WasteInbox

No April Fools: Several news outlets are reporting that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson intends to act quickly to lay out a map by which the agency will begin regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Both Reuters and the New York Times point to April 2, the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, and say "there is wide expectation" that Jackson will take action by then.

Jackson set the ball rolling when she announced Tuesday that her agency will revisit a Bush administration decision not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new coal-burning power plants under the Clean Air Act.

There is considerable trepidation about this development in business-industrial circles and in Congress. The New York Times reports that Jackson is aware she is "stepping into a minefield of Congressional and industry opposition and said that she was trying to devise a program that allayed these worries." The newspaper further notes:

"Even some who favor an aggressive approach to climate change said they were wary of the agency’s asserting exclusive authority over carbon emissions. They say that the Clean Air Act, now more than 40 years old, was not designed to regulate ubiquitous substances like carbon dioxide. Using the law, they say, would capture carbon emissions from new facilities, but not existing ones, blunting its impact. They also believe that a broader approach that addresses all sectors of the economy and that is fully debated in Congress would be better than a regulatory approach that could drag through the courts for years."

Global Hazard: Here's an eye-opening account from a British newspaper, The Independent, about the European e-waste trade. According to this article, large amounts of electronic equipment discarded in Europe are subsequently sold in markets in Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan and China. Predictably, upon reaching those destinations, the material is mishandled in ways that seriously threaten the environment and the health of residents and workers.

Clearly the shipping of toxic e-waste from wealthy countries to poor ones, and the resulting pollution and health hazards, is a serious worldwide problem. And this will continue until the e-waste recycling industries and/or governments in those wealthy nations get serious about stopping it.

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste & Recycling News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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