Policy Changes Bring Cleaner Solvents to Market

Industrial cleaning solvents aren’t something most people think about on a daily basis, at least I hardly do. Interestingly enough some policy changes have forced companies to change how they manufacture solvents and have also changed what the demand end of the spectrum too. Companies that once used toxic solvents have improved their internal cleaning process so they don’t need to purchase hazardous cleaning supplies.

Both the U.S. and Europe have imposed stricter restrictions on solvents during the past 20 years, particularly with European passage of the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) legislation in 2007, which requires toxicity evaluations on thousands of substances. To comply with solvent-emission regulation, manufacturers have the option to install engineering controls to limit emissions. In the dry cleaning industry, for example, emissions of perchloroethylene have been severely curtailed as users have installed specially designed cleaning and recycling equipment to decrease emissions by as much as 90 percent (see related chart).

Read more at IHS.

Shipyards to Wind Farms

A proposal making the rounds in the UK calls for modifying shipyards (which aren’t doing so well in the current economy) into modern wind farms. A good reuse of industrial space.

On a visit to Newcastle, the Liberal Democrat leader said that disused shipyards should be upgraded to allow them to produce the new equipment.

Under a Lib Dem plan, all port authorities on the North Sea and Irish Sea would be able to bid for a share of a £400m pot to convert shipyards into wind turbine plants.

Clegg said: “We need to make sure we come out of this recession with a rebalanced and green economy.

“New offshore turbines, with blades the size of the London Eye, need to be built and launched from modern docks, so we need to upgrade our shipyards to take advantage of this massive opportunity.

“Just imagine the docks and shipyards along the coastline of Britain coming to life and leading the world in this new technology.

Keep reading at The Guardian.

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