Municipal Corporation Chairman in Calcutta, Mr. Barman, attributes the city's cleanup to the support he received from US-AEP. Two years ago, US-AEP/India's deputy director, Vinay Gadkari, encouraged and arranged Barman's participation at WasteExpo'95 in Chicago. While there, Barman visited a small municipal landfill operation north of Chicago. He observed the computerized database and weigh scales used to track and weigh individual truckloads of waste. When Barman returned to Calcutta, he replicated the system. He installed 17 kilometers of power lines and telephone lines, and purchased a weigh scale, computer, and database software system. By August 1996, the system was fully operational. Barman now measures the performance of his waste operation by tonnage rather than truck trips. The changes are dramatic. Waste hauled daily has decreased from a claimed 4,000 metric tons to an actual average of about 2,200 metric tons. Similarity, daily truck trips have declined from about 800 to an average of 274. The setup of this operation cost between $55,000 and $70,000 dollars. During the last year, he has saved $1.67 million dollars in wages to truck drivers and other waste-collection staff. With these savings, Barman is offering his drivers incentives for additional tons of waste hauled. Recently, Barman has taken his cleanup efforts even further. He now tracks where waste originates in the city, and has begun to approach more difficult issues, such as waste segregation at individual households.

The Kenan Institute Asia (KIAsia) recently organized the Gasoline Vapor Recovery Technology Exhibition and Seminar, held June 18-20 in Bangkok, Thailand. The two-day event, which was hosted by the Public Works Department, Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Pollution Control Department, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, aimed to advance the efforts of the Thai government to introduce vapor recovery regulations. Mr. Prinya Nakchudtree, Ministry of Interior, told more than 150 representatives of the oil industry that implementation of gasoline vapor controls was needed to protect the health of the Thai people and to reduce gasoline waste. Dr. Supat Wangwongwatana, Pollution Control Department, estimated that about 6,000 tons of gasoline evaporated into the atmosphere in Bangkok in 1994. Devices to prevent vapor release would not only reduce this pollution by 95%, but also save more than 60 million baht worth of gasoline each year. Ten U.S. companies participated in the exhibition and conducted one-on-one meetings with potential Thai partners. Mr. Kitti Khumpeera, Director of the Environment, KIAsia, and US-AEP's Urban Environmental Infrastructure representative in Thailand, stressed that the "government and private sector must work together to arrive at better and faster solutions to pollution prevention problems."

...Sundaresan Subramanian, US-AEP's South India Regional Manager, who was selected to be a member of the recently formed environmental panel of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Tamil Nadu State Council, Southern Region. CII in the Southern Region will be preparing a draft work plan to include: interacting with the State Government and other agencies on matters relating to environment; disseminating information of interest to members; and considering and promoting appropriate pollution control members.

... Alfred Chin-Wood Cheung, who joins US-AEP as the new director of the Office of Technology Cooperation in Hong Kong. Alfred comes to the program with over fifteen years of technical, processing, and quality management experience with multinational food companies in the United States and Asia. Prior to joining US-AEP, Alfred served as the director of technical services at Lee Kum Kee Co. Ltd., the leading sauce and condiment company in Hong Kong. He has also worked for H.J. Heinz Co., Philip Morris Co., Inc. (Kraft Foods), and ConAgra Inc.. Alfred holds a master's degree in food science, specializing in food chemistry and food processing, from the University of Illinois.