Winter Olympics go green: Measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions, minimise water use in snow-making and promote eco-friendly hotels are among the initiatives aimed at making next year's Winter Olympics in Italy the greenest ever.
The Torino Olympic Organising Committee released its sustainability report at an international sports conference co-hosted by the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya earlier this week. One of the cornerstones of the project is to make the winter games carbon neutral. The organisers of the games, which will take place from February 10th to 26th, aim to offset carbon emissions via forestry, energy efficiency and renewable energy schemes in Italy, Mexico, India, Sri Lanka and Eritrea. See www.torino2006.org and www.unep.org/sport_env
The coast's not clear
The Irish public lacks the legal right to environmental information and to participate in the environmental management of public sites, those attending a workshop on the subject last week were told. Such legal rights are part of two EU directives, which the Irish Government has not yet transposed into Irish legislation, according to Karin Dubsky, Coastwatch Ireland, who co-organised the workshop. Furthermore, Ireland is one of the last EU countries to ratify the Aarhus Convention, which also enshrines public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. The lack of a public appeals process to coastal work (including erosion control schemes, dredging and dumping at sea and the public's lack of access to ordinance survey maps) were among other issues raised at the workshop, which was attended by more than 80 people. Coastwatch Ireland will publish the presentations made from the European Environment Bureau, the Aarhus Convention Bureau and others on www.coastwatch.org next month.
Backyard burning bad for air
More than half of the dioxins in the Irish environment are the result of the domestic burning of waste, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These potentially dangerous chemical compounds are usually associated with municipal waste incinerators but the EPA contends that the dioxins emitted from the uncontrolled burning of one tonne of household waste are 55 times greater than those emitted if the same tonne of waste were treated in a modern municipal waste incinerator.
The major problem with so-called backyard burning is that it is rarely carried out at high enough temperatures (usually between 200 and 400 degrees) to destroy toxic substances. According to projections from the EPA the construction and operation of incinerators for municipal and hazardous waste, as proposed in regional and national plans, are forecast to contribute 1.8 per cent to projected dioxin emissions to air in 2010 while uncontrolled burning of waste is projected to account for 84 per cent of such emissions.
