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July 29th, 2015:

Google Street View cars are starting to map air pollution

Jul 29th, 2015
by Editor.
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http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/29/9067171/street-view-car-air-quality-detection-google-aclima

By Jacob Kastrenakes

A small number of Google Street View cars are recording more than photos of the road — they’re also taking snapshots of the air quality around them. Aclima, a company that creates networks of environmental sensors, announced this week that it’s been working with Google to put air quality detectors on some of its cars. The sensors allow Google’s vehicles to pick up information on carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, particulate matter, and other pollutants on a block-by-block basis. “We hope this information will enable more people to be aware of how our cities live and breathe and join the dialogue on how to make improvements to air quality,” Karin Tuxen-Bettman, a Google Earth Outreach program manager, says in a statement.

An initial trial was run in Denver, where three cars with air quality sensors on them drove around for a total of 750 hours over the course of a month. The trips were part of a study being conducted by NASA and the EPA that’s focused on improving the collection of air quality data. Some of their findings are available on Aclima’s website.

Google and Aclima intend to begin conducting similar tests in the San Francisco Bay Area next. Aclima doesn’t say how widely these sensors will be used, but it wants to collect enough data to hand off to local scientists and communities to work with. The partnership hopes that the tests will lead to a better understanding of urban air quality. Already, the EPA says it’s helping to determine how air pollutants “move in an urban area at the ground level.”

Aclima says that its Denver trial was a proof of concept that’ll help it to scale up the partnership. Eventually, Aclima says it’ll be possible for these sensors to be used “anywhere Google Street View vehicles drive.” Google will have to agree to that, of course, but the partnership seems like a smart way of getting more data out of Google’s already bustling fleet of cars.

Correction July 29th, 1:55PM ET: Aclima creates and deploys environmental sensor networks. It does not create the sensors, as this story initially stated.

Is E-Cig Waste More Dangerous Than Traditional Cigarettes?

Jul 29th, 2015
by Editor.
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http://www.ciwm-journal.co.uk/archives/14657

Tons of plastics and batteries from Britain’s 2m e-cigs are ending up in landfill, according to waste management company Business Waste.

The company says that the products produce just as much “dangerous” landfill waste as the tobacco products it replaces, after finding a steep rise in vaping-related products being sent to landfill and being buried in the ground.

While waste from cigarettes still makes up the vast majority of smoking refuse, with hundreds of millions of butts and their pollutants being discarded every year, the steep rise of vaping as a so-called “cleaner” alternative is causing concern, the Business Waste company says.

“The jury is still very much out on the safety of vaping as an alternative to smoking,” says BusinessWaste.co.uk spokesperson Mark Hall, “But as far as the waste handling industry goes, it’s another challenge on top of the many challenges we already face.”

According to YouGov statistics, there are 2.1m e-cigarette users in the UK, who are either regular users, or are using the devices to help give up smoking tobacco.

The use of e-cigarettes as a means to give up smoking has now overtaken other methods such as nicotine patches. This means that waste from e-smoking has increased steadily in the last two years, with a majority of the refuse being sent to landfill.

The market for e-cigarettes was worth £90m in 2014. While this figure is growing rapidly with hundreds of shops and websites catering for customers’ needs, the UK tobacco market is still worth billions, though declining slowly.

There’s little guidance on disposing of electronic cigarette waste ethically, Business Waste says.

Hall says that although amounts of electronic cigarette waste is still relatively small in relation to the tons of cigarette waste handled every day by the waste industry, but it’s of a very different type that can be just as damaging to the environment.

“Traditional cigarette ends when dumped in landfill release poisons into the ground that can harm water tables and damage plants and animals,” he explains.”E-cigarette refuse is mainly plastics and batteries that may take centuries to break down, and heaven knows what poisons they might contain.”

He also says that chemicals used in e-cigarettes are also ending up in landfill, and they could prove just as damaging as tobacco waste.

“With careful disposal, many cigarette butts can be diverted from landfill to energy recovery, where they can be burned and contribute to electricity generation. However, users don’t know how to recycle their vaping waste, so it’s slipping through the net and ending up in general waste that’s destined for landfill, and that’s something we’re keen to avoid” Hall says.

BusinessWaste.co.uk says that spent batteries from small electrical appliances is one of the greatest challenges facing the waste industry, and the tons of waste from vaping just adds to the problem.

“While most local authorities have schemes to recycle old batteries, most people find it more convenient just to fling them in the bin,” says Hall. “It’s the same for E-cig batteries, and it’s fair to say smokers do not have the greatest of reputation when it comes to disposing of their waste, and so it goes with Britain’s millions of vapers. E-cig waste is going to landfill by the ton.”

BusinessWaste.co.uk is also finding whole vaping devices in landfill as people try e-cigarettes once and decide it’s not for them.

“There are literally thousands of nearly-new E-cigs being thrown out at the moment,” says Hall, “And that’s yet another problem for the waste industry which has to try to recycle them as appropriate.”

While the health benefits of vaping are very much up for discussion, the same cannot be said for the risks in dealing with E-cigarette waste. As more people switch their smoking habits away from tobacco to electronic devices, there needs to be stronger guidance on dealing with the very different waste that vaping produces.

“Switching from cigarettes to e-cigs switches one set of poisons for another, more subtle kind. E-smokers have to be just as careful with their vaping waste as with their cigarette butts and old lighters,” says Hall.