A few weeks back prescription drugs showing up in tap water was in all the headlines. Today I noticed a article on azcentral.com saying that the City of Phoenix has done extensive testing and found no traces of drugs in their water. This is just another reassurance that tap water is great to drink.

Phoenix drinking water received a clean bill of health Monday after extensive testing found no pharmaceuticals in the water supply.

Tests conducted by an independent laboratory at each of Phoenix’s six water treatment plants showed no traces of drugs and met all standards of the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said at an afternoon press conference.

“I’m pleased today to report that Phoenix tap water meets all EPA requirements . . . and that no trace of pharmaceuticals were found in any of the tests,” Mayor Phil Gordon said. “Providing safe and healthy water to our residents (is something that) we do very well.”

[azcentral.com]

More about the environmental costs of bottle water from Tucson’s KUAT 6. Follow the link to see the video.

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Looks like valley cities are doing well to improve their environmental scores on Valley Forward’s report card. The city of Phoenix did particularly well scoring straight A’s. The report looks at city’s air, land use, transportation, and water. To see the report click here.

This is a really interesting documentary about working toward no waste, making products that are truly recyclable or compostable, buildings that respect the occupants and the land, and doing it in a way that is beneficial to business.

Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in na­tions like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), produc­tion and consumption could become beneficial for the planet.

http://www.vpro.nl/

Some irresponsible biodiesel producers are dumping their waste products mostly consisting of glycerin into rivers and streams. This can kill plants, animals, and especially fish. Even though these are mostly classified as non-toxic chemicals the glycerin needs to be cleaned of any methanol residue in it. Also large amounts of this in the environment quickly reduces the amount of oxygen in the water which kills fish and plants.

A producer needs to know what they are going to do with their waste products before going into this business.  You can’t just dump your waste into a stream and expect to get away with it. Check out the story at nytimes.com.