Category: Emerging Issues

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Emerging Issues / Emissions
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New Sprawling EtO Litigations Mount as Our Pandemic-Shaken World Increasingly Relies on Commercial Sterilizers

Right on the heels of the eye-popping $408 million settlement between a major commercial sterilizer and plaintiffs claiming injuries resulting from exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO) emitted from the company’s Illinois facility (covered by ELM here), the company now faces two different legal actions initiated by two new groups of plaintiffs but similarly stemming from fugitive EtO emissions from the company’s U.S. facilities. These legal battles come at a time when there are not yet viable alternatives to EtO, a highly efficient medical-equipment sterilizing …

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large pile stack of textile fabric clothes and shoes
Emerging Issues
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Fast-Fashion Post-Holiday Autopsy: How the Industry’s ‘Dupes’ and Fast-Fashion Apparel Boom is Fostering Environmental Disaster

The fashion industry has been dodging a colossal optics problem, but the aftermath of holiday shopping may finally expose prominent fashion houses for their part in contributing to environmental degradation. The metrics of the fashion industry’s dire environmental impacts are daunting:

  • More than 100 billion apparel items are manufactured annually — more than double the fashion industry’s production in 2000 — signaling a problematic upsurge in textile sourcing and processing.
  • 92 million tons of textile waste is produced annually — the equivalent of one truckload
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18 wheeler trucks on the road
Emerging Issues / Emissions / EPA
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EPA Sets New Guidelines for Diesel Emissions

On December 20, 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized regulations aimed at reducing harmful emissions from trucks, delivery vehicles, and buses. These regulations will impact vehicles manufactured after 2027 and are designed to cut 50% of smog and soot-forming emissions by 2045. These regulations are slated to become final 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register.

The regulations announced this week are the first in this area in approximately 20 years. The regulations mainly target the emission of nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen oxides …

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emissions
Emerging Issues / Emissions
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SEC on Cusp of Radically Expanding Emission-Disclosure Requirements

The Securities and Exchange Commission in March gave initial approval to the Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors. These disclosures include three different categories:

  • Scope 1 – Emissions that come directly from company-owned sources.
  • Scope 2 – Indirect emissions from energy purchased, and consumed by a company.
  • Scope 3 – All other indirect emissions that occur during the course of a company’s business.

One of the major proposed changes essentially eliminates the “materiality standard” for companies’ Scope 1 and 2 emissions disclosures. The …

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Cryptocurrency mining rigs in a data center
Emerging Issues / New York
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While the Crypto Financial World Burns, New York Passes Law Preventing Crypto Miners from Burning More Fossil Fuels

A few weeks after her election as New York’s first female governor, and a couple days before New Yorkers sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Nov. 22 finally signed an environmental conservation moratorium on new cryptocurrency mining operations, which both houses of state’s Legislature passed over the summer. (The bill’s progress was followed and reported on by ELM all year, most recently here.)

For two years, the law will disallow crypto mining companies from using the energy-intensive “proof-of-work” method to mint …

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Black Friday, Woman holding many shopping bags while walking in the shopping mall background.
Emerging Issues / Emissions
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The Environmental Impact of Black Friday

Consumers spent a record $9.12 billion shopping online during Black Friday this year, and are expected to spend $210.1 billion this holiday season, according to Adobe Analytics. That’s an anticipated increase of 2.5 percent from 2021.

Each year, holiday shopping statistics prompt a look at the environmental impact of consumerism in the United States and around the world. Black Friday and the surge in spending during the holiday season, sparks conversation regarding environmental concerns involving waste, emissions, “fast fashion,” and most recently Environmental, Social and …

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Female engineer working on maintenance in bottling plant
Due Diligence / Emerging Issues / Texas
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Ethylene Oxide Alert: Deliberative Process Privilege Found To Not Justify Withholding EtO Data in Texas

Our blog recently reported on the first jury verdict concerning alleged ethylene oxide exposure and has previously reported a number of times here generally about ethylene oxide (EtO).  Ethylene oxide is a gas commonly used to make other chemicals utilized in a variety of consumer and industrial goods, including fabric, detergents, medicines, and adhesives. It is used to sterilize medical devices and spices and to kill microorganisms in grains. EtO is a well-established sterilizing agent highly efficient at preventing bacteria from growing on, or within, products during …

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batteries
Emerging Issues
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The Future’s So Bright…Because My Tech Just Lit on Fire

The principals of electrochemical power have been known for more than 200 years. Two specific chemicals are stored in a battery, separated by a third chemical called an “electrolyte.” When placed in a closed circuit (the device needing power), one of the chemicals reacts with the electrolyte and produces a higher concentration of electrons at the negative terminal, the “anode,” than at the positive terminal, the “cathode.” The electrons then run from the anode, through the device powering it, to the cathode, until the concentration …

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Emerging Issues / EPA
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EPA Establishes Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights

On September 24, 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing civil rights and environmental justice. The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR) was created through the merger of three existing internal programs: the Office of Environmental Justice, the External Civil Rights Compliance Office, and the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center. The OEJECR will oversee the delivery of over $3 billion in grants to assist communities that are adversely impacted by environmental challenges such as …

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Emerging Issues / Microplastics
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New Microplastics Requirements Put California’s Drinking Water to the Test

As previously reported in ELM, microplastics – plastic fragments smaller than 5 millimeters in length – have been found everywhere from Antarctica (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/microplastics-found-for-the-first-time-in-freshly-fallen-snow/) to human lung tissue (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/study-finds-microplastics-in-human-lung-tissue/) to, especially, bodies of water (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/can-biofilm-engineering-be-used-to-address-microplastics-pollution/). This ubiquity has led to an increased number of studies and ever-improving sampling methods for the purposes of reversing the omnipresence of microplastics. 

After years of research involving several dozen laboratories, last week, California’s Water Resources Control Board approved microplastics testing requirements – the world’s …

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