After a yearlong review, environmental officials announced yesterday that they are continuing a 15-year-old moratorium on expanding or building new incinerators.

 Gov. Patrick is heading in the right direction on BPA--but he needs to get there faster.

Last week, [Governor] Patrick announced that he's ordered the Department of Public Health to prepare draft regulations that would ban the use of BPA in certain consumer products. "We are taking this action as a precaution to protect vulnerable children in the light of evidence about potential dangers of BPA," Patrick said in a press release. The announcement comes several months after the DPH issued a public warning against storing expressed breast milk or baby formula in containers made with BPA.

Clean Water Action supports the ramp up of energy efficiency programs to create quality green
jobs, cut energy costs for consumers, and reduce global warming pollution in Massachusetts. See
Governor Deval Patrick's press
release for more information. 

Discarded electronics (“e-waste”) is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the industrialized world. Electronic equipment is also one of the largest know sources of heavy metals, like lead and mercury, and toxic pollutants in the waste stream.  In Massachusetts hundreds of thousands of pounds of e-waste is discarded every year.  Much of it winds up in our cities and landfills and that that is recycled costs our cities and towns millions of dollars. Write to your Massachusetts State Representative and ask him/her to pass the Electronic Waste Takeback Bill to require manufacturers to be responsible for collecting and recycling or reusing the electronic waste that they produce.

Governor Deval Patrick has asked state health officials to look into a limited ban of bisphenol A, a chemical found in food and drink containers that the state last summer warned parents of young children to avoid.

"We are disappointed that the Governor's starting point for this process does not address the contamination of baby formula from BPA cans as well as other products for which there are safer alternatives," [Lee Ketelsen co-director of Clean Water Action] said in a statement.  "Connecticut has passed into law a phase-out of products with safer alternatives on the market and we urge Massachusetts to match the health protective standard of our neighboring state."

We are pleased that Governor Patrick is seeking a phase out on bisphenol A (BPA,) a hormone disrupting chemical, in children’s products. However, we are disappointed that the Governor’s starting point for this process does not address the contamination of baby formula from BPA cans as well as other products for which there are safer alternatives.

Location(s)

Please join us for

BROWN TO GREEN TO GOLD:
The Energy-Water Nexus in Cities

Please RSVP to bsmith@cleanwater.org by Tuesday, March 9th
New technologies and designs are emerging to recover
significant amounts of energy from the wastewater stream, lower
heating and cooling needs through "green skins" on buildings,
and reduce urban heat island effect through green infrastructure.
Practitioners will present their latest work from Seattle, New York City,
and Vancouver.

Next steps for Boston? Convening a multi-stakeholder group to
identify opportunities for similar approaches in Boston.

Lunch provided  

Location(s)

Please join us for a program and lunch hosted by Senator Jamie Eldridge:

Holyoke takes the lead in a campaign to reduce waste at the source--manufacturers.

Holyoke is the first community in Massachusetts to call for a statewide Extended Producer Responsibiliby, EPR, program. 

Massachusetts is doing a poor job getting the dangerous chemical out of circulation.

Last week, the Mercury Products Campaign (whose members include Clean Water Action and the Vermont and New York Public Interest Research Groups) released a report, "Turning Up the Heat," in which they warned that as existing mercury thermostats are eventually retired, they will only add to the problem unless significant changes are made.