DESIRABLE FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS

DESIRABLE FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS

Nov 25, 2023 | ENVIRONMENT, ITALY, WORLD

Italy appreciates the great collective effort made by Member States, EFSA, ECHA and the Commission to finalize a new evaluation of glyphosate, which took place a few years after the previous one and involved the examination of a very considerable amount of data.

However, regarding some issues for further investigation as highlighted by the EFSA opinion and which emerged in the discussions to adopt the renewal regulation, Italy deems it appropriate to underline that it is desirable:

• to launch, at community level, of further integrative studies for collection of data to fill data gaps in order to protect biodiversity and the various environmental matrices;

• to complete, without undue delay, of the evaluation of the dossiers relating to the approval or renewal of the approval of active substances that are potential alternatives to glyphosate;

• that the use of the active substance is not authorized in the pre-harvest phase.

This is our ‘contribution’ … i.e. Italy’s signature on the extension for a period of ONLY TEN YEARS! To the use of glyphosate. 

Sure, why do not go on for a decade?

After all, Sleeping Beauty has been asleep for a hundred years, what can be ten in comparison?

In the meantime it is desirable, DESIRABLE! that Roundup is not used pre-harvest, of course, better not to have it freshly harvested in the dish, but nicely grown and integrated into the food.

Forgive my sarcasm, but I can’t stand these two sides: in recent years, governments have been ‘very concerned’ about our health, but apparently only about certain sides.

I wonder why, in this case, MORE studies are needed for at least ANOTHER ten years.

Yeah, another ten years, because, as I told you before, this story goes way back. 

All this while a Californian jury found Bayer, the company that acquired Monsanto liable in a lawsuit brought by a man who claimed his cancer was due to exposure to the company’s Roundup herbicide, and ordered it to pay $332 million in damages.

The verdict includes $7 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages awarded to plaintiff Mike Dennis, who was diagnosed at the age of 51 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to a company spokesman. 

But it is desirable that the use of the active substance will not be authorised in the pre-harvest phase for another ten years.

FELICITY ACE

FELICITY ACE

Mar 9, 2022 | ENVIRONMENT, WORLD

There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip …

From the blue oceans we sustain people’s live and ensure a prosperous future.

This is the central sentence that appears on the Mitsui OSK Lines website, which is the domicile of Snowscape Car Carriers SA, Tokyo, Japan. 

Yet their Felicity Ace does not bring happiness, on the contrary, it turned out to be a terrible ace of spades.

This cargo ship, flying the Panamanian flag, sank off the Azores islands.

The site of the Portuguese Navy reports a photographic sequence. 

SMIT Salvage Pte Ltd. on February 18 publishes the following document:
A team of sixteen experts from subsidiary SMIT Salvage was mobilized yesterday and is present on the Azores where the large car carrier Felicity Ace is currently on fire. The ship was en route from Germany to the United States when the fire broke out. The entire crew has been safely evacuated and large equipment is on enroute from Spain and the Netherlands to assist with the fire fighting.

Also on February 18, Mitsui OSK Lines communicates through its website a disclosure of information on the FELICITY ACE accident which reports:
MOL operated car carrier FELICITY ACE has experienced a fire while underway in the Atlantic on February 16, and all crew has evacuated from the vessel safely. Information regarding this accident will be disclosed in the following website.
MOL regrets for the inconvenience and concern caused. MOL will make every effort to contain the damage and resolve the situation as the main priorities.

A second press release follows on 02 March:
Whilst the vessel was being towed to a safe area since February 25, it sank on March 1 having suffered a list to starboard.

On the site in charge, a chronology of events is listed which tells of a fire that broke out on board.

The following statement continues to report: is still assumed to remain on fire.

Until February 25: the smoke is no longer visible.

From February 16th to February 25th there are 9 days.

On March 1, the ship is reported to have sunk.

Yesterday, March 7: The vessel sank on March 1 around 9AM local time around 220nm off the Azores after having suffered a list to starboard side.
The oil film that was confirmed at the time of sinking of the Vessel remains on the sea surface, spreading thinly and disappearing gradually, but no new oil film has been confirmed.
After consultation with the relevant authorities, the tug and salvage crafts left the site on March 5, and will continue monitoring the area with regular observation by satellite and aircraft.

A thin oil film.

As if that was all.

Nothing appears on the EMSA website. 

The cars transported were electric cars, a probable cause of the fire could be lithium batteries, which require special equipment to be extinguished, as said the captain Joao Mendes Cabecas of the port of Hortas interviewed by Reuters. 

The Fire Brigade Working Group has drawn up an information handbook which explains in particular the Thermal Runaway and the risk of fire and explosion of ion batteries of lithium.

Do you know how a battery is “disposed of”?

I report verbatim from the Cobat website that is the Compulsory Consortium for Exhausted Lead Batteries and Waste Lead that explains Pyrometallurgy.

The plant recovers metals such as nickel, cobalt  and copper, liquefying the battery components at high temperatures.
Lithium and aluminum remain in the residues.
To recover the lithium, additional (expensive) processing steps are required.

The same Environment Area of the European Community declares that Li-ion batteries pose a special threat, as they contain a high percentage of dangerous heavy metals.

Always the source Reuters speaks of a total of about 4000 cars, all luxury: Porche, Audi, Bentley … with a presumable huge amount of battery accumulators.

I don’t know about you, but for me that “oil film” is not covering what has ended up on the bottom of the sea.

Is this really the zero impact we are told?

LOST MAIL

LOST MAIL

Sep 17, 2020 | ITALY, TROUBLES AND BLOWS

5 million fine to Poste Italiane.
te the Guarantor Authority for Competition and the Market verbatim:
This is the maximum amount allowed by law, but it is not deterrent in relation to the specific turnover of Poste Italiane in 2019 of € 3.492 billion. For the Authority, Poste’s behavior causes damage not only to consumers, but also to the country’s justice system.

So anyway a trifle for them.
And only the damage related to the registered letters is taken into consideration, when instead in general the rest of the services do not work …

At the beginning of the year we had a lot of problems, as well as real economic damage, due to the fact that the correspondence for the month of December was not delivered to us.

It may happen that a letter is lost, but all of them!

And these envelopes are still not received today … I imagine them lying in some office stacked waiting to end their days among the paper to be recycled, at best.

Trying to contact customer service is a titanic undertaking, of course now on the sites it is practically impossible, and the email addresses are better hidden than the Holy Grail, in any case I managed to send a complaint with precise data and references.

The answer came to me a long time later as a sheet of paper in the mailbox and was: “it was not us who took care of the delivery of your correspondence but others.”

So what?
And so to put it in simple terms, we can safely put it in the pipe and smoke it, or alternatively hit the pike, at our choice.

So you will forgive me if I don’t feel particularly distressed by this sanction.

I wonder if these rare occasions, which fall like rain in the desert, can really be enough to restore confidence in justice, and to ensure that users do not feel completely abandoned to their fate.

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