Environmental Engineering & Toxicology

When he became chief, many people wondered whether Mr. Cook, a skilled manager of Apple's operations, could ever rival the visionary influence of Mr. Jobs on Apple products. Instead, it appears Mr. Cook could make his earliest and most significant mark by changing how Apple's products are made. ''I want to give credit to Tim Cook for this,'' said Dara O'Rourke, associate professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley. ''He's admitting they've got problems.''

At Santa Rosa's Regional sewer plant, ponds covered with fast-growing aquatic plants are being used to help clean toxics and pollutants out of the water as part of the wastewater treatment process. But there's another, very different benefit those plants can offer as well. While showing off the FAB project at the treatment plant, Caden Hare explained that the effort to develop on site energy generation was driven in part by the needs of the facility itself. Read the story and hear audio clips

A recent study may give germophobic students yet another reason to dread going to lecture. A joint study of indoor microbial composition by UC Berkeley and Yale University researchers found that human presence causes a significant increase in levels of bacteria and fungi indoors. The average human emission, the study states, is about 37 million bacteria per person per hour.

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) representative Dustin Mulvaney, an Assistant Professor at San Jose State University, works with SVTC to see that materials in computers and solar panels are safely handled and recycled. Mulvaney said First Solar is required to handle PV modules in a way that minimizes any accidental cadmium leakage at other sites. Most likely, he added, the biggest occupational hazard First Solar has encountered on the AVSR1 site is “workers being cut by broken glass.”

For 2011 Switzer Fellow Jeannette Laramee, it all started with designing a school in Zambia, Africa. That led to building systems that make biogas, which can save up to 10,000 pounds of firewood a year for a family in Africa.

After compiling data from 21 Silicon Valley companies, Wilson and his co-authors Heather Madison and Steven Healy discovered that 57 percent of the companies surveyed did not have a confined space safety plan in place other than to call the fire department. As a result, the companies resort to calling 911 in the case of any confined space emergency. “The employers need to take responsibility for having a way to rescue their employees in the event of a confined space emergency before the firefighters arrive,” Wilson said.

Several studies have implicated lead poisoning in deaths of the endangered California condor. A study published this year found lead poisoning was the primary cause of death in juvenile and adult condors from 1992 to 2009. A 2010 study analyzed three to four months of lead levels using condor feathers and found much higher and more frequent exposures than blood draws suggested, said Myra Finkelstein, an environmental toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz, who conducted the study. Still other work tied the chemical composition of lead found in poisoned birds with that of ammunition.

The Northeast Recycling Council Inc. (NERC), based in Brattleboro, Vt., has adopted a policy position in opposition to the use of degradable additives in plastic packaging. “The board determined that this practice currently has a negative impact on plastics recycling markets and the effectiveness of plastics recycling in general,” reports Sarah Kite, president of the NERC board. Read the article

What will cost $7 billion; will snake across the country from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, carrying 700,000 barrels a day of Canadian crude oil; and seems (at least from the animated assertions of Congressional Republicans and the American Petroleum Institute) a perfect solution for the flagging U.S. economy? Answer: TransCanada’s Keystone oil sands pipeline expansion project. Imagine a river of dirty oil running right through the country’s mid-section. Read the entire piece