Here’s a look at health and environmental news from around South Carolina.

Homeland Park residents cheer closing of tire recycling business

Homeland Park resident Steve Allen’s wife suffers from respiratory problems. But he said she can breathe better now that the tire recycling business near their home has closed.

Dave Homesley, who also lives close to the now-defunct Viva Recycling on Abbeville Highway, says the dust, fumes and noise created by business were a “catastrophe.”

“It has been very, very, very traumatic,” Homesley said.

Viva Recycling’s facilities in Anderson County and Monck’s Corner north of Charleston both shut down a few months ago. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control revoked the operating permits for both sites in September.

3 weeks after Irma, are Hilton Head waters safe to swim in yet?

Three weeks after Tropical Storm Irma, there’s some good news for Hilton Head Island residents and visitors.

The beaches are safe to swim in, according to water quality test results from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The department collected beach monitoring samples in the Hilton Head on Sept. 20 and the results were “satisfactory,” according to a DHEC spokesperson.

General Interest

New treatment for heart failure sought in research led by Clemson University

CLEMSON — Heart-attack damage could be repaired with stem cells and tiny “nanowires” as part of a new research project that involves all three of South Carolina’s major research universities and is backed by $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health.

Ying Mei, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Clemson University, is leading the project.