Waste

Michigan may join most Great Lakes states in banning mercury in toys, landfills

By |

 

Even though only 1 percent of toys contain mercury, Mike Shriberg says that’s too much of the dangerous element in the hands of vulnerable children. “You’re still talking about millions of products out there,” said Shribert, a children’s health advocate. The Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health, where Shriberg directs policy, is pushing a package of bills in the Michigan Legislature to tighten restrictions on mercury-containing products, including toys. The bills passed the house last week and were sent to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs. Michigan and Pennsylvania are the only two Great Lakes states that haven’t banned the sale of mercury-added “novelties,” a term lawmakers use to cover products as diverse as  toys, games, shoes and yard statues.

Echo

Great Lakes fish eaters less contaminated than a decade ago

By |

Anglers who ate Great Lakes fish have 33 percent fewer PCBs and 43 percent less DDT in their bodies than they did a decade ago, largely because they changed their diet and switched to less contaminated fish, according to a study by Wisconsin researchers. The scientists compared blood drawn from people in 1994-1995 with blood from the same people drawn roughly nine years later. Most of the 293 men and women tested were sports fishers and boat captains who consumed large amounts of Great Lakes fish. One reason for the decline “is that your body excretes these chemicals over time as they slowly get metabolized,” said Lynda Knobeloch, study leader and senior toxicologist at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. “The other is that exposure levels are much, much lower than what they were 30 years ago.”

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs—industrial compounds used largely to insulate electrical transformers—and the pesticide DDT were banned in the United States in the 1970s.

Echo

Toxaphene – A stubborn pollutant persists

By |

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
April 23, 2009

The largest, deepest and coldest Great Lake holds another distinction, – it has the highest levels of toxaphene found in the region and possibly anywhere in the world. Since federal bans on persistent pollutants in the 1970s and 80s, most chemical concentrations have declined in the Great Lakes. Some Great Lakes toxicologists say the same is true of toxaphene. But toxaphene in Lake Superior has increased by 25 percent since its ban in 1990, according to Mel Visser, a former environmental health safety officer and author of Cold, Clear and Deadly, a book that details the legacy of Great Lakes contaminants. The insecticide has been shown to damage the immune system, nervous system, lungs and cause cancer.

Echo

An ill wind blows no good

By |

Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo 4/21/09
As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health. That has some experts questioning if it’s worthwhile to spend money to remove toxic sediments if they will once more become contaminated in a matter of years. “We have been very hung up on cleaning the watershed because we believed it was the source of contamination in the lake, but in recent decades contamination has come through the air,” said Mel Visser, former vice president of environmental health safety at Upjohn Pharmaceutical in Michigan and author of Cold, Clear, and Deadly: Unraveling a Toxic Legacy. “Even if you cleaned all the lakes tomorrow you wouldn’t do anything to the water because the concentration of these chemicals is controlled by the amount in the air,” said Visser, whose book describes current sources of chemicals that continue to pollute the Great Lakes’ air, food supply and water. The Great Lakes Legacy Act signed in 2002, provides funding to clean up Great Lakes sediments.

Echo

Building a Great Lakes toxic legacy

By |

Millions of dollars have been spent cleaning historic Great Lakes contamination. Millions more are sought. Does it make sense to clean the lakes before the pollution sources are eliminated? A look at toxic fallout. An ill wind blows no good
As contaminated sediment is cleaned up in the Great Lakes, persistent pollutants continue to blow in, threatening again to poison soil and harm human health.

Echo

Wisconsin county overcomes air pollution imports to avoid regulation

By |

By Julia Cechvala
Great Lakes Echo

For the past six years the Dane County Clean Air Coalition has promoted voluntary efforts to reduce air pollution. In February they paid off when the coalition announced that the county meets the federal standards for fine particle pollution. This means that Dane, along with Brown and Columbia counties, escaped regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency can impose on “non-attainment areas.”

Plenty of air quality challenges have confronted Dane County, including some outside the county’s control. Emissions as far away as Texas or Ohio affect Wisconsin’s air, according to Larry Bruss, head of regional pollution issues for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Industrial farms, factories and power plants emit pollutants that combine to form ground level ozone and fine particle pollution.

Echo

The vanishing dark night and its health consequences

By |

By Matthew Cimitile, cimitile@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo

As the world gears up to turn off its lights for Earth Hour Saturday, researchers and stargazers suggest a need to reduce excessive light pollution permanently. In the industrialized world, dark skies pierced with radiant starlight are increasingly rare. Starlight that guided earlier humans down from the trees and through the wilderness and uncharted waters to every corner of the planet has rapidly vanished. That leaves a dimmer view that some researchers say may cause health problems from breast cancer to insomnia. But stargazers, astronomers, conservation experts and health advocates are attempting to regain the night sky to ignite wonder, save energy and protect health.

Echo

Discarded computers pose recycling risks

By |

By Andrew McGlashen
Great Lakes Echo

Most college students don’t think about lead or mercury when they sit down at a computer. But in 2007, Michigan State University chucked more than 140,000 pounds — that’s about 50 Volkswagen Beetles —of used electronics. Among the heaps of computers, printers and other unwanted machines were some 1,405 monitors containing, by a conservative estimate, 5,560 pounds of toxic lead that can seriously damage the nervous system, especially in children. The electronics students use each day contain these and other toxic substances known to harm human health, and they have to go somewhere when their universities upgrades to the latest technology. Environmental activists and government officials say much of the so-called e-waste is frequently and illegally exported to developing countries, where it’s often handled improperly, posing serious health risks and degrading the environment.