Press | Umweltbundesamt

A research project on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency has shown the magnitude of the contamination of the environment by pharmaceuticals: traces of more than 630 different pharmaceutical ingredients and their degradation products have been recorded in many regions of the earth. They can be found in water, soil, sludge and organisms. read more

The Federal Environment Agency in Dessau-Roßlau has won this year’s EMAS Award for outstanding innovative projects in the organisation’s environmental management. EU Commissioner for Environment Janez Potočnik presented the award to UBA in the "large organisation in the public sector" category at the Hanover Messe for the Agency’s Haus 2109 property. The building is the first office building in th... read more

The extensive use of plant protection products in agriculture is causing increasing harm to birds on fields. This is the conclusion reached in a study done on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency The partridge and skylark in particular are finding less food because, besides killing pests, the chemicals used also kill prey such as butterfly caterpillars and other insects. In addition, herbicide... read more

Regulations on the use of biocides must become more specific and more binding. The risks of these substances, which are contained in products such as wood preservatives and insect repellents, were underestimated for a long time. The existing EU Biocides Directive has only concerned the placing of biocidal products on the market but not how they may be used. New regulations governing their use coul... read more

Climate change will augment global risks such as poverty, pollution and the extinction of species which already exist and will slow down economic development. These are the facts reported in Part II of the current World Climate Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change which was published today in Yokohama, Japan. read more

More than half of the deep, oligotrophic lakes in Northern Germany have ‘good’ ecological status and therefore already achieve the objectives of the EU Water Framework Directive. These good reviews are cause for the Federal Environment Agency to declare them as “Water Type of the Year 2014” on the occasion of World Water Day. read more

Antibiotics are used on a large scale in industrialised farming, especially in pork and poultry production, but also for beef. The animals excrete most of these drugs unchanged. When such contaminated slurry is spread on fields, the drugs are also introduced into the environment. There is no conclusive data on how they affect the environment. Exactly how great is the danger that the drugs spread o... read more

The newly appointed Sustainable Building Commission at the Federal Environment Agency (KNB) will consult the Agency (UBA) on expert issues of sustainable building. In addition, the fourteen experts of the KNB from science and specialist authorities will serve as UBA's platform for scientific debate. The interdisciplinarity of the members of the ecologically focussed KNB reflects the status of the... read more