Sustainable Detergents - One Standard For Europe

A brand new standard has been developed by Europe’s leading producers of sustainable detergents, called the Greenway Standard.

Sustainable detergents - one standard for all: A brand new standard has been developed by Europe’s leading producers of sustainable detergents, called the Greenway Standard. The focus is on economical, ecological and social issues, all at the same time. This is a significant challenge, explains Peter Malaise, consultant on sustainable development issues, writing exclusively for ECJ.

Aren’t all detergents sustainable? Unfortunately not – but as a matter of fact it depends on what your definition of ‘sustainable’ is. ‘Sustainable’ is not the same as ‘biodegradable’; and only the smaller part of most detergent formulations - the surfactants - must legally be biodegradable. Surfactants make up between three and 20 per cent of a detergent formula, depending on the type of product, leaving between 80 and 97 per cent unaccounted for.

Besides, the fact that part of a detergent is biodegradable doesn’t say anything about its aquatic toxicity, or about the stable metabolites it might generate. Nor does it make clear if the carbon based raw materials used were from fossil or from renewable sources and if the transformation technology used ‘green’ chemistry principles and was keen on energy and waste. Uhhh...?

Yes, the detergent business is all too often clear as mud. Detergents are a very complex type of commodity, which we use on a daily basis - mostly without much thought or afterthought - and about which we don’t know too much, even when we’re professional users. It is the obvious tool which does the dirty job and that’s it.

It was in the early 1960s that detergents first came under official scrutiny. For a good reason: the foam they generated built up in and around the river and canal locks, hampered ship traffic and even caused people to die by suffocation or drowning. In the wake of those events came Europe-wide legislation on the biodegradability of their main components, the surfactants. These ‘surface active’ ingredients are the workhorses of detergents, they lower the surface tension and dramatically improve the water’s own cleaning effect.

Impact of surfactants

Unfortunately surfactants also dramatically increase the impacts of detergents on our natural environment and our health. The compulsory biodegradability made the problem disappear visually (no foam anymore), and the waste water purification plants that spread over Europe some decades ago reduced the global impact of detergents to some extent. But the substantial growth in the use of detergents overruled this by far.

Today there is hardly any market segment that does not use them for one application or another. Pesticides and insecticides contain them for better spreading and penetration of the plant substance; in medicine, they improve the quick absorption into our system - just as a few examples.

Ingredients unavailable

From the 1980s onwards, in the wake of alternatives for chemical agriculture, food additives, cosmetics and the like, the first offers for another type of detergents came into the market. It was a difficult start: the conventional detergents had continued to walk down performance lane and were often complete overkill, whereas their (mainly unregulated) environmental and health impact was rocketing.

Sustainable ingredients were rarely available and when they were they were not able to generate an efficiency comparable to the heavyweight, but unsustainable chemistry of the conventional products. It took more than 20 years before sustainable detergent producers had a reasonable choice of ingredients that were sustainable as well as satisfactory in terms of performance.

In 1993 the EU set up an ecolabel initiative for detergents. Until 2003 it was hardly noticed and there were next to no products aiming for it, as many of the leading organisations in the sustainability realm judged the criteria too weak and too permissive. As a matter of fact the main aim of the EU label was – in its own words – to certify detergents “that were less of a burden to the environment” and secondly, to have as many of them as possible. In that perspective the requirements for such a label should not be too explicit.

Several certification organisations for organic produce – amongst them ICEA in Italy, the Soil Association in the UK and Ecocert in France – each proposed their own, stricter standard.  The difficulty was, and continues to be, the technical and environmental complexity of detergents and the insight that is needed to create a sustainable and efficient alternative. It’s not because you can develop an excellent set of certification criteria for organic produce that you can deliver something similar for detergents (and the other way round, of course).

Most producers of sustainable detergents – the ones that mainly or exclusively produce sustainable alternatives, that is - were dissatisfied with each and every label or certification around: none of them encompassed the full set of values they were operating with.

Concept drafted

In the winter of 2011 French, Italian and Belgian producers who had previously met privately started talking to each other and to some external experts. The outline of a mutual concept was drafted and the development began. In the winter of 2012 a non-profit association was created: The Greenway to Life, with a registered office in Paris and a technical office in Pianiga, Italy. In February 2013 the new Greenway Standard was presented during a press conference at the Biofach in Nürnberg, the worldwide most important organic fair.

The foundations of the Greenway Standard are the principles of sustainable development. That means a focus on economical, ecological and social issues at the same time, which is quite a challenge.

For the practical implementation two tools have been created:

• A standard in text format of about 60 pages, which describes in detail all the requirements to which a candidate detergent has to respond and the ethical, ecological, social or technical motivation behind the requirements. This standard gives full detail of test protocols and the thresholds to be respected, the standard product formulae to test against and the classifications that can be obtained. There is also a marked attention for terminology in the communication

• An online calculation module accessible for members through a VPN connection. The module consists of a huge detergent ingredients database with an evaluation and classification of each ingredient. All chemical, biochemical, biological and safety data which are available today are taken in account and are used in the calculation by the database engine. Any formula can be introduced and immediately evaluated on its eligibility for labelling. When a negative outcome occurs, the applicant gets indications about the underlying reasons.

Before engaging in a certification trajectory the applicant can himself check, correct and fine-tune whatever issue that might come up. Besides this evaluation process he needs to introduce data from an external lab on the aquatic toxicity and the performance of the submitted formula.

Once he gets a ‘yes’ from the calculation module, the dedicated external experts of Greenway recheck the submitted formula on its overall conformity with the Greenway Standard. When they agree, the applicant can indicate an external auditor of his choice to run an audit, both theoretical and in his premises. After a positive outcome, the Greenway label will be granted to the detergent.

It’s important to stress that all criteria are based on open, scientifically sound standards and all testing on similarly open protocols, such as used by the scientific community worldwide and by most detergent producers. That guarantees the highest level of compliance with market standards, a criticism which is often uttered against ‘green’ labelling

Differences and merits

There are many ecolabels from a variety of sources on the market today, a quick internet search can easily feature up to 400 ‘green’ or supposedly ‘green’ labels. Nevertheless the Greenway Standard can make a difference:

• The Greenway non-profit association is the first multi-stakeholder initiative on sustainable detergents where producers, experts, and representatives from distributors and professional and private consumers will cooperate

• As an independent civil initiative, Greenway is not tainted by political or commercial influences and its members are estimated by many NGO’s

• Sustainable development is one pillar of the label, not an add-on, and an inextricable part of the global approach

• Product performance is the other pillar of the label and safeguards that labelled products are not just ‘green’, but also efficient detergents

• The product criteria were set up by professionals from the international sustainable detergent market segment, producers and experts alike

• The Greenway Standard is complying with actual scientific and technical knowledge and will be constantly updated by the dedicated experts

• The audits are done by qualified certification bodies, independent of Greenway.

There has been a very positive reaction from several certification bodies throughout Europe: they acclaim the high technical quality and the professionalism of the criteria, as well as the care for transparency and objectivity in the approach.

Further developments are to be expected soon and can be followed here.

UK Graduates Forced To Work As Window Cleaners

Oh.. The shock & horror - UK graduates FORCED to take "elementary jobs" such as window cleaning. This article in typical Daily Mail sensation garbage news.

Graduates forced to take jobs as window cleaners and road sweepers - and 20,000 are unemployed SIX MONTHS after leaving university. Recent graduates are being forced to take jobs as road sweepers, window cleaners and office juniors, in a sign of increasing desperation in the job market. Figures published today showed 20,000 students were unemployed six months after getting their degrees, with men more likely to be out of work than women. Thousands more graduates took jobs that do not require a degree.

• Nearly one student in ten was unemployed six months after graduating.
• Women graduates fare better than men in the job market, data suggest.
• But two-thirds of graduates still make it into 'professional' occupations.

Overall, 20,415 UK and EU full-time university leavers were assumed to be unemployed after completing their first degree in 2011/12, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). That's nearly one graduate in ten still languishing in his or her old bedroom. On face value this is around the same proportion as last year, although HESA warned that the latest figures are not directly comparable with previous years due to changes in the way they are collected.

Three years study for this? Around 9,695 graduates were working in 'elementary occupations', taking jobs as hospital porters, waiters, bartenders, road sweepers, window cleaners and shelf stackers.

Women are faring better than men in the job market, the data suggest. More than one in 10 (10.9 per cent) of male graduates whose whereabouts were known six months after they finished their first degree were jobless, compared to 7.2 per cent of women. The HESA statistics also look at the types of jobs graduates were in after gaining their degree. More than a third of new graduates working in the UK were in 'non-professional' jobs that did not necessarily require a degree, the most recent figures showed.

Around 9,695 people were working in 'elementary occupations', taking jobs as office juniors, hospital porters, waiters, bartenders, road sweepers, window cleaners, shelf stackers and lollipop men and women. Rising numbers were working in factories and sales and customer services. In total, 745 were working in factories or plants, against 720 last year, while 21,025 were working in roles such as sales assistant, caretaker, market trader and call centres. Last year this figure stood at 20,675.

But the largest group - 54,435 people, or nearly two-thirds of those graduates whose fate had been discovered - were in the graduate job level group described as 'professional occupations'. This includes vets, dentists, pharmacists, engineers, teachers and solicitors. Professor Michael Gunn, chair of the university group million+ and vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University said: 'Six months is a relatively short time to make a judgement about the value of getting a degree and the occupations which graduates will enter in the future. 'However, these statistics confirm that even in a very difficult labour market studying for a degree on a full-time or a part-time basis remains one of the best ways of securing employment and a career.'

Window Cleaning News

EU to mull plan to bring non-euro states into bank union: BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union countries will examine a plan this week to allow the ECB to supervise banks in states outside the euro zone alongside those within the currency area, according to an EU document that lays down limits on the central bank's role. Last week, EU leaders agreed to build a new system of supervision led by the European Central Bank, as a step towards a banking union where chiefly euro zone countries would jointly back problem lenders, in a move to underpin the currency. Pictured: Window cleaners at Brussels HQ.

Superstorm Sandy hits the US north-east - in pictures: Superstorm Sandy leaves flooding and fallen trees in its wake, bringing chaos to parts of the states of Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Seawater floods the Ground Zero construction site as pictured above.

To the point: window cleaners working on the fog-shrouded Shard building in London attempt to spell out YMCA.

Award-winning Star photographer Tyler Brownbridge caught images of Windsorites. The effects of Hurricane Sandy are being felt as far west as Windsor. Window washers work high above Pitt Street as they clean the windows at the Windsor Riverside Inn in Windsor, Ont. on Monday, October 29, 2012.

Chemo hastened footballer’s death:  Chemotherapy “hastened” the death of a football-mad 22-year-old, an inquest found. Chipping Norton FC player Shaun Weller died on May 2, two days after beginning chemotherapy for a rare form of liver cancer. The window cleaner, a dad-of-one, died at The Horton Hospital in Banbury after suffering a cardiac arrest. Oxfordshire coroner Darren Salter recorded a verdict that Mr Weller’s death was an accident after hearing from medical staff. His family afterwards praised the NHS and paid tribute to a“considerate” son.

Mr Salter said: “It does seem to me that the treatment of chemotherapy hastened the death”. He added: “That is not to say there is any negligence in the treatment. Medical treatment does sometimes result in death or hasten death. “That may be because of some adverse reaction or complication that can’t be anticipated.” In a statement, GP Dr Stephen Quelch said he referred Mr Weller for scans after he complained of chest pains. He was diagnosed with the terminal disease on February 2 and oncologist Dr Kinnari Patel saw him on March 22.

Because the cancer was so rare, further help was sought from specialists at London’s Royal Free Hospital on treatment, she said. Dr Patel said: “Shaun expressed the wish to have anything that might be beneficial, no matter how toxic it was.” She said: “I wonder if some very rare event has happened with chemotherapy that I don’t think we could have foreseen.” But she said the cancer could have “overwhelmed” his body.

Consultant pathologist Ben Phillips said: “If he hadn’t started on chemotherapy he wasn’t likely to have died at that time.” His dad Anthony, mother Charmaine, sister Kim and partner Sally Keen attended yesterday’s inquest in Oxford. The Oxford United fan, from Cotswold Crescent, Chipping Norton, played for the first team of Chipping Norton FC and was dad to Tiana, now three. His mother told the Oxford Mail: “We never felt that anyone was to blame. It never entered our heads.” “He was a considerate young lad. He would always worry about everyone else. “When he was going through his treatment he would always worry about everybody else.”

The family “never wanted to hear anything negative” about his prognosis, she said, adding: “Where there is life there is hope. That is what you have got to believe in.” An August charity football match at his former club featuring former United stars raised £2,000 to support his daughter and Oxford University cancer research. A further cake and coffee event will raise cash for research at Chipping Norton Town Hall on November 7 from 9am to midday.

Tonya Gentle, of Gleam Cleaning Pros, cleans a mirror at Abundant Life Church last week. The business recently partnered with Cleaning For A Reason to offer free housecleaning services to area cancer patients.

Couple helps patients by ‘Cleaning For A Reason’ - When David and Tonya Gentle, the proprietors of Gleam Cleaning Pros, heard someone who works for one of their clients was about to undergo cancer-related surgery, they knew they wanted to help, somehow. Jennifer Wiley, the music pastor at Abundant Life Church, said she began her breast cancer ordeal in the fall of 2011, and with the help of the Gentles, was able to come home after major surgery to a clean home and with a load off her mind. “They were a big, big relief for me, because when I came home from the hospital, I didn’t have to do anything,” said Wiley, 50. “... It was a true blessing.” Gleam Cleaning Pros has been in operation since 2008 and while the Gentles informally offered their cleaning service to Wiley in a time of need, they have recently partnered with the group Cleaning For A Reason to contribute more broadly.
David Gentle said he discovered the group on Facebook, and connected with Cleaning For A Reason last month to assist local residents undergoing cancer treatment. “We can’t offer a whole lot in the curing part, but we can definitely come in and try to relieve some of their pain through taking care of some of their general cleaning,” David Gentle said. “And on our end, it just feels good to help. It’s nice to be able to give back with something you do for a living,” he added. Gentle said that Cleaning For A Reason collects information from patients looking for free housecleaning services, and pairs them with cleaning businesses in their area. Patients need only demonstrate their medical condition, Gentle said.
Gleam Cleaning Pros serves a mix of residential and commercial clients, including some offices of the City of Jackson, and specializes in window cleaning and pressure washing. David Gentle said their service is particularly in demand around the holidays when customers are looking for a deep cleaning ahead of family gatherings. He said he and his wife are hoping to get the message out that they want to help area residents battling cancer with free cleanings. Tonya Gentle noted that when someone battles cancer, it’s an ordeal for the entire family. “When women get cancer — when anybody gets cancer — it’s not just that person going through it, it’s the whole family,” she said. “So to come in, even if it’s just to clean, it really seems to help a lot.”

Middlesbrough 'protector' jailed for harassing OAP: A window cleaner who offered to protect a pensioner from a family who were allegedly "after him" has been jailed for harassment. Philip Robert Sinclair, 39, offered protection to the elderly man after hearing rumours he had sexually assaulted a young girl. But in a bizarre twist, Sinclair has now been locked up after his “protection” took a sinister turn. The pensioner denied the claims but took him up on the offer - giving him £25 for him to do so.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday it was in January this year when Sinclair first attended the pensioner’s house. Prosecuting, Olivia Checa-Dover told the court it was there he told him about the rumour and that the family “were going to sort him out”. Sinclair, of Tower Green, St Hilda’s, Middlesbrough, then offered to protect the man. Ms Checa-Dover added that at a later date, the defendant camouflaged himself and hid in a bush to prove how “easy it would be” for the family to get him. At a later date, the elderly man returned home to find a two-page letter from Sinclair who wrote “he had sorted it”.

But Sinclair continued to attend the elderly man’s home, who soon began to have doubts. In interview, the man said: “His attitude changed from being helpful to aggressive very quickly and this frightened me.” On another occasion, Sinclair showed the man a text message allegedly from the girl’s family. Ms Checa-Dover said: “The complainant didn’t believe this was a real conversation and thought the defendant was just trying to scare him.”

The court heard the pensioner eventually had enough when in June this year, Sinclair attended his home twice on the same evening. Ms Checa-Dover told the court Sinclair was “banging on the door for about thirty minutes”. He then returned a short while later, once again banging on the doors and windows. Joan Smith, defending, said Sinclair, who pleaded guilty to harassment, was “trying to help”. She said: “His intention was not to cause harassment but he understands this is what happened.” Sentencing Sinclair, Judge Tony Briggs, said the elderly man was “clearly in a vulnerable situation”. He said: “No court can condone the ill-treatment of the elderly or the vulnerable. You presented a terrifying picture to him.” Judge Briggs jailed Sinclair for 12 months and gave him an indefinite restraining order.

Two workers rescued from 23rd-floor fall - Cleaners’ platform sways heavily in strong winds: Abu Dhabi: Two cleaning workers were rescued from falling from the 23rd floor of a building still under construction in the Khalidiya area in Abu Dhabi, by the Emergency and Public Safety Directorate of the Abu Dhabi Police. The Asian men were trapped on scaffolding which they used while cleaning the building’s exterior. Winds accompanying a sand storm which hit the capital caused the scaffolding to swing heavily. The Central Operations Department at Abu Dhabi Police received a report on the incident, bringing the Al Falah rescue quickly to the site along with an ambulance, according to Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Ebrahim Al Ameri, Deputy Director of Emergency and Public Safety Department.

After clearing the surrounding area to ensure the safety of the workers and pedestrians, Abu Dhabi Civil Defence had to break the glass window where the workers were located, because of the challenges which the wind posed in moving the scaffolding. The two men were transported to Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC) where they were examined and cleared as free of injuries and medical complications. Earlier this month, two Indian window cleaners fell to their death from the 15th floor of a building at the end of Al Muroor Road, Abu Dhabi, due to a technical failure in the platform they were using. The men were trapped for four hours before the maintenance cradle they were using crashed to the ground.

Meanwhile, two Asian workers were rescued by Abu Dhabi Police earlier this month after they almost fell from a building on Al Salam Street. The window cleaners were saved from falling 15 stories after the rope supporting their scaffolding suddenly snapped. Rescue workers gave the two men directions to help them steady the scaffolding and prevent it from swinging before they were safely brought to the ground. This came as the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) issued a warning for towering clouds associated with thunderstorm, rain, rough seas, and strong winds along the UAE’s west coast yesterday with poor visibility.

A bright yellow hard hat is among the remnants of the broken platform that killed two window cleaners.

UAE cleaning firm scraps high-rise cradles after worker deaths: DUBAI A high-rise window cleaning company has stopped using maintenance cradles after two of its workers plunged 15 floors to their death. Modern Building Maintenance will start training staff in rope access, which industry experts say is safer. K Sudarshan, 24, and J Raju, 29, were trapped in their cradle above Khalifa Street for four hours before it fell to the ground on October 16. Their bodies were repatriated to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh on Saturday. ETA Ascon group, which owns the company, will pay each of the dead men's families Dh105,000 - their salary for the next 24 months, as required by law, and a welfare fund contribution of Dh50,000 - and an additional Dh1,000 a month for three years.
After the deaths Abu Dhabi Municipality said the company should have called Civil Defence when the men were first trapped. The incident has been referred to the courts. "We are working on alternative methods of window cleaning without using cradles, which involves maintenance by other agencies," a spokesman for ETA Ascon said yesterday. "We are reviewing procedures and have stopped all window cleaning using cradles since the incident. We have already started sending letters to clients about our new rope access system. It will be implemented in a phased manner, starting right now."
The company tested out a rope system last week on an eight-storey building in Dubai and will soon start a 10-day training course for workers. Rope access, used at buildings such as the Burj Khalifa and the Burj Al Arab, is a more secure option for window cleaners working at great heights, the spokesman said. "It is safer than a cradle. The major advantage is that we don't have to depend on equipment provided by another agency. The cleaner goes up and down using his own device and it is under his control. He tests the equipment before using it. There is no machine involved." Cleaning companies rent cradles from maintenance or property-management companies.
Rope access is often used when other methods of reaching the outside of tall buildings, such as cherry pickers or scaffolding, are impractical or too expensive. "Whoever can learn the rope access will be trained. There is a practical test where they will have to demonstrate the skill of using the rope access, their capability in cleaning windows and rescuing people," the spokesman said.
Rope access is said to be statistically safer than using cradles in window cleaning and its use is increasing. "It operates on a two rope system," said Amel Vriesman, regional advisory committee chairman of Irata, the International Rope Access Trade Association. "Each individual is suspended on two independent ropes, a primary and a back-up. Every job is supported with a full rescue scenario, unlike a building maintenance unit which has no back-up system. "Given the challenging building designs in the UAE, rope access is much safer, faster, hassle free and requires less manpower."
Only nine companies in the UAE are Irata certified, although Mr Vriesman estimates that more than 60 use the system. "It helps to reduce fatalities but is still dangerous if not carried out by professionals. It needs a certified company with a certified workforce." Abu Dhabi and Dubai municipalities prefer to deal with companies that have Irata certification but there is no law requiring certification for rope access, Mr Vriesman said.

Jack Craig, owner of Jack's Extreme Cleaning & Restoration in Kansas City, works Friday morning on cleaning a stained glass window at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Independence. The original stained glass windows, dating back to the mid-1800s, last received an extensive cleaning in 1986.

Bringing the life back into art of stained glass (Independence, MO) — For the past couple of weeks, Jack Craig has stood atop a ladder, the radio playing background music, a cross around his neck held close to his heart. On Friday morning, while sitting inside St. Mary’s Catholic Church in a pew, the sunlight shone into the historic Independence church at 611 N. Liberty St. Light inside several stained glass windows, recently cleaned by Craig, showcase his work, while others await their chance for a thorough restoration. “I’m all about the preservation of the art that is there,” says Craig, owner of the Kansas City-based Jack’s Extreme Cleaning & Restoration business. “Then, the community can actually see the beautiful art on the stained glass windows.”

 Craig’s cleaning is extensive. He checks the windows for structural problems or any bad lead. Once his work is complete, which he anticipates finishing up this week, the thorough cleaning will last another 25 to 30 years. The stained glass windows at St. Mary’s date back to the mid-19th century, and they received a layer of Lexan in July 1986, Craig says. Years ago, to protect the stained glass, that layer of Lexan glass was installed for protection. Lexan, which also is used in space helmets and vehicle headlight lenses, among other uses, protects the stained glass windows from hail, rocks and other strong elements. “Basically, I’m cutting off the yellow,” Craig says, “and then I’m polishing it back out. It’s a green solution, too. Our dumps are full of Lexan, and we don’t need no more in the planet. It’s a green way out.”

A Catholic himself, Craig emphasizes that he’s worked on stained glass restoration at churches of different denominations all across the metro region. When Craig started cleaning windows 20 years ago, he noticed different reactions to different kinds of windows. With stained glass windows, Craig taught himself to clean them in a hands-on, experience-driven setting. While the cleaning is extensive, he says being careful is essential since the materials are more than a century old. “They’re beautiful,” he says. “Each and every one of them is different – that’s what makes it so fun.”

While Craig’s business is based out of the Waldo neighborhood in KC, he and his family travel to Independence annually for the Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival, and he’s looking forward to seeing his work at St. Mary’s for years to come. “That’s kind of a payment in itself,” Craig says. “There’s something about restored art of your forefathers – who did wonderful work – and keeping it alive. It’s really important."

Workers use window-cleaner style platforms, restoring the Hollywood sign on October 26,2012 in Hollywood, California.

Hollywood sign gets first makeover in 35 years, ahead of its 90th birthday next year The operation, which started earlier this month, will take eight to 10 weeks to restore the sign to its bright white glory atop Mount Lee in the Hollywood Hills north of Los Angeles, said the Hollywood Sign Trust.  The iconic Hollywood sign overlooking Tinseltown is getting its biggest renovation for 35 years, ahead of its 90th birthday next year. Workers are using window-cleaner style platforms as they strip down the 50-foot tall letters, powerwash the corrugated iron and apply nearly 400 gallons of fresh paint, organizers said. The operation, which started earlier this month, will take eight to 10 weeks to restore the sign to its bright white glory atop Mount Lee in the Hollywood Hills north of Los Angeles, said the Hollywood Sign Trust.

The original sign was erected in 1923 to advertise a property development called Hollywoodland, but the last four letters were removed in the 1940s. One of the City of Angels' most beloved attractions, the sign had fallen into disrepair until it was restored in the 1970s after a campaign that saw nine donors pay $27,777 to "adopt" one letter each. It was threatened again more recently when investors who own land surrounding the giant white letters indicated plans to sell the plot to developers. But Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner helped secure the sign in 2010, along with then-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other Hollywood luminaries including Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Although members of the public are forbidden from accessing the area around the landmark -- a sophisticated alarm system including motion sensors has been set up to deter trespassers -- the sign has a grisly history. In 1932, British actress Peg Entwistle infamously committed suicide by throwing herself off the top of the letter H.

Europes Tallest Building Gets A Window Clean

Vertigo...Window cleaners tackle the biggest job in Britain.

Careful you don’t drop your sponge: If you suffer from vertigo then you need not apply. Six plucky window cleaners take on the monster task of cleaning the windows of Britain’s tallest building. And as luck would have it, no sooner had they started than the rain began falling in London. The huge building is due to open in June and will be the tallest building in the European Union. It stands a towering 310 metres (1,020 ft) tall and is fully clad in glass — meaning there are an awful lot of windows to clean.

The Shard Tower; Floor count: 95 (Including plant floors), 72 (habitable) - £450 million to construct. Click to enlarge.

Shard London Bridge is a pyramid-shaped skyscraper under construction in Southwark, London. Upon its completion in May 2012 it will stand almost 310 metres (1,020 ft) tall, and it has been the tallest building in the European Union since December 2011. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the 330-metre (1,083 ft) Emley Moor transmitting station. Shard London Bridge replaces Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office building constructed on the site in 1976. Renzo Piano, the building's architect, worked with the architectural firm Broadway Malyan during the planning stage. The tower will have 72 habitable floors, with a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck – the UK's highest – on the 72nd floor. It has been designed with an irregular triangular shape from the base to the top, and will be clad entirely in glass. Shard London Bridge is expected to open to the public in June 2012. Check out the interactive views here.

Europe Reforms V.A.T. for Window Cleaners

The EU has given the green light to the UK to extend its reverse charge VAT (value added tax)scheme aimed at cracking down on carousel fraud. The council declared that "that reduced VAT rates may, depending on the circumstances, have positive and negative economic effects, so that more efficient alternative solutions should always be considered before a member state decides to use the option to apply reduced VAT rate." More efficient alternatives presumably being in short supply, the council then decided that that all member states should have the option to apply reduced VAT rates on a permanent basis to a range of economic activity. The ministers also struck a rare blow for transparency, OK-ing reduced VAT on "Window-cleaning and cleaning in private households".
Personal services also scored a potential VAT reduction, with the ministers giving their blessing to cuts on "domestic care services such as home help and care of young, elderly, sick or disabled" as well as hairdressing. Perhaps recognising that the building sector is crumbling before our eyes, members are at liberty to reduce VAT on the "renovation and repairing of private dwellings, excluding materials which account for a significant part of the value of the service supplied".

Amidst all these (potential) VAT giveaways, there was barely space to record that the UK has been given a two-year extension to the reverse charge VAT regime which aims to bring carousel frauds to a juddering halt, and actually ensure that VAT money flows into the Exchequer. It's difficult to know whether the scheme, kicked off two years ago, is actually having an effect. However, there seems to be less alarm at Whitehall about the scams, which last year were estimated to be costing the UK around £3bn in lost receipts. Then again, that does seem like peanuts when compared to the billions being used to prop up the UK's banking sector.
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The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin), chaired by Czech finance minister Miroslav Kalousek (pictured) agreed at a meeting in Brussels on March 10 2009 to reduce value-added tax (VAT) in some sectors. The ministers reached agreement on a short list that included, above all, labour-intensive local services, where all European Union member states should be allowed to permanently apply the reduced VAT rate. These services include small repair services of bicycles, shoes, leatherware, textile furnishings and clothes, window cleaning and household cleaning, hair salons and the provision of home nursing services."This will mean lower tax revenues, but without a deal, consumers would have ended up paying more, at a time when no one wants further brakes on spending," Euronews said. The EU currently has a patchwork of reduced rates of value-added tax on labour-intensive services, such as home care for the elderly, hairdressing or home repairs.
The Wall Street Journal said that Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Lithuania said in a statement that they did not intend to take advantage of the cut in taxes. Ecofin also called for International Monetary Fund resources for countries in trouble to be doubled to $500 billion. The agreement also stipulates that the reduced VAT rate will not apply to the other items contained in a European Commission proposal presented in July 2009. The Wall Street Journal said that Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Lithuania said in a statement that they did not intend to take advantage of the cut in taxes. Ecofin also called for International Monetary Fund resources for countries in trouble to be doubled to $500 billion.