Latest news with #hazardouswaste
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
OC WASTE & RECYCLING HOSTS FREE MARINE FLARE DISPOSAL EVENT IN DANA POINT ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 16
One-Day, Drop-Off Helps Boaters Safely Dispose of Expired Marine Flares Marine Flare Collection Event Dana Point, California, July 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OC Waste & Recycling (OCWR) is hosting a one-day collection event for boaters and residents to dispose of marine flares free of charge. The drive-through event will be held from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, at 24650 Dana Point Harbor in Dana Point. Unexploded, expired flares are considered explosives requiring special handling for disposal. Boat owners are encouraged to participate in this convenient public service event as part of their summer boating season checklist. Participants must transport expired flares in vehicle trunks. Upon arrival, staff will collect items directly from vehicles for safe disposal. A separate walk-up disposal area will be offered. 'Responsible disposal of expired marine flares keeps hazardous waste out of our landfills and waterways, protecting sensitive coastal ecosystems,' said Tom Koutroulis, director, OC Waste & Recycling. 'Marine flares are to be used in the case of an emergency, and we are proud to partner with our community to safeguard our coastlines to ensure proper disposal, so they don't create an emergency,' he added. This is a marine flare disposal event only. Electronic flares, military flares, and any other hazardous waste such as paint, oil, e-waste, or batteries will not be accepted. For information on the proper disposal of household hazardous waste, visit For general recycling questions, visit Event Details Date: Saturday, August 16 Time: 7 a.m. - 1 p.m. Location: Dana Point Harbor,34555 Casitas Place, Dana Point; near Harbor Blvd. & Casitas Place Accepted items: Signal devices, including residential boater marine flares and smoke signals Unaccepted items: No military grade flares or household waste will be accepted OC Healthcare Agency will be onsite, providing information on the free Bilge Pad Exchange program. Participants will receive a free boater kit coupon and a flare discount coupon courtesy of the Coastal Commission. For more information, including details on resource recovery and waste disposal, visit About OC Waste & Recycling (OCWR) OCWR serves the County's solid waste disposal needs through resource recovery, operating public landfills, protecting the local environment, investing in renewable energy enterprises and promoting recycling to ensure a safe and healthy community for current and future generations. The department manages one of the nation's premier solid waste disposal systems and three composting greenery sites, all serving residents and businesses in the County's 34 cities and its unincorporated areas. OCWR's three active landfills reflect environmental engineering at its best. For more information on household hazardous waste disposal options and upcoming events, please visit our website at Attachment Marine Flare Collection Event CONTACT: Francine Bangert OC Waste & Recycling 714-834-4059 in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
'Food on table' outweighs health risks for Philippine e-waste dismantlers
Dexter Barsigan has spent the past 13 years making a living with his bare hands and a pair of pliers, stripping scrapped laptops and air conditioners for metal he can sell to junk shops in the Philippines. But since his hands began aching and his vision started to blur three years ago, there have been days he can only watch his wife and nephew do the job for him. The 47-year-old father of three is a "mambabaklas", the Filipino word for informal dismantlers who scavenge electronic waste for the nickel, aluminum and copper inside. "Dismantling helps us put food on the table. It provides the money to send my kids to school," Barsigan told AFP while sitting along a kilometre-long stretch of Onyx Street, home to hundreds of fellow "e-waste" dismantlers. Their work frequently involves burning away rubber wire casings, releasing a toxic brew of chemicals including lead, mercury and cadmium into the air. Both the Philippine government and the Basel Convention, a global waste management treaty signed by 191 countries, consider e-waste hazardous. "It poses serious threats to human health and the environment," said Irvin Cadavona, a hazardous waste management officer with the environment department, citing health risks ranging from cancer and neurological diseases to respiratory illnesses and birth defects. The World Health Organization said last year exposure to e-waste chemicals can lead to incidents of asthma and reduced lung function in children, while pregnant women are at higher risk for stillbirths and premature delivery. "It's very hard to recycle these (chemicals). When you dismantle (e-waste), you must intricately break it down. It can be very hazardous," Gelo Apostol, an environmental health specialist from Ateneo de Manila University, told AFP. Exposure to the substances can lead to anemia, kidney and thyroid diseases, and nerve damage, he said. The Philippines is among the top e-waste generators in Southeast Asia, according to the United Nations' Global E-waste Monitor, accounting for 540 million kilograms (about 600,000 tons) in 2022. Dismantlers who work at the country's accredited facilities are required to follow stringent guidelines. But their informal counterparts lack the training, regulations and protective equipment needed to properly protect themselves. "I strongly believe that some Filipinos are getting sick because of the exposure to e-waste," Cadavona said. - Burning rubber - Barsigan, who doesn't wear a mask while working, prefers dismantling computer circuit boards with aluminum and copper because they fetch as much as P470 ($8) per kilo. But circuit boards have especially high concentrations of toxic metals that can cause nerve damage when breathed in, Apostol said. While illegal, Onyx Street's e-waste dismantlers also routinely burn wires to extract copper, which is faster than peeling them by hand. Rosana Milan, physician-in-charge at Manila's Pedro Gil Health Center, said her clinic has diagnosed half of the 12,000 people living along the street with respiratory issues, most of them children. "It's very risky for the babies, the toddlers and even the school children… they're sitting beside their father while the father is... burning the rubber," Milan told AFP. "Mostly they have pneumonia, upper and lower respiratory illness, even if they have vaccines." Dismantler Sammy Oligar said his one-year-old grandchild had been diagnosed with pneumonia that a doctor attributed to pollution caused by the burning. "The smoke would enter from our window and the child would inhale it," Oligar told AFP, adding that many of his neighbors were dealing with lung illnesses. - 'What are we waiting for?' - Medicins du Monde (MdM), a French humanitarian organisation providing gloves, masks and safety orientations for the dismantlers of Onyx Street, is calling for the recognition of informal e-waste workers. "Health is clearly not their first priority. Their priority is to have food on the table," Eva Lecat, general coordinator of MdM, told AFP. "If (their work) was legal and recognised and regulated, there would be ways to protect people and communities." Cadavona, the waste management officer, said the informal nature of the picker-junkshop relationship made it "very hard" to establish formal recognition for the community. Apostol, the faculty researcher, said an "evidence gap" created by the lack of studies specific to dismantlers might be contributing to a lack of urgency. "But remember, many of the chemicals found in e-waste already have extensive studies on their health effects," Apostol said. "What are we waiting for? To have nationwide data of people who died from e-waste before we take action?" Worried he will be unable to afford treatment, Barsigan told AFP he has avoided doctors, instead putting ointment on his hands and taking a cheap, over-the-counter pain reliever. Once his hands feel a little better, he said, he will put them back to work. "If I stop dismantling, it's as if I have also given up the hope of a better life for my children." pam/cwl/dhw/fox Solve the daily Crossword
Fast Company
17-07-2025
- Science
- Fast Company
Recycling solar panels is complicated. An electrical engineer explains why
It's hard work soaking up sunlight to generate clean electricity. After about 25 to 30 years, solar panels wear out. Over the years, heating and cooling cycles stress the materials. Small cracks develop, precipitation corrodes the frame and layers of materials can start to peel apart. Subscribe to the Daily newsletter. Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters But for now, it's even hard to reclaim the glass in solar panels. Many layers are glued together and need to be separated before they can be melted down for reuse. And if the separation is not precise enough, the glass that is recovered won't be of high enough quality to use in making other solar panels or windows. It will be suitable only for lower-quality uses such as fill material in construction projects. Other panels, usually older ones, may contain small amounts of toxic metals such as lead or cadmium. It can be difficult to tell whether toxic materials are present, though. Even experts have trouble, in part because current tests, such as the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure, can give inaccurate results. Therefore, many companies that own large numbers of solar panels just assume their panels are hazardous waste, which increases costs for both disposal and recycling. Clearer labels would help people know what a solar panel contains and how to handle it. If someone wants to recycle a solar panel, and is willing to bear the cost, there aren't many places in the U.S. that are willing to do it and are equipped to be safe about it. Making panels last longer—perhaps as long as 50 years—using more durable materials, weather-resistant components, real-time monitoring of panel performance and predictive maintenance to replace parts before they wear out would reduce waste significantly. Building solar panels that are more easily disassembled into separate components made of different materials could also speed recycling. Components that fit together like Lego bricks—instead of using glue—or dissolvable sealants and adhesives could be parts of these designs. Improved recycling methods could also help. Right now, panels are often simply ground up, mixing all of their components' materials together and requiring a complicated process to separate them out again for reuse. More advanced approaches can extract individual materials with high purity. For example, a process called salt etching can recover over 99% of silver and 98% of silicon, at purity levels that are appropriate for high-end reuse, potentially even in new solar panels, without using toxic acids. That method can also recover significant quantities of copper and lead for use in new products. advertisement A shared journey Increasing the practice of recycling solar panels has more than just environmental benefits. Over the long term, recovering and reusing valuable materials may prove more cost-effective than continually buying new raw materials on the open market. That could lower costs for future solar panel installations. If they are fully reused, the value of these recoverable materials could reach over $15 billion globally by 2050. In addition, recycling panels and components reduces American reliance on materials imported from overseas, making solar power projects less vulnerable to global disruptions. Recycling also keeps toxic materials out of landfills. That can help ensure a shift to clean energy doesn't create new or bigger environmental problems. Also, recycling solar panels emits far less carbon dioxide than manufacturing panels from raw materials. There are already some efforts underway to boost solar panel recycling. The Solar Energy Industries Association trade group is working to collect and share information about companies that recycle solar panels. Governments can provide tax breaks or other financial incentives for using recycled materials, or ban disposing of solar panels in landfills. California, Washington, New Jersey and North Carolina have enacted laws or are studying ways to manage solar panel waste, with some even requiring recycling or reuse. These efforts are important steps toward addressing the growing need for solar panel recycling and promoting a more sustainable solar industry. Anurag Srivastava is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at West Virginia University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Arab News
17-07-2025
- Health
- Arab News
Environmentalists urge policy reform as toxic waste rises in Philippines
MANILA: Philippine environmental groups are calling for immediate policy reform after official data showed that the country's annual hazardous waste levels increased to more than 269,000 metric tonnes annually, fueling concern over public health threats. The Philippines' toxic waste generation increased by 13 percent last year from about 238,000 metric tonnes in 2023, with oil comprising about one-third of the total, according to data published by the Philippine Statistics Authority last week. Though it is one of the lowest volumes recorded based on figures compiled since 2015, the latest data set showed that the Philippines is producing hazardous waste at a faster rate compared to the development of waste management infrastructure. Despite the number of trash processing facilities and sanitary landfills increasing in 2024 by about 8.7 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively, the number of reported illegal dumps rose by 84 percent in the same year. 'It's still alarming because the infrastructure can't catch up,' Jashaf Shamir Lorenzo, head of policy development and research at BAN Toxics, told Arab News on Thursday. The rising number of illegal dumps concerns observers as the sites usually involve open burning or the burying of hazardous waste underground. 'There is a big health and environmental impact here for everyone … all of these harmful chemicals that could lead to various health issues like neurodevelopmental issues, cancer … (they) increase the risk of communities around them getting these diseases,' Lorenzo said. 'I think (the sites are) also a reflection of the number of wastes that we are really generating that other cities can't handle. But also, it calls for the need for the government to pay attention to the protection of these communities.' While the Philippine government has made efforts over the years to improve waste management in the country, environmentalists like Lorenzo say there is still room for improvement. This includes preventing the illegal waste trade, as the Philippines has been a major destination for such exports over the years, including shipments of toxic chemical waste intended for dumping. 'A lot of the waste coming into the country, historically, has been hazardous waste traded by other countries into us. I think the government should really push for policies that limit hazardous waste coming in,' Lorenzo said. He is also urging the government to 'look at other solutions on waste reduction,' including by installing reuse and refill systems across the country. The increasing volume of waste in the Philippines is 'not surprising,' said Greenpeace Philippines campaigner Marian Ledesma, who is also pushing for policies focused on reducing waste. 'Downstream approaches like waste management simply cannot cope with increasing patterns of production and consumption … the government must enact policies that reduce or prevent waste from the start,' she said. This includes banning the commercial use of harmful chemical groups in products, phasing out single-use products and packaging like plastics, and regulating hazardous chemicals. 'While the country is taking steps toward better and sustainable waste management, it can improve on upstream measures that prevent or reduce waste generation,' Ledesma said. 'Upstream approaches like cutting production and phase-outs or bans are necessary, have clear benefits for communities and are more cost-effective in the long term.'
Sustainability Times
10-07-2025
- Business
- Sustainability Times
Ovik Mkrtchyan on Integrating Green Thinking into Emerging Economies
The world's waste recycling market is already worth many billions of dollars a year globally and is growing quickly. That growth is being fuelled by increasing awareness of environmental issues and a clear and urgent need for industries, companies and entire countries to reduce their use of natural resources and to bring down their carbon emission contributions wherever possible. This awareness — alongside strengthened regulatory frameworks impacting industrial activity — is driving up demand for waste recycling solutions across many regions, including in the hazardous waste disposal market, where growing public concern over air, water, and soil pollution has led to tighter controls and stricter handling requirements. Among those who see the sector not just as a challenge but as an opportunity is investor and development strategist Ovik Mkrtchyan, known for his long-standing focus on sustainability, education, and inclusive growth across Central Asia and beyond. 'Waste is no longer a by-product — it's a frontier,' says Ovik Mkrtchyan. 'Recycling is becoming a platform for innovation, and the most forward-thinking economies are treating it as infrastructure for the future.' Balancing Considerations Despite the global emphasis on sustainability, governments remain cautious not to restrict industrial growth. But increasingly, they are being called upon to embed environmental responsibility into broader economic agendas — and to invest in green innovation that supports long-term resilience. A good example here is Uzbekistan, where the industrial sector has gained notable momentum in recent years. Indeed, from 2017 to 2024, industrial production in the country rose by over 50%, with the sector's share of GDP increasing from 22.2% to 26.4%. Backed by reforms and supported by the World Bank, Uzbekistan is now positioning itself convincingly as a regional hub for clean production and circular economy innovation. Demands for Innovation Against that backdrop, internationally, in Central Asia and in Uzbekistan specifically, there are significant developments taking place within the waste management space, not least with respect to the recycling of hazardous substances. Within that particular field, a company called Ecotech has been able to make some notable strides forward through an emphasis on innovation and a pioneering approach to the science underpinning the sector. In essence, Ecotech's solutions enable the safe transformation of toxic industrial by-products into useful materials for secondary industrial use — helping reduce both environmental risk and dependence on natural resources or raw materials. 'Where waste can be made safe and reused, the benefits are immediate — for the environment, for the economy, and for the climate,' explains Ovik Mkrtchyan . 'That's the model we need to scale.' Ecotech is among several pioneering projects aligned with Ovik Mkrtchyan's broader vision of investing in high-impact innovation that addresses long-term environmental challenges. He has consistently supported initiatives that merge industrial progress with social and ecological responsibility. His strategic philosophy emphasizes building ecosystems — not just enterprises — and ensuring that innovation serves people, not just markets. Demand for recycled materials is on the up globally, given the extent of concerns about environmental sustainability and climate change. That demand is in evidence both among consumers and among businesses, who are increasingly encountering regulations that demand they take such issues more seriously and consider them routinely as a matter of fundamental importance. Hence why markets for recycled products — as well as providers of waste management or hazardous waste recycling services — are growing so swiftly, and why there is so much potential for further expansion in those contexts. Waste as a Strategic Industry The transformation of waste recycling from a peripheral concern into a core industrial priority signals a broader rethinking of development strategy. In Central Asia, where economies are undergoing rapid industrialization alongside environmental reform, the waste sector is emerging not just as a technical necessity, but as a pillar of sustainable growth. Uzbekistan's recent trajectory — marked by consistent industrial expansion, targeted policy reform, and openness to innovation — illustrates how waste recycling can evolve into an important strategic industry. It bridges environmental objectives with economic goals, enabling countries to reduce dependence on raw materials, lower emissions, and create new industrial value chains. As global demand for circular solutions accelerates, Central Asia can position itself not merely as an adopter, but as a contributor to the next phase of industrial evolution — one where resource efficiency, environmental resilience, and economic competitiveness are fundamentally intertwined. 'For emerging economies in the region, and elsewhere, embedding 'green thinking' into strategic economic plans makes sense on many levels,' says Ovik Mkrtchyan . 'There are major opportunities for companies and innovators to make lasting, positive impacts — both on the evolution of specific industries and on how entire countries advance toward true environmental sustainability.' Partner content Did you like it? 4.6/5 (26)
