Tuesday, 19 Jul 2005

Here's an age-old riddle for ye: If a hydrogen bus comes down the street and no one's there to ride it, does it still make an impact? That's the question Bill McKibben pondered on a recent (and rather lonely) cruise around the streets of Reykjavik. Sure, Iceland has grand ambitions to convert to a hydrogen economy. But it also suffers from the perception that public transportation is for, well, losers. Discovering where the twain shall meet will determine that country's fate -- and maybe the world's.

Mad in China

Chinese villagers riot to keep polluting pharmaceutical plant closed

Thousands of Chinese protestors battled police for hours on Sunday night in an effort to stop a polluting plant from resuming operations. Villagers in Xinchang, China, 180 miles south of Shanghai, say corrupt local officials have refused to do anything about chemical wastes from the Jingxin Pharmaceutical Co. that have ruined crops, poisoned the local river, and made villagers sick. Jingxin was closed after an explosion there killed a worker in early July; after plans to reopen it were announced on Thursday, people traveled via mountain paths and rice paddies to protest by throwing rocks and overturning police cars. Police have bussed in reinforcements and closed off all roads to the facility. Protestors in Xinchang say they're inspired by the success in the nearby city of Dongyang, where more than 10,000 rioters turned out against a polluting pesticide factory in early spring. They vow to keep it up until the Jingxin plant is moved. Says one demonstrator, "They are making poisonous chemicals for foreigners that the foreigners don't dare produce in their own countries."


You may recall from, oh, the 5 zillion times we've written about it that a massive energy bill is currently wending its way through Congress. The House has passed its version, and the Senate has passed its version, and the two versions are far, far apart. The differences are now being hashed out in a House-Senate conference committee chaired by noted friend of fossil fuels Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). President Bush has demanded a finished bill on his desk by the time Congress takes its August recess and pressure is running high. We give you a brief rundown on the contentious issues involved, from MTBE to RPS to PUHCA, oh my.

Oh, I Thought You Said Non-Profiterole

Bush breaks long-standing policy, offers India nuclear-energy technology

President Bush has pledged to let India obtain nuclear reactors and fuel, potentially reversing a decades-long U.S. policy on limiting India's access to nuclear technology and continuing the post-Cold War warming trend in U.S.-India relations. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hopes civil nukes will help India meet skyrocketing energy needs; he's promised in turn to adhere to the highest international norms for nuclear programs, separating civil and weapons programs and maintaining a moratorium on nuclear-weapons testing. But as the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty bans transfer of nuke tech to non-signatories like India, some analysts worry that if Bush changes the game (and Congress and other nuclear nations sign off), all nonproliferation bets are off. "[T]here are other countries that ... have far worse proliferation issues" than India, says one. "France, Russia, China, and other countries will want to play by the same rules for Iran, Pakistan, or Syria."

PET Cemetery

New recycling plant may help Mexico cope with litter and landfills

Mexicans lead the globe in gulping sugary drinks, but recycle only a thin sliver of the 9 billion PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles they use every year. Hoping to jump-start a national culture of recycling, Environment Minister Jose Luis Luege attended last week's opening of a new recycling plant near the city of Toluca, which will handle 90,000 PET bottles an hour, or 25,000 tons a year. Luege hopes to see about 2.2 billion of the nation's discarded PET bottles recycled in 2005. Mexico has barely begun to deal with the increasing amount of waste being generated by economic development: Only 17 out of 2,445 Mexican municipalities are dealing correctly with household waste, according to Luege, with most garbage going into open trash pits or being strewn along roadsides in unmanaged dumps. Discarded PET containers are both an eyesore and a public health problem: they can become breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry malaria and dengue fever.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Garbage

Seattle to reduce landfilling by producing less trash in the first place

Seattle is pioneering programs to cut landfill costs by stopping trash before it starts, pursuing an ambitious long-term goal of becoming a "zero-waste" city. Seattle Public Utilities is using more electronic documents, radically reducing its use of paper, and instituting a green buying program for non-toxic cleaners, greener electronics, and other eco-friendly products. Manufacturers are being encouraged to institute take-back programs for their products, intercepting them for reuse or proper disposal before they are sent to the dump. Last year, 11 city-sponsored green-building projects salvaged or reused 57,000 tons of materials, and the "Use-It-Again-Seattle" give-and-take-free-stuff program kept 221 tons of materials out of landfills. While recycling means making something new from something used, "waste prevention means not making the waste in the first place," said Chris Luboff of Seattle Public Utilities. "We're trying to broaden that concept."

The Winner of Your Discontent

Grist reader who's not you headed to Iceland

Have you been waiting anxiously by your email, clicking the "get messages" button, unable to sleep or even look away, hoping and praying that you're the big winner of Grist's Great Ice-Scape contest, headed on a carbon-neutral eco-tourism adventure to sunny Iceland? Well, um, sorry. You're not. That distinction belongs to lucky Utah State University student Jess Hancock. Happy travels, Jess! Send us a postcard.