Displaying items by tag: Pollution

Tanzania: January Makamba, the Minister of State in the Vice-President's Office, Union and Environment, has ordered that the Moshi Cement plant close whilst it implements the recommendations of the National Environment Management Council (NEMC). Following a visit by the council the management of the plant were asked to observe the Environment Management Act of 2004, according to the Daily News newspaper. Recommendations the plant has been asked to take action on include reducing dust emissions at the site.

India: Redecam Group and Isgec Heavy Engineering have started a joint venture called Isgec Redecam Enviro Solutions in Noida, Delhi. The new company will provide for flue gas treatment systems for the cement, power and metals industries.

“Air pollution is one of the major environmental issues India and the rest of Asia face today and it is a serious problem with the major sources being industrial emission and biomass burning, vehicle emissions and traffic congestion. In the effort to reduce the country’s air pollution, Redecam and Isgec aim to build a strong business in Asia, drawing upon Redecam’s global expertise combined with the skills and knowledge of Isgec, a strong partner headquartered in India,” said Barry Downing, chief executive officer of Redecam Group.

Italy’s Redecam Group is an engineering company that serves the air pollution control industry around the world. India’s Isgec Heavy Engineering is a general engineering company with references in the cement, chemical, textile, power, oil, gas and sugar industries.

Fiji: The Fiji Fish Marketing Group, a fish exporter, is taking legal action against two cement producers for transporting and offloading clinker. Pacific Cement and Tengy Cement Fiji with RPA Group Fiji, a transport company, have been accused of causing damage to the Fiji Fish Marketing Group’s property and its personnel, according to the Fiji times newspaper. Tengy Cement Fiji operates a cement plant in Lami near to the island capital Suva.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement says that all of cement plants in Pakistan are operating as normal. The plants are not facing any unscheduled shutdown and sales and cement dispatches are progressing as per the company’s regular routine.

The cement producer made its comments in response to a news story in the Nation newspaper alleging that a district authority had shut down Lucky Cement’s Pezu plant near Darru Pezu in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early January 2017 due to breaches of environmental regulations.

Amendment: This story was amended following comment from Lucky Cement.

Vietnam: Ha Tien is to close its cement grinding plant in the Thu Duc district of Ho Chi Minh City following failed attempts to move the plant. The cement producer was ordered to cease all operations at the plant by 31 December 2016, according to Vietnam News. The plant reduced its production capacity to 1Mt/yr from 1.7Mt/yr in 2015 following accusations of air pollution. Ha Tien attempted to move the plant to District 9 in 2016 but the proposal was turned down by city planners.

Slovenia: LafargeHolcim will pay Euro270,000 in compensation to farmers in the Zasavje region, who claimed that pollution damaged their land. LafargeHolcim settled with the farmers before a long running court case ordered three other companies to pay up to Euro1.17m each, according to the Slovenian Press Agency. The farmers presented measurements showing permitted emissions had been exceeded by 10-fold or in some cases even 100-fold between 1991 and 2002, alongside evidence of declining yields and animal reproduction rates, as well as damage to orchards and forests. The other companies involved in the case were the Termoelektrarna Trbovlje (TET) thermal power plant, the Steklarna Hrastnik glassworks and the TKI chemicals factory.

Vietnam: The Ministries of Industry and Trade and Natural Resources and Environment have started inspecting cement and thermal power plants following the discovery of various violations of environmental regulations at certain companies. A joint delegation from the two ministries will look into the production and waste treatment facilities of the factories, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper.

Trần Tuấn Anh, Minister of Industry and Trade, has also ordered companies regulated by his ministry to provide information on environmental protection to the media. Anh has made it mandatory for contractors and investors to complete environmental protection projects in accordance with the commitments stated in their environmental impact assessments released before operation starts. Producers are supposed to publicise information on their trials so that local authorities and residents can supervise them.

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia is facing clean-up costs following the release of dust from its Langkawi cement plant on 12 September 2016. Dust from the plant was accidentally released due to repair work on a clogged processing unit. It was then blown by the wind to three nearby villages comprising around 1000 houses, according to the Free Malaysia Today newspaper. Management at the plant has apologised for the incident and has agreed to cover the cost of the clean up.

Pakistan: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued directives to the Hazara and Kohat administrations to stop production at two cement plants in breach of EPA regulations on dust pollution. Muhammad Bashir Khan, the director general of the EPA, has issued directives to shut down the Dewan Hattar Cement plant in Hattar and the Kohat Cement plant, according to the News International newspaper. Khan said that the Dewan Hattar plant had requested an eight-month period to install dust control measures but had failed to do so. The Kohat plant’s dust control unit is currently out of order.

US: A legal challenge to the cancelled Titan American Castle Hayne cement plant has ended following the termination of a challenged air pollution permit by the North Carolina Division of Air Quality. Titan rescinded the permit, following its announcement in March 2016 to cancel its cement plant project. It was originally issued in 2012.

"For years, Titan and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) tried to keep citizen groups from getting a hearing on significant and avoidable air pollution from this proposed plant," said Geoff Gisler, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Cape Fear River Watch, PenderWatch & Conservancy, and Sierra Club. "We have achieved the goal of this lawsuit - protecting citizens of New Hanover and Pender counties from Titan’s pollution when DEQ failed to do so."

Titan will continue to operate a cement terminal at the site. On 12 April 2016, the North Carolina Court of Appeals granted citizen groups’ request to dismiss the appeal because the approval of the plant had been withdrawn, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.