Author: admin

Unlimited access to tiny individually-wrapped soaps is one of the many perks of a hotel stay. But what happens to soaps that aren’t used (or pilfered) during your visit? The answer may surprise you.

More than two million partially used bars of soap are discarded at North American hotels each day, according to the Global Soap Project. Even if hotel soaps haven’t been used, quality control standards usually prohibit cleaning staff from reusing the same soaps for multiple guests – especially if the paper wrapping is wet or opened. So, unused and partially used soaps are often destined for the landfill.

But Hilton Worldwide is planning to change all that at its 3,750 hotels by partnering with the Global Soap Project to recycle old soaps for a cause, the company announced on Tuesday. The Atlanta-based nonprofit will collect partially used soaps from Hilton and its subsidiaries, sanitize them and reprocess them into new bars – which are then distributed in developing countries.

Read the complete article at Earth911.com

HCWH has released a video meant to be part of training program for hospitals around the world aiming to eliminate mercury and safely manage and store mercury waste while governments search for a more permanent solution.

The video is based on the UNDP-GEF Global Healthcare Waste Project mercury waste management guidelines and was produced with support from UNEP and the government of Norway. It supports the WHO-HCWH Global Mercury Free Initiative goal of developing replicable models of sound mercury waste management in the health sector. It is available in Spanish and English and is adaptable to other languages. It is targeted for health care workers, and will be disseminated and used in developing countries.

Watch the 10 minute video at Healthcare Without Harm News

The Summit NPPR is co-sponsoring the 2012 National Training Conference on the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and Environmental Conditions in Communities with the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) and the U.S. EPA.  Co-sponsoring the 2012 TRI conference is a great opportunity for NPPR members to engage with a broader network of professionals on issues of pollution prevention and sustainability.  The TRI conference will focus on pollution prevention and using Toxics Release inventory data to promote sustainability.

The conference will be held in Washington, DC at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, April 11 – 13, 2012.

The theme for the conference is “Understanding the Past and Promoting a Sustainable Future”.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Industry achievements and economic benefits of P2 initiatives
• External influences on industry behavior (e.g. TRI reporting consumer behavior, Global Reporting Initiative)
• Measuring and assessing corporate sustainability using TRI data alone or with other data
• TRI influences on corporate research and development
• Challenges to achieving sustainability
• Providing information to data users through effective partnerships, innovative tools, and outreach (e.g. E3 Program, CARE grants)
• How Federal programs are promoting sustainability (e.g.  Green Chemistry; Office of Sustainable Communities; Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics; Dept. of Defense; Dept. of Energy)
• TRI, P2, and toxics reduction programs in localities, states, and Tribes
• Current research on toxics reduction and sustainability
• Improving public awareness and use of TRI
• Improving understanding of environmental and health conditions in communities through use of TRI data

The deadline for abstracts is November 19.  To submit an abstract go to http://www.chemicalright2know.org/tri-conference/2012-tri-national-conference/2012-abstract-submission-form/.

Improving the energy efficiency of America’s hospitals by 10 percent would save $740 million annually in energy bills

WASHINGTON – Healthcare organizations spend $7.4 billion in energy costs each year. To improve energy efficiency, thousands of hospitals rely on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star tools to help track consumption and prioritize facilities for energy upgrades. Today, EPA released an important update to Energy Star’s national energy performance scale methodology for hospitals. The updated performance scale will help hospitals better assess their energy performance and make more informed financial and investment decisions in order to cut costs and improve their energy efficiency.

Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager, an online energy measurement and tracking tool, will now include the updated hospital methodology. Over 85 percent of the acute care hospital market has already benchmarked their energy use with Portfolio Manager, making it the most widely used tool of its kind in the healthcare market. The update to Portfolio Manager reflects new survey data provided by the American Society for Healthcare Engineering and the significant changes in how hospitals use energy in recent years.

Improving the energy efficiency of America’s hospitals by 10 percent would save 7.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, 243 million therms of natural gas each year, and about $740 million annually in energy bills. It would also prevent greenhouse gas emissions equal to that from the annual electricity use of over 712,000 homes.

The updated Energy Star national energy performance scale methodology for hospitals now includes data inputs for the number of MRI machines and personnel and adjustments to weather normalization to reflect the amount of energy used to cool the building. Additionally, the methodology’s 5 million square foot size cap was removed, allowing larger hospitals to take advantage of the online tool.

Energy Star was started by EPA in 1992 as a market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the Energy Star label can be found on more than 60 different kinds of products as well as new homes and commercial and industrial buildings that meet strict energy-efficiency specifications set by EPA. Last year alone, Americans, with the help of Energy Star, saved about $18 billion on their energy bills while preventing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the annual emissions of 33 million vehicles.

More information on Energy Star and the healthcare industry: http://www.energystar.gov/healthcare

Proposed Regulation for Implementing SB417 Concerning Municipal Recycling at Apartments & Condominiums: NAC 444A.120 and NAC 444A.130

AGENDA

Items on the Agenda may be taken out of order.

1. Introduction and brief explanation of revision process by NDEP staff.
2. Presentation of proposed regulation R049-11. Inclusion to NAC 444.120 and NAC 444.130: Adding provisions for recycling services at apartment complexes and condominiums.
3. Public questions and comments regarding proposed regulation R049-11.
4. Closing comments by NDEP staff.

The proposed regulation and related materials are available on the NDEP website at:

http://ndep.nv.gov/admin/public.htm.  A copy of materials relating to the proposed regulations may also be obtained at the workshop or from Jasmine Vittori at NDEP, 901 S. Stewart Street, Suite 4001, Carson City, NV 89701-5249; or by calling (775) 687-9466; or email to jvittori@ndep.nv.gov.

Fact Sheet for the Proposed Recycling Regulations

Recycling Regulations Public Notice and Agenda