Government▼Watch Transatlantic differences on wood preservatives
PHOTODISC
A new European Union (EU) ban on arsenic in wood preservatives goes a step further than voluntary phaseout agreements announced early last year by officials from the U.S. EPA and Health Canada with the wood treatment industry.
Each of the policies will effectively remove chromated copper arsenate (CCA), the most commonly used wood preservative, from the consumer market in the near future, restricting its use to essential industrial applications such as electricity and telephone poles and pilings, railway ties, and highway construction. But although none of the policies applies to existing structures, the EU law to take effect by July 2004 classifies CCAtreated wood as a hazardous waste, bringing into play special disposal requirements when the wood is removed from service. Neither the United States nor Canada has stipulated such requirements under their agreements with industry. Additionally, the EU’s Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity, and the Environment considers CCA to be both genotoxic and a carcinogen, finding that no safe threshold limit exists. EPA, for its part, is currently conducting a risk assessment for CCA under reregistration provisions of the federal pesticide law, but it has not concluded that CCA-treated wood poses any unreasonable risks to the public or the environment, says Dave Deegan, an agency spokesperson. © 2003 American Chemical Society
Officials expect to release the risk assessment sometime this year for public comment. Meanwhile, the alternative chemical wood treatments are also raising concerns, particularly those containing copper (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 126A). Consequently, environmental groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Beyond Pesticides are pushing for the use of naturally pest-resistant wood species or nonwood alternatives such as recycled steel, plastic, rubber, and cement, with chemical treatments of alkaline copper quaternary, copper boron azole, or copper 8-quinolinate used only as a last resort. For more information on the EU arsenic ban, go to http://europa.eu. int/comm/enterprise/chemicals/ markrestr/ongowk/recentmodif.htm. More information about EPA’s work on CCA can be found at www.epa. gov/pesticides/citizens/1file.htm. —KRIS CHRISTEN
EU proposes trading greenhouse gases European Union (EU) environment ministers agreed in December to create the world’s first transnational greenhouse gas emissions trading system, to start in 2005. If the proposal is signed into law, it should help the EU reach its target of reducing 1990 emissions by 8% by 2012, as agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The proposal sets forth a twotiered system, under which a broad range of industrial sectors would face limits on CO2 emissions. The energy supply, iron and steel, building materials (including cement, glass, and ceramics), and the paper and pulp industries would need to comply by 2005 to 2007. A second phase starting in 2008 would likely include the chemical industry and may extend to other greenhouse gases. The European Commission (EC) predicts that
4000–5000 installations within the EU’s 15 members will participate by 2010, accounting for 46% of total CO2 emissions. The EC would approve each member state’s plan for emissions limits for each sector. By January 2005, each state should be ready to issue enough allowances to individual companies to meet its national plan. Initially, allowances would be free, but after 2008, states can choose to sell up to 10% of their allowances. Allowances would have serial numbers and be registered on a central registry, permitting companies to trade them electronically. The EC predicts that trading allowances will reduce the EU’s costs of cutting emissions by about 35%. Designated national authorities will verify and monitor all trades. At a specified time each year, companies would have to surrender enough allowances to offset their emissions from the preceding year. From 2005 to 2007, companies with shortfalls would be fined $40 per ton of CO2 equivalent; thereafter, it would rise to $100. Significantly, the EC would be able to approve opt-outs by individual installations or activities between 2005 and 2007, if they meet certain criteria. Before the scheme becomes law, the bill will return to the European Parliament, and then it will pass back to EU environment ministers. The proposal could be approved as early as this year, or as late as 2004, depending on when the Parliament starts its debate. Meanwhile, environmental organizations will be lobbying for some changes. Greenpeace is unhappy with the opt-out clause, which could allow the dirtiest companies to pollute undisturbed and creates market distortions from the beginning, says Mahi Sideridou of Greenpeace’s EU policy unit. The group wants the program to include all greenhouse gases and to make companies pay for their allocations. —MARIA BURKE
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PHOTODISC
The United Kingdom is debating draft legislation that would allow local authorities to trade “landfill allowances” in a scheme similar to trading greenhouse gas emissions. It has been hailed as the first of its kind in Europe.
Under the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, the government would issue authorities allowances specifying how much biodegradable municipal waste is eligible for disposal in landfills. The government could then penalize authorities that exceed their allowances. The proposal requires regions to produce strategies to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste sent to landfills, plans that might include encouraging householders to compost this waste, even providing householders with boxes so it can be collected and composted centrally. This waste, such as cardboard, paper, food, garden waste, and natural textiles, degrades in landfill to produce methane, making landfills the largest anthropogenic source of this greenhouse gas. In August 2002, the government produced a report showing that the United Kingdom has one of the worst household recycling rates in Europe—only 12%, and nearly all of the rest goes to landfills. The legislation should help the United Kingdom meet its commitments under the European Landfill Directive, which targets land-filled biodegradable municipal waste to be 75% of that produced in 1995 by 2010; 50% by 2013; and 35% by 2020. “I don’t know of any other landfill allowance trading scheme in Europe or the United States; it’s pretty revolutionary,” says Mike Childs of the London-based environmental group
Friends of the Earth (FoE). “What’s more, the U.K. is the only European country to set targets for shifting biodegradable waste from landfills.” While welcoming the bill’s intention, Childs is concerned that waste not land filled could end up being incinerated. FoE is lobbying legislators to stipulate that the waste is recycled or composted. Molly Macauley of Resources for the Future (RFF), a think tank in Washington, D.C., also believes it’s the first landfill trading scheme anywhere. She points out that RFF has proposed a different option for controlling landfill methane by trading methane allowances. Landfills with methane controls or systems to convert methane to natural gas could offer allowances to landfills without these systems. “It would also encourage shipments of the higher methanecontent types of waste, such as food and paper, to landfills that could specialize in gas-to-energy recovery,” she adds. Before becoming law, the bill must be debated by the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It is expected to become law by October 2003. MARIA BURKE
China approves massive water diversion scheme The Chinese government has officially approved a huge project to divert water from some of its longest rivers to the dry plains of the north in what it claims will be the world’s largest infrastructure project. The plan is to build three massive north–south PHOTODISC
U.K. landfills may see waste trading
aqueducts to channel water across nearly half of China to relieve those areas afflicted by droughts and desertification. Observers, however, are concerned about the ecological effects of the changes and are skeptical about whether the project will be completed.
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In the north, years of drought combined with overpumping and unchecked industrial development have dried up rivers, wells, and lakes and sapped water tables. Government figures show that of China’s 668 cities, 400 are short of water. Millions of people drink contaminated water, and farmers have rioted over precious water supplies in the countryside Officials with the Ministry of Water Resources say the initial phase of the project will connect river systems in eastern and central China, and should be finished in the next 5 to 10 years. They hope that, upon completion, severe water shortages in Beijing, Tianjin, and other urban areas in the north will end sometime near 2010. The government plans to invest $18.7 billion in this first phase, according to Water Resources ViceMinister Zhang Jiyao, who announced the project last November, 50 years after it was first proposed. But he would not reveal the investment required for the entire project, which is scheduled for completion in 2050. The government intends to finance the project through a mix of loans and higher water prices in the north. “All the scientific studies [of the project] have raised problems including economical, ecological, engineering, and environmental health issues,” says Baruch Boxer, Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University. Numerous studies in Chinese, published over the past 20 years, challenge government cost-and-benefit assumptions, Boxer adds. Doris Shen of the International Rivers Network, an environmental organization, adds that water diversion would be costly. Researchers at Tianjin Geological and Mineral Institute have found that the construction of dams and changes in river channels destroy the distribution of the surface water system, Shen says. They found that rivers and reservoirs were drying out and lakes and wetlands were shrinking, exacerbated by dry weather, increasing temperature, and soil erosion. Water diversion from rivers could also increase river water temperature, she adds, possibly disrupting wildlife’s spawning temperatures and food sources. Shen urges the government to research other options, such as addressing water losses from taps and urban water pollution control. —MARIA BURKE
