PICEH to Honor East Penn Manufacturing
May 27, 2009 The Pennsylvania
Institute for Children’s Environmental Health (PICEH)
will be honoring East Penn Manufacturing (Lyon Station, PA)
with the organization’s highest honor, the
Cevallos Award, for children’s environmental health and
environmental stewardship.
The Cevallos
Award is named in honor of Dr. F. Javier Cevallos, president
of Kutztown University, for his commitment to children’s
environmental health issues. Dr. Cevallos’ leadership was
instrumental in providing Kutztown University’s support in
establishing the Pennsylvania Institute for Children’s
Environmental Health. Dr. Cevallos’ commitment to the
founding of PICEH personifies the spirit and dedication to
children’s environmental health issues that the Institute
desires to recognize in others with this award.
The criteria
for the Cevallos Award is that the recipient(s) must display a personal, public and financial
commitment to advancing children’s environmental health
issues and have proven themselves as an advocate for
children’s environmental health issues. The award is not an
annual award, and is bestowed upon those that the PICEH's board of
directors would like to recognize for their
accomplishments in making clear improvements in advancing
the health of children by protecting them from environmental
harms.
East Penn
Manufacturing is being acknowledged with the Cevallos Award
for the following achievements:
1) Since 2000 as production has increased
more than (54%) East Penn's ambient air lead concentrations have
decreased more than 50%.
2)
East Penn is the only facility within the industry to
operate a zero discharge wastewater treatment faculty. The
process wastewater is treated and recycled/reused on-site in
the manufacturing process. The recycling/reuse of the
wastewater minimizes the demand for groundwater consumption,
a valuable and limited resource.
3)
East Penn is the only battery manufacturer in the United
States to recycle their sulfuric acid.
4)
Waste Minimization/Pollution Prevention. Process
gases are scrubbed with ammonia to produce Sulfur/Nitrogen
solution, fertilizer additive. Wastewater treatment process
produces a high quality Sodium Sulfate Salt, commercial
product additive/filler. Air pollution control equipment
with secondary HEPA filtration recirculation, minimize need
for comfort heating during winter.
5)
East Penn Environmental Management System is third party
certified to ISO 14001 standard.
6) East
Penn’s Battery Recycle Center/Metals Division is a STAR site
in the OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program – a recognition
for best of the best in Safety and Health programs.
7) East Penn
is a recipient of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Award (acid
recycle facility and zero discharge wastewater treatment
plant) and now will have the distinct honor of having
employees who have won this award on more than one
occasion as employee of East Penn and a member of PICEH.
8)Most recently,
East Penn has made a commitment to the County of Berks and
to PICEH to meet more stringent ambient air lead standards,
of which they are already close to achieving four years
ahead of the date required by the US EPA.
“This award represents East Penn’s
longstanding support of environmental initiatives within the
community - both internally and externally. They are a model
of how industry and environmental groups can work together
to achieve goals that will benefit all parties by assuring a
safer environment for our children”, stated PICEH's
Chairman, Craig D. Hafer.
A reception honoring East Penn will be
held on Saturday May 30, 2009 at Kutztown University.
PICEH Wins Governor's 2009 Award for Environmental
Excellence
April 28, 2009 The
Pennsylvania Institute for Children's Environmental Health
was honored by Governor Rendell and the PA Department for
Environmental Protection for its work in air quality
monitoring around Berks County and its quarterly
publication, "The Stepping Stone".
The Institute was also honored for
focusing on public outreach for children's health issues
through its Child's World Lecture Series which is
free to the public and held at Kutztown University.
Several renown speakers of the lecture series have been Dr.
Devra Davis, Director, University of Pittsburgh Cancer
Institute and a professor of epidemiology at the University
of Pittsburgh, Dr. Steven Gilbert, Director of the Institute
of Neurotoxicology & Neurological Disorders and Jim DiPeso,
Policy Director, Republicans for Environmental Protection.
"It is a good day for Berks County,"
stated Craig D. Hafer, Chairman of the Institute. "This
award brings recognition to Berks County for something very
positive. Berks County is one of the commonwealth's
leading counties in children's environmental health and the
Governor's award confirms this," he concluded.
The Institute was founded in 2006 as a
partnership with Kutztown University to study how air
quality and the environment affect children's environmental
health.
Safer Alternatives to Looking Pretty
April 23, 2009 Each day
millions of women apply makeup with little or no
understanding of its toxicity. Little girls are
encouraged to play by applying makeup to their faces.
But is there a health risk?
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a national coalition
of nonprofit health and environmental organizations. Their
collective goal is to protect the health of consumers and
workers by requiring the personal care products industry to
phase out the use of chemicals linked to cancer, birth
defects and other serious health concerns, and replace them
with safer alternatives. They even offer alternatives, so
that those who want to wear makeup can still keep a smile on
their face.
The Pennsylvania Institute
for Children’s Environmental Health ("PICEH") is focused
on children’s environmental health issues within the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. By combining educational initiatives,
outreach efforts and research activities, PICEH can pursue
its mission of understanding why children are not little
adults and help Pennsylvanians protect our children from
unnecessary environmental harms.
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archived news articles, click here.
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