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.

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."

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.

Study shows that Mercury is not disposed properly

Each time one of these thermostats is thrown away the mercury in them ends up in our atmosphere and ultimately inside the fish we eat, which can lead to serious health problems.  Currently the manufacturers of these thermostats have a collection program that properly disposes of the mercury.

According to Chris Bathurst of Clean Water Act, they are collecting less than five percent of them in Massachusetts.

“For example, like Maine, they capture about 43 of these thermostats for every 10,000 folks. In Massachusetts, it's 4.3 for every 10,000, “Said Bathurst.

Environmental activists are taking a second look at a 2006 law designed to phase out mercury products in Massachusetts. The law, designed to encourage the use of non-mercury alternatives, called on manufacturers of products that contain the toxic element to set up collection programs to keep it out of landfills. The advocacy group Clean Water Action said the law has stemmed the sale of mercury-containing thermostats in Massachusetts, but thousands of the devices remain on the walls of homes and businesses. Tomorrow, the group plans to release a report looking at what happens to those thermostats when they are replaced by digital versions, or when buildings are torn down.

Program will next take aim at garbage trucks

The Massachusetts Diesel Pollution Solution Coalition, which consists of 30 organizations including Clean Water Action and Worcester's Regional Environmental Council, aims to reduce exposure to diesel emissions throughout the state.

Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow is pushing a bill that would force manufactures to switch from certain toxic chemicals to alternatives, as long as they can do the same job.

The group predicts using alternatives would save 5 billion dollars a year in health care costs.

Acknowledging there is "some concern" that a chemical found in baby bottles and infant sipping cups could cause adverse heath effects in children, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials pledged yesterday to study the chemical far more closely but said there wasn't enough evidence to further regulate it yet....