Search

Results

U.S. recycles lead risks to Mexico

18 Dec 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The angel Gabriel brings wondrous news to young Mary in this Sunday’s gospel: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” The news is not so good for pregnant women in Mexico who live near lead recycling shops. Increasing numbers of spent batteries are shipped from the U.S. to poorly regulated shops for recycling, exposing workers and local residents to toxins that may cause birth defects and other damaging health effects. The rising flow of batteries southward is a result of strict new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards on lead pollution, which make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low and enforcement is lax. Mexican environmental officials acknowledge that they lack the money, personnel, and technical capacity to police a fast-growing industry now operating in many parts of the country, often in dilapidated neighborhoods. Batteries are imported through official channels or smuggled in to satisfy a growing demand for lead, once cheap and readily available but now in short global supply. Lead batteries are crucial to cellphone networks, solar power arrays, and the exploding Chinese car market, and the demand for lead has increased as much as tenfold in a decade. An analysis of trade statistics shows that about 20 percent of spent American vehicle and industrial batteries are now exported to Mexico, up from 6 percent in 2007. About 20 million such batteries will cross the border this year, and that does not take into account batteries smuggled in as mislabeled metal scrap or second-hand goods. In September, more than 60 18-wheelers full of old batteries crossed the border each day, trade records show. Lead interferes with neurological development and can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage, and abdominal pain in adults and developmental delays and behavioral problems in young children. When batteries are broken for recycling, the lead is released as dust and during melting as lead-laced emissions. Lead pollution remains in the ground for decades, further adding to the risk. “If we export, we should only be sending batteries to countries with standards as strict as ours, and in Mexico that is not the case,” said Perry Gottesfeld, executive director of Occupational Knowledge International, a San Francisco group devoted to reducing lead exposure. Source: An article by Elisabeth Rosenthal for the New York Times

lead pollution mexico battery recycling

Restricted
Cycling ring doped and duped the testers

28 Oct 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Each of us makes decisions to close our eyes to a lot we prefer not to see,” which “puts us at risk as we participate in certain grand lies,” says Alice Camille about spiritual blindness and the Sunday gospel theme of blindness and restoration of sight. A case of silent collusion and participation in a grand lie in professional cycling came to a stunning conclusion Monday when cancer survivor and American sports icon Lance Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France championships for doping to win his titles and for playing an instrumental role in a massive secret doping ring in the tainted sport.International cycling's governing body Monday accepted the findings of a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report about the elaborate doping program involving Armstrong, not only stripping the famed athlete of his titles but also banning him from competition for life.International Cycling Union (UCI) President Pat McQuaid said that Armstrong’s teams had a “win at all costs” attitude fueled by “deceit, intimidation, coercion, and evasion” and that all of the evidence was there to prove that Armstrong doped. Armstrong, who has vehemently denied ever doping, declined to comment Monday. By early Tuesday his biography on his Twitter page had been changed to no longer say he is the seven-time Tour de France winner.The USADA sent 1,000-plus pages of documentation to the UCI, including a report from 26 witnesses, among them 11 former Armstrong teammates, who alleged Armstrong and his teams used steroids, the blood-booster EPO, blood transfusions, and testosterone and hid it from testers in a sophisticated doping scheme during his Tour de France title runs."It's a very nasty story," said Don Catlin, the International Olympic Committee medical commission member who has presided over sports drug testing since the 1980s. "Doping control has a lot of problems."Homily hint: Jesus was kind and patient with a lot of shortcomings, but he didn’t have much tolerance for lying, cheating, and hypocrisy. Perhaps that is why he took so well to blind Bartimaeus in the gospel story, who had not a hint of guile in him. Though blind, he saw the truth and spoke it clearly. May we all do so as well. Sources: Articles by Lance Pugmire for the Los Angeles Times and Juliet Macur for the New York Times

cheating lance armstrong cycling doping don catlin pat mcquaid international cycling union us anti-doping agency tour de france

Restricted
Cycling ring doped and duped the testers

28 Oct 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Each of us makes decisions to close our eyes to a lot we prefer not to see,” which “puts us at risk as we participate in certain grand lies,” says Alice Camille about spiritual blindness and the Sunday gospel theme of blindness and restoration of sight. A case of silent collusion and participation in a grand lie in professional cycling came to a stunning conclusion Monday when cancer survivor and American sports icon Lance Armstrong was stripped of his 7 Tour de France championships for doping to win his titles and for playing an instrumental role in a massive secret doping ring in the tainted sport.International cycling's governing body Monday accepted the findings of a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report about the elaborate doping program involving Armstrong, not only stripping the famed athlete of his titles but also banning him from competition for life.International Cycling Union (UCI) President Pat McQuaid said that Armstrong’s teams had a “win at all costs” attitude fueled by “deceit, intimidation, coercion, and evasion” and that all of the evidence was there to prove that Armstrong doped. Armstrong, who has vehemently denied ever doping, declined to comment Monday. By early Tuesday his biography on his Twitter page had been changed to no longer say he is the seven-time Tour de France winner.The USADA sent 1,000-plus pages of documentation to the UCI, including a report from 26 witnesses, among them 11 former Armstrong teammates, who alleged Armstrong and his teams used steroids, the blood-booster EPO, blood transfusions, and testosterone and hid it from testers in a sophisticated doping scheme during his Tour de France title runs."It's a very nasty story," said Don Catlin, the International Olympic Committee medical commission member who has presided over sports drug testing since the 1980s. "Doping control has a lot of problems."Homily hint: Jesus was kind and patient with a lot of shortcomings, but he didn’t have much tolerance for lying, cheating, and hypocrisy. Perhaps that is why he took so well to blind Bartimaeus in the gospel story, who had not a hint of guile in him. Though blind, he saw the truth and spoke it clearly. May we all do so as well. Sources: Articles by Lance Pugmire for the Los Angeles Times and Juliet Macur for the New York Times

cheating lance armstrong cycling doping don catlin pat mcquaid international cycling union us anti-doping agency tour de france

Restricted