Okay, I’ll start with the good news: Last week on World Environment Day (05 June), Biogas in S\u00c3\u00a3o Paulo, Brazil, inaugurated with the presence of the city’s Mayor Gilberto Kassab an installation to extract methane gas generated by the S\u00c3\u00a3o Jo\u00c3\u00a3o Landfill, a 150-acre area where 7,000 ton of urban waste is dumped everyday, or half of the megalopolis’s waste production. <\/p>\n
The other half goes to another landfill where Biogas has a similar installation in operation since 2004. The projection is that 12 million tons of CO2 will be saved in the coming years.<\/p>\n
The volume of natural gas to be collected at S\u00c3\u00a3o Jo\u00c3\u00a3o will reach about 6.000.000 Nm\u00c2\u00b3 per month, which matches the consumption of a city with 500,000 people and the production of electricity for a city with 300,000 people. <\/p>\n
Now the bad news, which, when it comes to China and environmental problems, have become almost synonymous: Agence France-Presse yesterday reported that China’s air and water pollution is worsening despite a national push to reduce notorious pollution levels, according to a new report published by the country’s environment watchdog.<\/p>\n
Only 38 percent of 585 cities surveyed recently registered air quality that reached national health standards, down from about 45 percent in a 2005 study. Overall levels of water deemed to be healthy also slipped by 7.24 percent.<\/p>\n