivalent to lignite and can be used as fuel for cement kilns and power plants. And because it is largely inert, emissions are not problematic.

Nothing wasted: the Herhof system,

In Germany, one of the Herhof plants, a small incinerator fed by this “refuse-derived fuel” (RDF) provides all of its power needs. Water extracted from the waste is biologically treated, filtered and re-used in the plant’s cooling system, with no discharge to the environment. Exhaust air is also treated to comply with emission standards.

Most importantly, because used batteries are recovered during the separation process, the content of heavy metals in the RDF is reduced by 90 per cent.

No residue remains to be disposed of in landfill sites; indeed, an old landfill site right beside one of the plants is now being broken down and its decomposed waste fed into the treatment system.

Earlier this year, the company signed a contract to build its biggest plant in Trier, to treat and process 180,000 tonnes a year.

The reCulture approach to eco-friendly waste management
One tonne of household waste contains an energy resource equivalent to 300 litres of heating oil. Incinerating untreated waste, however, is environmentally hazardous, inefficient and uneconomical.
There is now a Swedish technique which recovers the best possible fuel from household waste, recycles metals and handles hazardous substances. We have named this the reCulture process.
Experience shows that environmentally-enhancing measures have the greatest positive impact if they go hand in hand with favourable economic conditions. The reCulture process is at present the only known technique to combine eco-friendly waste management with a favourable operating economy.To avoid leaching of heavy metals and other toxic substances into groundwater, all new landfills are to have an impervious floor, consisting of a thick layer of clay covered with robust plastic sheeting. In addition, landfill owners are to be made responsible for discharges over a longer period following the closure of landfills. This results in costs for third party insurance. Waste landfills will therefore become an increasingly expensive alternative in the future.

The reCulture process
The process developed by reCulture for the refining of household waste to a clean and effective fuel is based on the technique used in the recovery of cellulose fibre from recycled paper. Hot water is used as a medium to dissolve the material in the waste, to divide it into its constituent materials, and to transport it. At its least concentrated, the slurry is 1 per cent waste and 99 per cent water. To ensure the fuel is pure, certain targets must be met. First, the amount of non-combustible material, such as gravel, glass and metals, must be reduced. There is other environmentally hazardous waste, however, such as batteries and solvents. Furthermore, discarded food is the primary source of common salt, a substance causing problems during incineration.
The reCulture process is closed and works under low, sub-atmospheric pressure in order to avoid leakage of environmentally hazardous substances. Machinery and storage tanks are encased in an airtight system. All process air and other gas passes through an advanced purification system, as does the water used in the process. Because of the water content in the waste, the process results in a water surplus which is purified and bled into the recipient.

High-grade fuel
The reCulture process gives a high-grade fuel in the form of dried pellets. These have an even higher energy content than the common biofuels chips and bark. This fuel is virtually 100 per cent free of substances which have a negative environmental impact when combusted, such as salts, sulphur and heavy metals. The high purity level of reCulture fuel means that it can be burnt at higher temperatures, producing not only district heating, but also electricity.
reCulture fuel has an energy content of 5.7 MWh/tonne of dry substance, which is approximately 20-25 per cent higher than the energy content in pelleted chips, and just over half of the energy content in heating oil. The higher energy content is due to reCulture briquettes containing, in addition to fibre, a certain amount of lighter plastics which are not environmentally hazardous.

Recycling in Muingnaminane

Muingnaminane ’s Landfill is working on recycling. Waste like old oil, car batteries, fluorescent tubes, refrigerators…….

Organic waste is composted, and could be used in the garden as a fertile top dressing.

There are at the moment problems with compost received ; glass, plastic and silver paper are amongst the items found in the collected organic waste. This makes the compost unsafe for use.

The following items are now acceptable free of charge at the waste transfer station at Coolcaslagh Killarney for recycling elsewhere.

News paper, glossy Magazines, household Batteries, glass and drink cans, steel cans, waste car oil, car batteries, white kitchen goods( cookers, etc) fluorescent light bulbs.

Breakthrough in paper recycling

With a new ink-removal process, most paper could be recycled together, eliminating the need for sorting. At the same time, the new process would create a higher-grade pulp from recycled paper than what is currently produced, opening the door for a wider variety of recycled paper products.

Research at the University of Florida's Engineering Research Center for Particle Science and Technology, explains that current paper recycling technology involves adding water to paper to create slurry. The recycling plant then increases the alkalinity of the mixture and adds surfactants to absorb ink particles. Adding air bubbles to the slurry by stirring it with an impeller. Finally, these bubbles, with ink particles attached, float to the surface where they can be skimmed off.

The new technology replaces expensive surfactants, or surface-active substances, with less expensive chemicals that cause the slurry to generate its own bubbles, eliminating several steps in the process. As a result, the pulp slurry is thicker and contains more solids, which means a given volume of pulp creates more paper than before.

The new process uses chemicals that are less harmful to the environment than those used in conventional techniques.

Beauty spot becoming a dumping ground

Litter

The Kingdom Tuesday, June 6th, 2000

Indiscriminate dumping has turned one of the county's most unspoiled landscapes into a hazardous tip, according to Scartaglen councilor, Tom Fleming.

The area known as The Leaps and Joanie's Glen, between Kilcummin and Currow, has been used as a general dumping area for years, but the problem has intensified to such an extent that it is now a health hazard.

Cllr. Fleming has pleaded with Kerry County Council to organise a clean up of the area but his request met with very little success. He was told by officials that the scale of the dumping and the remoteness of the area would not be considered a priority within existing arrangements. Cllr. Fleming argued that the area had become a dangerous eyesore. " I would see this as a dereliction of their duty. They will have to take a more serious approach before the situation worsens even further," Cllr. Fleming stated. "They can't wash their hands of it any further," he warned.

click-

illegal dumpsite survey in Sliabh Luachra

A new programme of measures to tackle the country's litter problem was launched last year. The Litter Pollution Act, 1997, provides local authorities with the powers necessary to tackle litter and requires a new and more structured approach to litter management planning. Increased funding is available to local authorities to fight the litter problem from the significant increase in funding for day to day expenditure available to them in 1999 under the Local Government Fund.

	Among the measures now being taken are the establishment of an ongoing monitoring regime to assist and review local authority enforcement action and help to identify and eliminate litter black-spot
	co-funding of selected local authority public education and awareness initiatives in black-spot areas; promotion of anti-litter awareness among young people, in co-operation with the Department of Education and Science and through a new schools information programme developed by ENFO;
	provision of financial support for An Taisce's project: National Spring Clean 1999 - a multi-sectoral initiative to raise public awareness and participation in anti-litter initiatives at local level, which includes a central role for local authorities.

The Department has published a useful information leaflet, Litter and the Law which you can download.

Further Information: colm_keenan@environ.irlgov.ie

Limerick county Council has unanimously passed the Waste Plan for the Limerick, Clare and Kerry region. The Plan proposes drastically cutting dependence on Landfill from over 90 per cent to just 14 per cent with 41 per cent recycling and 45 per cent being thermally treated, generating energy from waste.

Waste

When waste is mentioned, officials often use words like householders, kerbside sorting and garden compost bins. Waste, in other words, is discussed in terms of domesticity. This hides a fundamental truth. Less than a third of municipal waste is currently domestic. The rest is largely commercial- what the dry-cleaner, shoe shops, restaurants builders ..... leave behind. And even that is not the whole story. Municipal waste does not include what is known as industrial waste, namely the by-product of the production process itself.

Brosna, Knocknagoshel areas, Regional Water Supply Scheme are currently under construction and will be ready for use in 2001.

Brosna is one of the most unsatisfactory schemes, but when the new scheme comes in operation next January it will deal with many of the problems in the Brosna and Knocknagoshel areas.

Kerry eye, 22nd June

The environmental Protection Agency Report on Quality of drinking water in Ireland states that because of the widespread incidence of Coliforms, the Kerry public supplies can only be described as being of moderately good quality overall.

Noel Dempsy, minister for the environment, promises 35 million pounds for water schemes

Ireland needs to achieve a reduction of 13.1 million tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions to meet the national target.

The main greenhouse gas in Ireland is Carbon dioxide arising from the burning of fossil fuels in transport, heating and electricity generation. Irish emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are proportionately high, mainly because of agriculture.

for more info

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2000/1102/hom50.htm

Only 14% of emissions are from transport, but this is expected to increase. In Ireland at the moment we have 30 cars per 100 people, in Europe it is 50 cars per 100 people, while in Europe there is much more public transport.

Automotive products

Home improvement products

Pesticides

Household cleaners

Gasoline, motor oil, antifreeze, windshield wiper fluid, car wax and cleaners, lead acid batteries, brake fluid, transmission fluid.

Paints, varnish, stain, paint thinner, paint stripper, caulk, adhesives.

Insecticide and repellent, weed killer, rat and mouse poison, pat spray and dip, flea collars, mothballs, desinfective, wood preservative.

Furniture polish and wax, drain opener, oven cleaner, tub and tile cleaner, toilet cleaner, spot remover, bleach, ammonia.

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The latest on RECYCLING by Micheal O Coileain, Environmental Officer	Irish Information on the Environment: LINKS

ESB Community Environment Awards	Saorgus plans to extend wind farm
Degradable witches knickers	2.9m plan for organic farmers

A car that costs one cent a kilometer to run