WHEN asbestos was banned from vehicle brake pads more than a decade ago,
copper was the replacement. Now a study by the Swedish Environmental Protection
Agency finds that the concentrations of copper on the roadside verges are two or
three times as high as background levels, and increasing
(快猫短视频, 1 April, p 19).
So I asked roads minister Lord Whitty if we had only traded a
health problem for an environmental one.
Whitty replied that copper had been used in brake friction materials since
the 1930s. At first a wire form was woven into the material. Being a good
thermal conductor it dissipated heat from the brake surface, reducing the risk
of localised damage. Since the advent of moulded friction materials, though,
copper has tended to be added as chippings. However, most non-asbestos brake
friction materials now use iron instead of copper.
No specific health-based air quality objectives have been set for copper
emissions, nor any arrangements for monitoring levels of copper in the
atmosphere, said Whitty. However, the government has set a tough health-based
objective for emissions of particulate matter (PM10), which would include all
particles produced by brake pad wear. As a result of improving vehicle and fuel
standards, emissions of particulates from motor vehicles have already been
greatly reduced, he added.
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Britain鈥檚 Environment Agency does not view copper deposition as a matter of
particular concern but it is working with the Highways Agency to monitor the
situation. Local water and soil quality do not seem to be affected by copper in
the run-off from roads. We shall be studying the Swedish work further when it is
published later this year鈥�.
WHEN a delegation of Hungarian MPs, led by their Speaker J谩nos 脕 der,
visited Westminster recently, a leading topic of conversation was the pollution
of the Danube. A gold mine in northwest Romania had spilled 100 tonnes of
cyanide from a breached dam into the River Tisza
(快猫短视频, 19 February, p 12),
which flows into Hungary. For hundreds of kilometres along this
tributary of the Danube, dead fish, dying birds and devastated wildlife were
being washed up. The pollution had now spread into Serbia, so I asked George
Foulkes, a junior minister at the Department for International Development
(DFID), what support Britain was offering the Hungarians to tackle this
disaster.
Foulkes replied that the Hungarians were investigating the possibility of
claims against the Romanian and Australian owners of the mine. He said the
principle of 鈥減olluter pays鈥� should be applied. However, the DFID had discussed
with Hungarian and other authorities how Britain could help, and as a result the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office had contributed 拢10 000 to the Regional
Environmental Centre in Hungary to help non-governmental organisations deal with
the immediate damage. Also, the European Commission had set up a working
committee of experts to help if necessary.
As a footnote I learned when I visited Belgrade that the Serbians are
refusing to remove the debris from the river at Novi Sad, resulting from Nato
bombing, until money is 鈥渙n the table鈥� in dollars and Deutschmarks. Removing the
debris would have a positive flushing effect on the river. Now I learn from
Anastasia Dimitrova-Mozer, leader of a recent Bulgarian delegation to
Westminster, that water quality in their stretch of the Danube presents huge
problems for their fishing communities. The famous Blue Danube is running very
grey.