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By Jennifer C. Kerr, Associated Press
Manufacturing.Net – February 28, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s something Nikki Johns wishes had been around before her infant son died in a drop-side crib: a centralized federal database of people’s safety complaints about thousands of products, from baby gear to household appliances and more.

Johns, other parents who have tragically lost children, and consumer advocates are eagerly awaiting March 11, the formal launch date for the government database SaferProducts.gov, where people can share complaints of injury or worse from everyday products such as cribs, high chairs, space heaters and toasters.

But the database, overseen by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, isn’t universally popular. Manufacturers and some members of Congress fear such a “crowd-sourced” website will be bloated with bogus, inaccurate or misleading reports. One of those lawmakers, freshman Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., sponsored an amendment approved in the House last week to withhold additional funding for the database, which could bring the project to a halt. Prospects for his amendment in the Democratic-led Senate aren’t clear.

Anyone can submit a “report of harm” to the SaferProducts.gov database. They aren’t required to have first-hand knowledge of the alleged injury or potential defect that could lead to injury. The reports are reviewed by commission staff to make sure basic information is provided — name, contact information, product, injury and approximate date, though personal information will be scrubbed before the report hits the database. The manufacturer is informed of the complaint and has 10 days to respond before the report is made public. CPSC says reports that have missing or clearly untrue information won’t be published.

Plenty of safeguards exist to ensure accuracy, insists CPSC Commissioner Bob Adler, a Democrat and database supporter. Not only will manufacturers be allowed to publish any rebuttal along with the complaint, Adler said the commission will remove or attempt to correct any information that is found to be false.

Read the complete article at Manufacturing Net

The amount of post-consumer non-bottle rigid plastic recovered for recycling increased by a third between 2008 and 2009, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

The ACC’s third annual report (pdf) on this subset of plastic recycling found that at least 479 million pounds were recovered in 2009, a 47 percent increase since 2007.

About 51 percent of the 2009 material was manufactured into new products in the U.S. or Canada, with the rest exported, mostly to China. The primary domestic end uses for these plastics are composite products, such as lumber and railroad ties, and relatively thick-walled injection products such as pots and crates.

Some non-bottle rigid plastics are collected as part of commercial recycling efforts – for example, companies recycle used crates, pallets and e-scrap, the ACC said. But the report said that the growth in recovery of these plastics is mostly due to community efforts.

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader

The Clorox Company has announced it is now disclosing the following additional information about its products through its Ingredients Inside program: Specific identity of preservatives and dyes in all U.S. and Canadian cleaning, disinfecting and laundry products. This information expands upon the listing of active ingredients, which has been provided to consumers over the last two years.  Palette of fragrance ingredients – listed in numerical and alphabetical order – used in all U.S. and Canadian cleaning, disinfecting and laundry products. Clorox is also including a link to a PDF file that includes each fragrance ingredient’s CAS Registry Number, the unique numerical identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service to every chemical available in open scientific literature, as well as the fragrance chemical names, provided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).  The Ingredients Inside program is available at: http://www.thecloroxcompany.com/products/ingredients-inside/en-us/clorox/ .

February 23, 2011

Winners of the third annual Next Generation Luminaires^TM (NGL) awards were announced today at the Strategies in Light Conference in Santa Clara, California. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, and the International Association of Lighting Designers, the competition was launched in 2008 to promote excellence in the design of energy-efficient LED luminaires for general illumination in commercial lighting applications. Solid-state lighting (SSL) has the potential to save Americans $15 billion a year in energy costs by 2030. Advancing SSL is a part of the administration’s efforts to save Americans money by conserving energy and increasing American leadership in energy-efficient building technologies.

A panel of 12 judges from the architectural lighting design community evaluated the NGL entries based on performance, appearance, construction, and submitted photometric data. The “best-in-class” winners came from four different manufacturers and covered four different areas of lighting:

• The Lighting Quotient Inc. (West Haven, Connecticut): Awarded “best-in-class” for its Linear Concealed LED Luminaire cove lighting fixture.
• Philips Color Kinetics (Burlington, Massachusetts) : Awarded “best-in-class” for its eW Burst Powercore facade lighting fixture.
• Koncept Technologies Inc. (Monterey Park, California): Awarded “best-in-class” for its Equo LED Desk Lamp task lighting fixture.
• USAI (New Windsor, New York): Awarded “best-in-class” for its NanoLED recessed accent lighting fixture.

This year, 42 commercial LED lighting products were recognized for excellence. Out of 138 entries from 61 companies, 33 were recognized as winners, in addition to the four that were chosen as “best in class.” An additional five products were deemed “notable,” a new category created for those NGL entries that might not yet be considered specifiable but nevertheless have at least one outstanding characteristic deserving of recognition.

Click here to Read the complete article

Today marks the launch of a very important website for nurses- www.envirn.org. This new collaborative website is a phenomenal resource for all nurses.

The new one-stop-shop for nurses who are interested in Environmental Health is launching on Feb 14th!! EnviRN – The Knowledge Network at www.enviRN.org. We are launching on Valentine’s Day because it is a day in which we actively acknowledge our love. In this instance, we are acknowledging our love for nursing and our love for healthy environments.

The American Nurses Association has just established an environmental health practice standard for all nurses – firmly placing environmental health in our professional domain.

EnviRN is not just a website – it is also an active learning environment in which we can interchangeably be both teacher and a learner.  It is a site for gathering essential environmental health information from experts; connecting with nursing researchers, and creating your very own blog posts on an area of interest to you.  You can check out the EnviRN calendar for conferences, webinars and other events. AND EnviRN makes it easy for you to both learn about hot environmental policies and jump right in with a letter to your congressman or senator. It’s a place to learn how to Green your hospitals, help your patients reduce their environmental health risks, or tell us about a raging policy debate in your city or state. It’s also the web home for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments and we welcome any nurse to join our free monthly calls on environmental health and nursing education, practice, research and/or advocacy/policy. Register and add your profile and picture and start connecting with nurses around the country on environmental health.  Check it out!!!!    www.enviRN.org

You are invited to a free webinar on Friday March 4 at 1pm – 2pm EST to learn about EnviRN – The Knowledge Network and all the possibilities available on the site for nurses interested in environmental health. Space is limited so please RSVP to Katie Huffling at khuff002@son.umaryland.edu

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has notified five companies that the identities of 14 chemicals associated with a number of health and safety studies submitted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and claimed as confidential are not eligible for confidential treatment.

The agency announced the move yesterday, saying it would “increase public access to chemical information to help Americans understand risks posed by chemicals in our environment.”

Last year, EPA established a plan to review confidentiality claims for the names of  chemicals addressed in health and safety studies. Under these new procedures the agency is moving to declassify many chemical identities so they are no longer secret.

Read the complete story at Environmental Leader

EPA announced that based on new scientific evidence, the agency will regulate perchlorate to reduce its prevalence in the nation’s water and to protect human health.  In a separate action, the agency is also seeking to establish a new drinking water strategy to address as a group up to 16 toxic chemicals (volatile organic compounds) to protect public health and well being.  For more information, go to EPA Drinking Water Perchlorate

US-based nonprofit to assess 173 hospital facilities

Washington D.C. (January 20, 2011) – The Green Building Initiative, (GBI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the acceleration of sustainable building practices, was recently awarded a contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide online, green building self-evaluations for 173 hospital facilities using Green Globes® Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings environmental rating and assessment tool.  As part of the contract, GBI will provide training for VA facilities management personnel who will be performing the web-enabled assessments.  This recent award follows a 2009 pilot project by the VA in which 21 hospitals across the US were assessed and certified using the Green Globes system.

The Green Globes Continual Improvement for Existing Buildings (CIEB) tool was selected and GBI was awarded the contract based on VA requirements that included:  tool compatibility with a third party green building rating system developed by an ANSI –accredited organization,  compatibility with the Federal High Performance and Sustainable Building Guidance dated 12/1/2008, cost, and demonstrated experience with the assessment and certification of other Federal Government facilities.

The Green Globes CIEB program helps establish performance baselines, best practices and certification for operations and maintenance of a building in the environmental assessment areas of energy, water, resource management and emissions and pollution. The fully interactive, web-enabled tool also allows facility personnel to measure, document, and improve the sustainability of a building over time.

On February 28, 2006 the Department of Veterans Affairs joined 21 Federal departments and agencies in signing the Memorandum of Understanding on Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings.  The MOU commits the signatories to demonstrate leadership in implementing common strategies for planning, acquiring, siting, designing, building, operating, and maintaining high performance and sustainable buildings. The Sustaining Guiding Principles employ integrated design, optimizing energy performance, protecting and conserving water, enhancing the indoor environment, and reducing the impact of materials as best practices to achieve these goals.

“The 173 buildings to be assessed encompass some of the largest and most complex commercial buildings in the US.  This project represents the first steps in what could be a broader sustainability assessment/certification initiative spanning entire campuses,” commented Ward Hubbell, President of the Green Building Initiative. “Green Globes is highly compatible with the elements of the High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Guidance and is an important tool to help federal agencies evaluate compliance with the Executive Order,” he added.

Upon implementation, this project represents the first large scale, nationwide deployment and application of online evaluation tools for comprehensive sustainability assessment within a major Federal Government agency.

ABOUT THE GREEN BUILDING INITIATIVE:The mission of the Green Building Initiative is to accelerate the adoption of building practices that result in energy-efficient, healthier and environmentally sustainable buildings by promoting credible and practical green building approaches.  A not-for-profit education initiative, the GBI is supported by a broad cross section of organizations and individuals with an interest in residential and commercial construction.  For more information on the Green Building Initiative, please visit www.thegbi.org