Asbestos: A verdict with worldwide consequences!

It was February 14^th, 2012, when a historic decision was made by an Italian Court in Turin.

After a 12 years legal procedure and investigation, Stephan Schmidheiny (65 years old), owner of the Swiss-Belgian industrial group Eternit (ETEX), which was in turn a major shareholder of the Italian subsidiary of Eternit between 1976 and 1986 and the Belgian Baron Jean-Louis de Cartier de Marchienne (90 years old), who was a director and minority shareholder of Eternit Italy, they were both sentenced to 16 years prison by an Italian court in Turin. 

Of course the verdicts are not effective until final, meaning the defendants have the right to go to a Court of Appeal and to the Supreme Court before they must undergo their verdicts.

Schmidheiny and Cartier de Marchienneare considered responsible for the death of 3.000 Italians, including employees, family members and other persons in the vicinity of Eternit’s four factories in Italy. Each of them is entitled to compensations of 95 million € for victims and their families, municipalities and regional authorities, independently of the compensations that the company will be entitled.

The initial investigation started in 1999, after victims’ associations, municipalities involved (Casale Monferatto and Cavagnolo), regional authorities (Piemonte) trade unions and insurers filed a case against the company and its responsible directors.

If you want to find full details of the case, please visit the dedicated blog asbestos in the dock 

I really believe that this is verdict with global consequences.

As far as I know this is the first decision that recognizes so serious and huge consequences of inappropriate solid waste management! It creates new standards about what should be considered safe and environmental sound working environment and about environmental impacts to the neighborhoods.

It also recognizes the importance of the time horizon: inappropriate solid waste management creates serious environmental and health impacts for decades after the completion of waste management activities!

Last but not least, the case is very important because through web – connections and blogs it was globally followed by almost sixty asbestos victims associations. The efforts of the Italian association were fully supported by top experts from different countries, asbestos lawyers shared crucial information on a global scale and the international asbestos community became stronger and more connected. The case will allow asbestos victims worldwide to gain access to evidence that was previously either unknown or simply unavailable.

I think that the waste management community has to celebrate about that decision. And decision – makers, governments, municipalities, operators and companies have to re-think the importance they give (or do not give) to waste management procedures and activities…

Ecological behaviour and commitment to the environment

This is from Science for Environment Policy, an EC service, issue 265, December 2011.
"Researchers have used the psychological concept of ‘commitment’, normally used to understand relationships between people, to investigate our relationship with the environment. The results indicate that an individual’s commitment to the environment is important in their ecological behaviour, for example, their willingness to use public transport and make sacrifices for the environment.

Human behaviour is central to the exacerbation, mitigation and adaptation of various environmental issues, particularly climate change. As such, many policymakers are seeking insight into the psychological processes that influence pro-environmental behaviour, in order to inform policies that address detrimental behaviours and promote positive behaviours.
The concept of ‘commitment’ is rooted in the theory of relationships with people. It essentially describes feelings of attachment and a long term orientation in thinking about the relationship. The theory proposes that an individual’s commitment to their partner is predicted by their satisfaction with the relationship, their investment in the relationship and the other alternatives that exist to this relationship.

This study took this concept of commitment to try to understand human relationships with the environment. It developed environment-specific measures of commitment and its three predictors: satisfaction, investment and alternatives. The satisfaction measure focussed on an individual’s reward from spending time in the natural environment and investment looked at the involvement and effort people put into the environment. The measure of alternatives investigated the presence of other ways in which people could enjoy themselves and spend time, other than in the natural environment.

The study examined the relationships between these concepts by analysing the scores of 248 university students in the USA on these measures. It also included several other relevant measures, such as environmental identity, which assesses the degree to which individuals associate themselves with the environment, general environmentally friendly behaviour, such as public transport use and buying ecological products, and willingness to sacrifice for the environment, which assessed an individual’s willingness to sacrifice their own needs in order to improve the environment.

The analysis revealed that both the participants’ who had satisfaction with the environment and invested in the environment were more likely to be committed to the environment.
However, their perception of alternatives was not related to commitment. Commitment to the environment does not mean that an individual is not attached to other activities and places, in the same way that romantic attachment excludes relationships with other people. Therefore the predictor of ‘alternatives’ may not be so relevant in the environmental context.

Further analysis indicated that individuals with commitment to the environment said that their behaviour was pro-environmental and that they make sacrifices for the environment.
The research identified some interesting relationships between humans and the environment, although none of them were proven to be causal, i.e. it is not certain that commitment leads to pro-environmental behaviour or willingness to sacrifice. However, a greater understanding of these concepts could eventually provide insight into what influences an individual to develop long-term commitment to the environment, rather than making short-term decisions based on one’s own needs. This could potentially inform policy that seeks to encourage long-term and committed relationships to the environment."

For more: Davis, J.L., Le, B. & Coy, A.E. (2011) Building a model of commitment to the natural environmental to predict ecological behaviour and willingness to sacrifice. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 31(3): 257-265.

Annual Waste Report for Italy

This a contribution by my good friend David Newman - thanks a lot David this is realy interesting

Last week the government institute for the environment in Italy, called ISPRA, published its annual Waste Report, using data from 2008.

There are some really interesting developments I wanted to share with your readers.

Firstly, for the first time in living memory, the amount of total MSW produced has decreased. Only a small total decline, some 0,2%, but in per capita terms a significant 2%. This is actually the third year that per capita waste production declines, while being the first year that this reduction has had an impact on the overall national figures.

The decline is evidently due to a reduction in consumption, that's a no-brainer. But we should take into account the last three years' per capita decline and part of the reason for this may lie in the prevention and reduction policies being enacted in some regions.

Secondly, while the amount of waste produced declines, the amount collected separately for material recovery increases again; an overall level of 30,6% of all Italian MSW in now collected separately and sent to reovery. This is indeed a substantial result; regions in northern Italy have attained levels over 50%, including densely populated industral regions like Lombardy, Piemonte, Veneto. Once again the south of Italy shows how under-developed it is, with overall recovery levels of 15% circa. In between sit the central regions like Tuscany, Marche, Umbria, Abruzzo.
Note the great strides ahead made by the Region of Sardegna where overall recycling levels have achieved nearly 40%.

Thirdly, where the recovery levels are highest is where the regions have enacted policies of separate collection of organic household waste. The 2008 figures show an increase in organic waste collection on 2007 of over 14%, to circa 3.340.000 tons. Organic waste now accounts for 34% of all the recycled waste collected, the largest single fraction, and with paper and cardboard, over 60% of all recovered waste.

This means that Italy is rapidly heading towards the goals of the Landfill Directive in terms of reducing organic waste to landfill.

Indeed the other good news in that the number of landfills has declined again, while the number of composting plants increased to 229.

Landfills still account for 44% of all our MSW disposal (about 32.000.000 tons) though in continuous decline; composting separate waste 7%; MBT 22% (a small reduction on 2007) and incineration still at 11%. The rest is recycled.

The report contains a load of informaion regarding the economics of the waste industry in Italy, as well as a comparison with EU countries.

You can obtain this very detailed and well presented report in Italian from the website www.atiaiswa.it in the next few days or from the ISPRA website now www.isprambiente.it

Consumer footprints for personal hygiene and cleaning products

This is from "Science for Environment Policy / Issue 177" (service from the European Commission)

A new study provides recommendations to reduce the environmental impact of personal hygiene and cleaning products on the environment. Researchers undertook life-cycle assessments of products including detergents, soaps and toilet cleaners, and compared their environmental footprints looking at different types of environmental damage.
Consumer products undoubtedly take a large toll on the environment. The energy and raw materials used in production, packaging and distribution of products obviously have an impact, but inefficient use of products by consumers can also add to the environmental burden. Most studies of the environmental impact of cleaning products have focused on laundry detergents and there is almost no public research available on household cleaning and personal hygiene products from a full life-cycle perspective.

With this in mind, Swiss researchers conducted a full life-cycle assessment of nine different products using data from industry and consumer behaviour studies. The products studied were: liquid and bar soaps, liquid and powder detergents, a stain removing detergent booster and a toilet care product, plus bath, kitchen and window cleaners. They calculated that the use of these products account for around 1 per cent of the 10 tons of CO2 equivalents produced by the average European consumer each year.

Crucially, the consumers themselves cause a large impact. The impact of these products on the environment would be substantially reduced if consumers could be encouraged to drive less often or smaller distances to buy their cleaning products, and apply only the necessary amounts, using cold water where possible. In many cases, replacing outdated household appliances could also help reduce the burden. However, different waste disposal or recycling options had little effect on environmental impact.

Recommendations arising from the study included the following:

• High water content can unnecessarily increase the amount of packaging needed for a product. Manufacturers should instead sell cleaning products in pouches to cut down on energy and materials required for packaging, production and transportation.
• There is little data available on the environmental impact of industrial production processes. More studies are required.
• Producers and retailers should consider offering and promoting refillable packages.
• The land and water use impacts of products made from vegetable oils should be carefully considered in the context of the location where the oils are produced.
• In general, more in depth life-cycle assessments are required to help guide policy making for more sustainable products.

Source: Koehler, A. and Wildbolz, W. (2009). Comparing the Environmental Footprints of Home-Care and Personal-Hygiene Products: The Relevance of Different Life-Cycle Phases. Environmental Science and Technology. 43(22): 8643-8651.

A social - environmental comment by George Sbokos

Sitting in my small Attorneys office a week before Christmas. Cases in postponement due to strike, banks in wooden cover due to rivaling, society in despair due to the lack of democracy. Lack in education, lack in governance, lack in social and environmental aspects. A sudden anger and indignation awake us from our idiot –(“private” in a greek meaning) life. Clients, banks, even my loyal friend, segafredo espresso are steaming hot…

It was the 16th of October in this same old blog as we all expected to find some hope in the upcoming UN summit for the cutting down of the C02 emissions (25 – 40% till 2020). And yet it happened in Poznan of Poland on Saturday the 13th (http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_14/items/4481.php). Everything declared last time in Bali Indonesia (http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php) is forgotten. The alibi of the 27 of the so called “European Union” decided that, the financial crisis we are facing doesn’t allow at this point any other agreement, than achieving a 20% increase of the clear energy production.

Being about to steam myself, recalling one of the first principles to follow in Aikido martial art: “don’t get angry, the one who does, resigns first”, I thought of Antonis’ blog. It’s not a solution, but it helps and doesn’t even cause any stomach trouble.

I’m questioning myself, where do leaders hide nowadays and how come these world leaders don’t check that they are not even capable to count the costs, they are referring to. I mean, the crisis they are preaching, moralizing their inaction, is not the crisis we are comfronting. The world they think they are living in, is, like N. N. Taleb said about the black swan, different than the world they are living in.

The “cost of inaction” is enormous in front of the “cost of adoption” (reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2007_13/en/Tech_report_13_2007.pdf -).

Not getting angry, still hoping they will recalculate the costs they are referring to, I’m staying sitted in my small Attorneys office a week before Christmas.
Happy holidays. Think of the (r)evolution on Dec. 2009 again.

G.Sbokos