Source: TheEpochtimes    By Veronica Wong

Zhao Feihung is the chairman of the Safe Drinking Water Committee at the Beijing Health Care Association. Her husband works in the National Development and Reform Commission’s Public Nutrition and Development Center. Together, this Beijing couple has not drunken any of the city’s tap water in over 20 years, reported China’s Southern Weekly. Said the 58-year old Zhao, “Out of all the households in Beijing, ours probably knows about the drinking water here the best.”

Source: Green Prophet

Every year when farmers start harvesting their sugar cane, maize and other crops, Cairenes brace themselves for what is ominously known as “The Black Cloud.” Caused when seasonal meteorological conditions meet the smoke released by burning agricultural waste, the heavy black pollution settles over an already smoggy Cairo, and respiratory diseases flourish.

Source: kearneyhub.com

The Grand Island City Council will face a $42 million purchase Tuesday night.

That’s the contract amount for the city to buy equipment to lessen the amount of mercury and other chemicals discharged from the Platte Generating Station, the city’s coal-fired power plant.

Source: Global Times

A city in North China's Hebei Province is to resume pumping water from a reservoir into the water supply system after it confirmed the water was not contaminated by a recent chemical leak from neighboring Shanxi Province.

Source: Global Times  By Liu Linlin

Workers build a network of dams made of activated carbon to intercept aniline from flowing downstream at the border of Hebei, Henan and Shanxi provinces Monday, after some 9 tons of aniline was leaked from a chemical plant in Shanxi on December 31.

Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.  By Laura Johannes

More fabrics are being crafted from materials that sound like they came straight out of a forest. Made from bamboo, eucalyptus and coconut, the fabrics are promoted as having the ability to deter bacterial growth, but scientists say some claims aren't proven.

Source: GpB

Efforts to reduce mercury emissions from Plant Scherer have worked in spite of initial resistance from the power plant's owners, environmentalists say.

The massive coal-fired plant in Juliette was third on the Environmental Integrity Project's "Toxic 10" list of the worst mercury emitters based on 2008 data, but didn't even appear on the group's report released Thursday based on 2011 data (as first noted by the Telegraph's S. Heather Duncan).

Source: BusinessLine

Coconut-shell-based activated carbon has been notified under Focus Product Scheme and is now eligible for 2 per cent export incentive.

This notification of the Director General of Foreign Trade enables the activated carbon exporters to enjoy 2 per cent incentive with effect from January 1, 2013.

Source: Daily News

RAM Ratings Lanka has reaffirmed Hayleys PLC’s (“Hayleys” or “the Company”)respective long- and short-term corporate credit ratings at AA- and P1; the outlook on the long-term rating remains stable. Hayleys is a diversified conglomerate with wide ranging business interests in hand protection, purification, transportation, agriculture, plantations, textiles, construction materials, fiber, consumer, industrial solutions, power and energy together with leisure and aviation.