Fwd: ETC: Nanotech Meets the Environment

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ETC: Nanotech Meets the Environment

 

ETC Group

News Release

Thursday, October 23, 2003

www.etcgroup.org

 

 

Nanotech meets the Environment

Making a Mole Hill out of a Mountain?

 

ETC Group today released a 6-page Communique on the use of nanotechnology-based

products in the environment - products that are coming to market in the absence

of both government oversight and public discussion. A recent large-scale

application of a product touted to control soil erosion using nanotechnology

highlights regulatory inadequacies and lack of clarity in the nanotech industry.

 

The full text of the Communique, " Mulch ado about nothing?...Or the Sand Witch? "

is available on the Internet at www.etcgroup.org.

 

Nanotechnology - whose best-known commercial successes have thus far been

stain-resistant fabrics, stronger and lighter tennis rackets, and transparent

sunscreens - has spawned new environmental products to prevent erosion or to

clean up contaminated sites. While the companies claim these products will be

beneficial to the ecosystem, in the absence of government regulatory oversight,

the unknown short- and long-term implications raise concerns for health and for

the environment.

 

In August and September of this year, a Utah-based company, Sequoia Pacific

Research, participated in a $4 million Bureau of Indian Affairs contract to

protect more than 1,400 acres of fire-ravaged land on a mountainside near Taos,

New Mexico. Sequoia's SoilSET was used to aid the soil-stabilization effort.

SoilSET is a unique and reportedly organic and biodegradable product that

undergoes a 4 nm-level electrochemical reaction when mixed with water. The

reaction causes silicates in the soil and silicates in the product to

self-assemble into a kind of crust that remains for up to a year. The crust is

claimed to prevent soil runoff and allows seeds blended into the product to

establish themselves.

 

" As far as we know, this is the single largest environmental release involving a

nanotechnology product. Hopefully there is no problem, but without government

evaluation and greater company clarity, we can't be sure of the product's

appropriateness or safety, " explains Jim Thomas at ETC Group's UK office.

 

Asked by ETC Group for the chemical composition of the product, Paul Clayson,

Chief Operating Officer for Sequoia, declined to say citing the need for

confidentiality pending patent approval. When ETC Group inquired into the

approval process for the product, Clayson said that the company had contacted a

regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was told that

no approval was required. Yet the company advertises that the SoilSET

process involves a unique nano-scale effect, causing the silicate particles in

the soil and in the product to self-assemble into a resilient matrix.

 

Kathy Jo Wetter, an ETC Group researcher based in North Carolina, USA says,

" Since existing regulations fail to address the changed behaviour of

nanomaterials, many products are coming to market without adequate testing.

Categories do not even exist for companies to classify their new products.

Carbon nanotubes, for example, are often classified as graphite, but nanotubes

are nanotech's so-called 'miracle molecule' - and their properties are wildly

different from graphite - though they're both carbon. "

 

Sequoia, a self-described nanotechnology company, has stressed that they do not

use manufactured nanoparticles and say they are simply taking advantage of

conventional silicate-binding technology. Says ETC Group's Jim Thomas, " No

authorized agency studied this technology before it was deployed. It is quite

possible that the active ingredients in the company's process are nothing more

than sand, but - sand or not - it is how sand performs at the nano-scale,

catalyzing novel reactions in the soil that matters. The product does something

unique to the land that hasn't been done before on anything like this scale. The

bottom line is that the nanotech industry can drive a truck through current

regulations; nano-scale products and processes are entering the market, which

could have environmental implications; and nanotechnologists are neither clear

nor consistent in presenting their products. "

 

Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group worries, " The public needs to know

how SoilSET's matrix forms; how long it lasts; what it does to the living

soil; and where the changed particles end up. It is simply unacceptable for this

large-scale release to be unregulated. " ETC Group's new Communique includes

examples of products in the nanotech pipeline that could involve other

large-scale environmental releases.

 

In July 2002 the ETC Group called for a moratorium on the introduction of new

nano-based products until governments can decide on " best practices " in the lab.

" Although industry has not accepted the call, policy-makers and companies on

both sides of the Atlantic are beginning to acknowledge that regulation is

necessary and inevitable, " Pat Mooney notes, " but the technology is moving fast.

Nanotech's political mold is being cast now. In two years it will be too late.

If industry and governments continue as they have, we will see nanotech in the

same social and scientific chaos we have today with biotech. " But regulating

products is not enough warns ETC Group. Society must be fully engaged in a

discussion of the socio-economic as well as health and environmental

implications of nano-scale technologies. To this end, ETC Group is working with

partners to develop an International Convention for the Evaluation of New

Technologies (ICENT), which it hopes to bring before the United Nations

in 2004.

 

 

For further information, see the full Communique at www.etcgroup.org or contact:

Pat Mooney, ETC Group (Canada) tel: 204 4535259

 

Jim Thomas, ETC Group (UK) jim tel: +44 1865 207818

 

Kathy Jo Wetter, ETC Group (USA) kjo tel: 919 9605223

 

 

The Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration, formerly RAFI, is an

international civil society organization headquartered in Canada. The ETC group

is dedicated to the advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human

rights. www.etcgroup.org. The ETC group is also a member of the Community

Biodiversity Development and Conservation Programme (CBDC). The CBDC is a

collaborative experimental initiative involving civil society organizations and

public research institutions in 14 countries. The CBDC is dedicated to the

exploration of community-directed programmes to strengthen the conservation and

enhancement of agricultural biodiversity. The CBDC website is

www.cbdcprogram.org

 

 

 

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