Online comments
dynamco Aug 18th 2013 9:19am
This Tiostone concept emanated from the HK Polytechnic where Dixon Chan & Chi Sun Poon wrote papers on incorporating waste materials into Eco-glass bricks
www.laputa-eco.com/FlowChart.html
However they use flyash in the product & the jury Is still out on whether such can be encapsulated without leaching the toxic heavy metals found in flyash from coal combustion.
www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6775608n
60 minutes video on coal ash
“Even the EPA has promoted the reuse of coal ash in manufacturing, but an inspector general’s report issued earlier this year found that in allowing the reuse of coal ash, the agency had not sufficiently assessed the environmental risk of a material which, in its second life as a wallboard or a road surface, still contains the original toxic compounds. (Care to re-do the baby’s room with sheet rock that contains dioxins, lead, mercury and cadmium?)”
www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fly_ash
“On November 2, 2009 the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced in a report that a formal investigation into the EPA’s “partnership” with the coal industry to market coal ash reuse in consumer, agricultural & industrial products was underway. The report also criticized the EPA for not releasing a report about cancer risks associated to the exposure of coal ash until March of 2009, a full seven years after the study was completed.”
www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/06/8612/impact-environmental-groups-sue-epa-over-lack-coal-ash-regulation
Published on South China Morning Post (http://www.scmp.com)
Home > From unwanted bottles to useful bricks
From unwanted bottles to useful bricks
Sunday, 18 August, 2013, 12:00am
News›Hong Kong
ENVIRONMENT
Olivia Rosenman olivia.rosenman@scmp.com
When bottles arrive at Tiostone Environmental in Tuen Mun, they are crushed into glass sand which is mixed with fly ash from power plants and some other construction waste products to form bricks.
“There’s no heat or fire involved in the whole process,” says Dixon Chan, Tiostone’s director.
Some companies, including Coca-Cola and Kowloon Dairy, reuse their glass bottles several times before sending them to Tiostone for recycling.
Tiostone, which began operating in 2005, produces between 10,000 and 15,000 square metres of bricks a year, which are mostly used for paving. At present, the company’s biggest buyers are government contractors.
Tiostone ecobricks have been put to use in redeveloping Kai Tak, and are often used to pave emergency vehicle access roads.
“They can sustain the load of a fire truck,” he says.
As with most green products, ecobricks are more expensive than their non-recycled counterparts, especially those from the mainland.
“You have to compare apples to apples,” says Chan. “We are not on the same page as the Chinese bricks. They are low-strength, do not meet the standard and have very bad colour.”
Chan says Tiostone has the capacity to process more waste glass, but finding a market willing to pay for the product has proved difficult. He is urging the government to adopt a green procurement programme to ensure all new government developments use ecobricks and other green building materials.
Another challenge the company faces is high premiums for workers’ insurance. It’s a common issue in the recycling industry, as new technologies and processes make insurers wary.
“It’s a very big disadvantage to all recycling businesses in Hong Kong,” says Chan.
Source URL (retrieved on Aug 18th 2013, 9:19am): http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1297490/unwanted-bottles-useful-bricks
www.laputa-eco.com/FlowChart.html
http://www.laputa-eco.com/Profile.html
www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6775608n
www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fly_ash
Even the EPA has promoted the reuse of coal ash in manufacturing, but an inspector general’s report issued earlier this year found that in allowing the reuse of coal ash, the agency had not sufficiently assessed the environmental risk of a material which, in its second life as a wallboard or a road surface, still contains the original toxic compounds. (Care to re-do the baby’s room with sheet rock that contains dioxins, lead, mercury and cadmium?)
Office of Inspector General Investigates EPA’s ‘Partnership’ with Coal Industry
On November 2, 2009 the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) announced in a report that a formal investigation into the EPA’s “partnership” with the coal industry to market coal ash reuse in consumer, agricultural and industrial products was underway. The report also criticized the EPA for not releasing a report about cancer risks associated to the exposure of coal ash until March of 2009, a full seven years after the study was completed. The OIG investigation is a result of CBS’s “60 Minutes” piece on coal ash in which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson admitted that her agency had not produced any studies indicating that the re-use of coal ash was safe
Recent USEPA reports indicate that coal waste leaches hazardous pollution in much greater quantities than had been recognized previously, contributing to over 100 documented contamination sites nationwide, several of which are in Illinois.
Groups sue EPA for coal ash regulation www.publicintegrity.org/2012/04/06/8612/impact-environmental-groups-sue-epa-over-lack-coal-ash-regulation
In April 2012, eleven environmental organizations filed suit against the EPA to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash, citing recent groundwater contamination at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states, according to EPA data. Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit, said the EPA has not updated coal ash disposal and control regulations in more than 30 years, and continues to delay new rules despite recent evidence of “leaking waste ponds, poisoned groundwater supplies and threats to public health.”
On March 23, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general released a report stating that the federal government had promoted some uses of coal ash, including wallboard or filler in road embankments, without properly testing the environmental risks. The report said wallboard “may represent a large universe of inappropriate disposal applications with unknown potential for adverse environmental and human health impacts.”
Evaluation of municipal waste incinerator fly ash toxicity and the role of cadmium by two aquatic toxicity tests Abstract http://news.newclear.server279.com/?p=3181
“Fly ash from a municipal solid waste incinerator in Japan is regulated under the hazardous waste regulation “Waste under Special Control” according to the Amendment of the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law, because it contains high concentrations of heavy metals which are available for leaching. To evaluate the toxicity of fly ash, a fly ash leachate was prepared according to the Japanese standard leaching procedure. The chemical analysis of the leachate showed that possibly one of the most toxic substances was cadmium. The toxicity of the leachate and the cadmium was determined by algal assay and a Daphnia acute toxicity test. The results showed that the leachate was about seven times more toxic to the growth of algae and 20 to 30 times more toxic to the survival of Daphnia than expected from its cadmium concentration”