Introduction
Environmental goods and services (EGS) as a subset of goods and services were singled out for attention in the negotiating mandate adopted at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.
Fig 1. Environmental pollution problems
Environmental goods and services are products manufactured or services rendered for the main purpose of:
- preventing or minimizing pollution, degradation or natural resources depletion.
- repairing damage to air, water, waste, noise, biodiversity and landscapes.
- reducing, eliminating, treating and managing pollution, degradation and natural resource depletion.
- carrying out other activities such as measurement and monitoring, control, research and development, education, training, information and communication related to environmental protection or resource management.
Categories of environmental pollution
- Air pollution control
Air pollution control, i.e., activities that deliver equipment, technology or specific materials for the collection, treatment or removal of exhaust gases and particulate matter from both stationary and mobile sources. Examples include dust collectors, filters, catalytic converters, scrubbers, odor control equipment, and some specific fuels.
- Waste water management
Waste water management, which denotes activities that produce equipment, technology or materials for the collection, treatment or transport of waste water and cooling water. This comprises chemical treatment and recovery equipment, oil/water separation systems, and sewage treatment equipment.
- Solid waste management
Solid waste management, which refers to equipment, technology or specific materials for the collection, treatment, transport, disposal and recovery of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste. The former includes low level, but not high level, nuclear waste. The manufacture of new materials from recovered scrap and the subsequent use of such materials are excluded.
- Remediation and cleanup of soil, surface water and groundwater
Remediation and cleanup of soil, surface water and groundwater; this class comprises absorbents, chemical and bioremediators for cleaning-up, and any technology to reduce the amount of pollutants previously deposited in soil or water (including sea water).
Products supplied
As for now, Alfa Chemistry offers environmental goods standards including chlorinated phenol and resin acids standards, drinking water disinfection byproducts standards, and environmental contaminants standards.
- Chlorinated Phenol and Resin Acids Standards
Pulp bleaching is accomplished with various compounds containing chlorine or oxygen and alkali extractions in several stages. Pulp bleaching will produce a variety of oxidation and chlorination products. The chlorinated phenol and resin acids standards we supplied can be used in the analysis of pulp and paper products and effluents.
Fig 2. Used in the analysis of paper products and waste water
- Drinking Water Disinfection By-product Standards
In disinfection, gaseous chlorine (Cl2) or liquid sodium hypochlorite (bleach, NaOCl) is added to, and reacts with, water to form hypochlorous acid. In the presence of bromine, hypobromous acid is also formed. Both chlorine and bromine are in the "halogen" group of elements, and have similar chemical characteristics. Hypochlorous and hypobromous acid form strong oxidizing agents in water and react with a wide variety of compounds, and produce various of byproducts.
The drinking water disinfection by-product standards we supplied include a range of haloketones, halonitromethanes, halomethanes, haloaldehydes, haloacids, haloacetonitriles and haloacetamides.
Fig 3. Formation of iodinated disinfection byproducts (I-DBPs) in drinking water
- Environmental Contaminant Standards
Currently phthalate monoesters that are breakdown products of phthalate diesters, ubiquitous environmental contaminants. As the most important polymer additives, the amount of phthalate esters in WIP ranged from 0 to 50%. Phthalate esters are one of the most frequently detected persistent organic pollutants in the environment. The environmental contaminants standards we supplied is mainly series phthalate monoesters.
Fig 4. Plastic pollutions
