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The health care industry has a garbage problem.

It’s not just that hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics and other health facilities generate several billion pounds of garbage each year: buried in that mountain of trash are untold numbers of unused disposable medical devices as well as used but recyclable supplies and equipment, from excess syringes and gauze to surgical instruments.

The problem, fueled by a shift toward the use of disposables that made it simple to keep treatment practices sterile, has been an open secret for years, but getting the health care industry to change its habits has not been easy. No organization currently tracks how much medical trash the United States produces — the last known estimate, from the early 1990s, was two million tons a year.

Only recently has the industry begun grappling with the amount of waste it generates, and one reason is that financially stressed hospitals are seeking ways to cut costs.

“We’ve just seen a sea change,” said Cecilia DeLoach Lynn, director of sustainability education at Practice Greenhealth, a nonprofit group in Reston, Va., that is working to shrink the environmental footprint of health care institutions.

Read the complete article at NY Times Health

Switching off lights, turning the television off at the mains and using cooler washing cycles could have a much bigger impact on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power stations than previously thought, according to a new study published this month in the journal Energy Policy. The study shows that the figure used by government advisors to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide saved by reducing people’s electricity consumption is up to 60 percent too low. 

The power stations that supply electricity vary in their carbon dioxide emission rates, depending on the fuel they use: those that burn fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) have higher emissions than those driven by nuclear power and wind. In general only the fossil fuel power stations are able to respond instantly to changes in electricity demand.

Dr Adam Hawkes, the author of the new study from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, says the government should keep track of changing carbon emission rates from power stations to ensure that policy decisions for reducing emissions are based on robust scientific evidence. The new study suggests that excluding power stations with low carbon emission rates, such as wind and nuclear power stations, and focusing on those that deal with fluctuating demand would give a more accurate emission figure. 

Scientists advising government on for the best ways to reduce electricity demand currently use an estimated figure for emission rates. The new study shows that, at 0.43 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed, this figure is 60 percent lower than the actual rates observed between 2002 and 2009 (0.69 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour), meaning that policy studies are underestimating the impact of people reducing their electricity use.

Read the complete store at Science Daily

The emission of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide has been structurally underestimated, as a result of the measuring methods used. This is the conclusion of the scientist Petra Kroon, who carried out research for the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) and Delft University of Technology (TU Delft, The Netherlands) into an innovative method for measuring the emission of these gases.

Kroon recently obtained her PhD degree for this much more accurate method, which also partly solves the problem of this systematic underestimation.

When it comes to greenhouse gases many of us think first of CO2. But a large proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions are actually other gases, such as N2O (nitrous oxide) and CH4 (methane). In the Netherlands the contributions of methane and nitrous oxide to the total emission of greenhouse gases are estimated to be 8% and 6% respectively. Worldwide these figures are 14% and 9%.

The emission of methane and nitrous oxide is largely the result of agricultural activities; nitrous oxide from fertilizers and methane mostly from cows. In peat pasture areas these emissions are particularly prevalent. PhD student Petra Kroon carried out measurements of methane and nitrous oxide for ECN and TU Delft on an intensively managed peat pasture, but the measuring techniques she used can also be used in other ecosystems.

Given the large contribution these two gases make to total greenhouse emissions, it is important to chart their emission levels accurately. According to Kroon, however, there are considerable disadvantages to the emission measurement technique most commonly used for these gases, the so-called ‘chamber measurement’ method. Put simply, this involves regularly measuring the concentration of the gases emitted from the soil and trapped in a sealed box. Rising concentrations of these gases are then analyzed in order to draw conclusions about the amount of gas being given off by a given surface area. The problem with this method is that methane and nitrous oxide emissions fluctuate strongly in time and space. “If you do the same measurements ten meters away, or ten days later, the results can be totally different. To reduce uncertainty you would have to do an almost impossible number of measurements,” explains Kroon. The result is a high uncertainty in the measured annual emission values: about 50%.

Read the complete store at Science Daily

Many businesses are finding out the hard way that going green faces significant barriers to implementation from government agencies and utilities slow to accept technology change. In this video interview with Mike Kerwin, a green builder, Kerwin speaks to his experience attempting to be one of the first home builders to incorporate rainwater recapture systems and living roofs into a home’s remodeling:

What makes Kerwin’s interview encouraging are his examples of success like the Gap’s 10 year success having a living roof atop their building.

Mike Kerwin is a tremendous resource on both green building experiences and how to build a brand presence in the growing and maturing market for green technology solutions.

Read the complete article at Triple Pundit:

A new online database created by World Resources Institute (WRI) and Big Room Inc. will allow companies and consumers to compare claims between different environmental certifications for food and consumer products, according to a press release.

The 2010 Global Ecolabel Monitor’s aim is to make it easier for companies and consumers to reduce their environmental impact by allowing them to more easily compare different environmental standards.

According to the site, WRI and Big Room Inc. invited more than 340 ecolabels in 42 countries to complete a survey of 66 questions ranging from certification criteria to funding sources. More than 113 ecolabel programs participated in the survey while more than half, including some prominent labels, could not be reached or elected not to participate when asked about certification requirements.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader:

Almost half the automotive fleets in the country, 49 percent, are now measuring their emissions, according to a recent survey by fleet management services provider PHH Arval.

Among the companies tracking their emissions, 65 percent are using the actual fuel data as the basis for their measurement, according to a report in Today’s Trucking.

This is PHH’s fourth annual survey of fleet operators. The survey was designed to gauge fleet managers’ insights into environmental issues, how fleets are implementing solutions that would reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and more. In 2008, slightly more than a quarter of all fleets (28 percent) were measuring their emissions. There have been significant gains in this area in the past two years.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader