. Earth Science News .
FROTH AND BUBBLE
'Toxic' Italian steel plant clean-up is a towering task
By Ella IDE
Taranto, Italy (AFP) Aug 11, 2019

Trash for tickets on Indonesia's 'plastic bus'
Jakarta (AFP) Aug 9, 2019 - Dozens of people clutching bags full of plastic bottles and disposable cups queue at a busy bus terminal in the Indonesian city of Surabaya -- where passengers can swap trash for travel tickets.

The nation is the world's second-biggest marine polluter behind China and has pledged to reduce plastic waste in its waters some 70 percent by 2025 by boosting recycling, raising public awareness, and curbing usage.

The Surabaya scheme has been a hit in the city of 2.9 million, with nearly 16,000 passengers trading trash for free travel each week, according to authorities.

"This is a very smart solution. It's free and instead of throwing away bottles people now collect them and bring them here," explains 48-year-old resident Fransiska Nugrahepi.

An hour-long bus ride with unlimited stops costs three large bottles, five medium bottles or 10 plastic cups. But they must be cleaned and cannot be squashed.

There is a steady stream of people squeezing past sacks full of recyclables to deposit plastic in four bins behind the small office and claim their tickets.

Franki Yuanus, a Surabaya transport official, says the programme aims not only to cut waste but also to tackle traffic congestion by encouraging people to switch to public transit.

"There has been a good response from the public," insists Yuanus, adding: "Paying with plastic is one of the things that has made people enthusiastic because up until now plastic waste was just seen as useless."

Currently the fleet consists of 20 near-new buses, each with recycling bins and ticket officers who roam the aisles to collect any leftover bottles.

Authorities said roughly six tons of plastic rubbish are collected from passengers each month before being auctioned to recycling companies.

Nurhayati Anwar, who uses the bus about once a week with her three-year-old son, said the trash swap programme is changing how people see their throwaway cups and bottles.

"Now people in the office or at home are trying to collect (rubbish) instead of just throwing it away," the 44-year-old accountant told AFP after trading in several bottles for a free ride.

"We now know that plastic is not good for the environment -- people in Surabaya are starting to learn."

Other parts of Indonesia, an archipelago of some 17,000 islands, are also trying to tackle the issue.

Bali is phasing in a ban on single-use plastic straws and bags to rid the popular holiday island of waste choking its waterways, while authorities in the capital Jakarta are considering a similar bylaw to rid the city of plastic shopping bags.

Governments around the globe are increasingly taking measures to curb the menace of disposable plastic.

A 2016 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation warned there would be more plastic than fish, by weight, in the seas by 2050.

It estimated eight million tonnes of plastics enter oceans annually.

It added: "This is equivalent to dumping the contents of one garbage truck into the ocean every minute. If no action is taken, this is expected to increase to two per minute by 2030 and four per minute by 2050."

Rock climbers scale a giant canopy in Taranto to build the world's biggest iron-ore park cover as steel giant ArcelorMittal strives to clean up and turn around Italy's most polluting plant.

Beyond the factory lie the sea and sandy beaches, though only hardy souls dare to swim or eat mussels farmed here.

The site in southern Italy's Puglia region, formerly owned by Ilva, is at the heart of a huge legal battle during which experts cited by prosecutors have charged that of the 11,550 people who died in the area over seven years, 7,500 were killed by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and cancers linked to toxic emissions.

AcelorMittal began leasing the plant -- with an obligation to buy it -- in November, and is investing 2.4 billion euros ($2.67 billion) to revive it, including 1.2 billion euros to curb pollution by 2024.

The group was given a period of legal immunity to bring the plant up to environmental standards.

But the Italian parliament revoked that in June and the company is set to lose its immunity on September 6.

Group president Aditya Mittal told investors this month the government "recognizes there is a serious issue here" and is "working to resolve" it.

- 'Biggest in the world' -

Without immunity, ArcelorMittal Italia has said it might have to throw in the towel, despite having already begun implementing its clean-up plan, which includes enclosing conveyor belts and installing new quenching towers.

Red and black dust from parks of iron-ore and coal have long covered balconies and playgrounds in the nearby Tamburi and Paulo VI neighbourhoods, and locals shut themselves in and schools close when the wind blows their way.

Huge stockpiles, some 20 metres (yards) high, cover an area the size of 56 football pitches, the company says.

Work on mammoth white coverings to enclose them, which are to be 480 metres long, 250 metres wide and 80 metres high, is the most obvious sign of progress at the European Union's largest steelworks.

The twin structures, each made of 20,000 tons of steel, will be "the biggest such structures in the world", according to Henri-Pierre Orsini, who is responsible for implementing the plan.

"The object is to ensure zero dust emissions," he told AFP.

The upgrades are aimed at reducing dust, metals and dioxins -- through new fabric filtration technologies and dedusting systems -- and stopping the run-off of polluted water.

- Papal prophecy -

The company runs tours for workers and their families to change how they view the plant and distance itself from its dark past and the graves in a cemetery just across the road.

As Taranto suffers from record unemployment some feel everything should be done to save the steel works, which employs 12,000 people.

But ArcelorMittal has struggled to win hearts.

In June it temporarily laid-off 1,400 workers owing to sluggish market conditions, and prosecutors launched an investigation in July after a worker was killed when a crane was blown into the sea.

The deadly accident sparked strikes.

And while the company pledges to slash dioxin and dust emissions to below EU limits, they cannot be eliminated entirely.

"The plant's a huge economic resource. But are we supposed to all die just to save some jobs?" asked pensioner Giuliana Tomaselli, 64, as she gazed from her beach chair at the towering red-and-white striped chimneys.

Families who have been hit by abnormal levels of tumours and respiratory diseases around Taranto say the plant -- a state-owned company until 1995 -- should be closed, and the sprawling site cleaned up.

"They have fed families with this factory, but they have taken away so much from others," said Angelo Di Ponzio, 46, whose son Giorgio died aged 15 in January after a three-year battle against cancer.

Giorgio was born in the Paulo VI neighbourhood named after Pope Paul VI who held a Christmas mass at the factory a few years after it opened in 1968.

The pontiff's warning that the factory might boost the economy but that "man is worth more than machines and what they produce" is remembered bitterly by those who accuse the government and the plant's previous owners of wilful negligence.

- 'An explosion of life' -

"Giorgio was an explosion of life, something incredible. He showed all the courage he had," his mother Carla Luccarelli, 42, told AFP in the garden of their country home, where they moved in search of clean air after the boy fell ill.

The Di Ponzios, who have two other children, speak for many when they slam the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) for rowing back on its electoral promise to transform the plant into a clean energy park.

"People voted for M5S as a last resort. But they didn't even wait three days before eating their words," they said.

ide/wai

ARCELORMITTAL


Related Links
Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


FROTH AND BUBBLE
Paris downplays Notre-Dame lead poisoning fears
Paris (AFP) Aug 6, 2019
Paris officials on Tuesday downplayed the risk of lead poisoning from the massive fire that tore through Notre-Dame cathedral in April, as tests continue to show worrying levels of the toxic metal at nearby schools. "All the tests we've carried out in a radius of 500 metres (yards) around Notre-Dame are negative, meaning there is no danger," deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told LCI television. Hundreds of tonnes of lead in the roof and steeple melted during the April 15 blaze that nearly destroy ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Trump: no political support for assault rifle controls

Morocco navy picks up 400 migrants en route to Spain

Natural disasters cause greater havoc in 2019: Munich Re

Dozens of migrants still stuck on vessel in Italy port

FROTH AND BUBBLE
How roads can help cool sizzling cities

Could Mexico cactus solve world's plastics problem?

Recovering color images from scattered light

GOES-17 Mishap Investigation Board Study Completed

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Commercial fishing to blame for planet's declining shark numbers

New wood membrane provides sustainable alternative for water filtration

US warns dams give China 'control' of Mekong river

Beaches choked with stinky seaweed could be the new normal

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Canadian iceberg hunter on the trail of white gold

'Iceberg Corridor' sparks tourist boom on Canada's east coast

Glaciologists unveil most precise map ever of Antarctic ice velocity

Heatwave threatens to accelerate ice melt in Greenland

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Common bee disease spread through flowers

EU agriculture not viable for the future

Brazil's agricultural minister defends record pesticide approvals

Agriculture's secret weapon: empowering women

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Seven dead in Sierra Leone floods

One dead after 5.9-magnitude quake jolts Taiwan

12 killed as flooding paralyses Pakistan's Karachi

Mathematical model identifies acoustic signal preceding seismic shake

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Mozambique rivals to sign final peace deal

Namibia inaugurates Chinese-built port terminal

Mozambique govt, opposition Renamo sign historic peace pact

Mozambique leader says will ink formal peace deal with Renamo Thursday

FROTH AND BUBBLE
Human genetic diversity of South America reveals complex history of Amazonia

How humans and chimpanzees travel towards a goal in rainforests

Working memory in chimpanzees, humans works similarly

Out of Africa and into an archaic human melting pot









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.