Environmental sustainability of textiles and apparel: A review of evaluation methods

Environmental sustainability, which considers the tradeoff between economic productivity and environmental impact, is an important perspective in product decisions for textiles and apparel companies. Evaluating environmental sustainability for textile products has been difficult because of the complexity in the production and consumption processes. This paper provides a review of the methods that can be potentially used for measurement of environmental sustainability. These methods include the life cycle assessment, environmental footprint, eco-efficiency and Higg index. This paper reviewed the methodologies of these approaches and discussed about their limitations against the unique context of the textiles and apparel industry. We proposed a couple of directions where future research should be focused on, which may lead to ultimate solutions.     

An economic efficiency indicator for assessing income opportunities in sustainable waste management

This article proposes a new economic efficiency indicator for measuring and analyzing the income opportunities for companies operating in the collection, transport and treatment of municipal solid waste, while also taking into account the environmental perspective. Specifically, the followed approach is based on a mixed economic and environmental perspective, with a focus on the income advantage stemming from the exploitation of secondary raw materials obtained from differentiated waste. To pursue this scope, an indicator at the company level is preliminarily identified; then, a systemic indicator is introduced by implementing an aggregation of the individual ones. The adopted methodological tool is of the rank-size type, which is particularly appropriate for inferring insights at the system level from empirical data at single company level. To validate the indicator and apply it to real data in the sector of interest, an empirical analysis is conducted on a group of Italian waste management companies. It is shown that the indicator can be a useful tool for generating valuable information for waste management companies and policy-makers, who are responsible for defining policies and programs that make the overall waste management system more sustainable, thus materializing environmental and social benefits.     

天维膜处置钢丝绳酸性废液实验中存在的问题

南通地区很多钢丝绳企业采用酸洗磷化工艺,产生大量含铅、铁、锌等重金属离子的酸性废液,造成区域特征性环境污染.选用山东天维膜技术有限公司的扩散渗析阴膜进行钢丝绳酸性废液处置实验.结果表明:该膜能有效地将酸、盐分离,酸的回收率达到90％以上,铅截留率达到70％以上,铁截留率达到80％以上.但实验中出现氯化铅晶体析出,堵塞处...     

企业环保信用评价的发展历史与现状思考

回顾了国内外企业环保信用评价发展历史,指出与国外相比,我国企业环保信用评价起步较晚,目前各地区评价标准主要以监管性指标和处罚决定为依据,其中以监管性指标评价较全面但操作繁琐,以处罚决定评价更为客观但对中小型企业监管力度较低。提出,我国企业环保信用评价体系还需要进一步优化,统一评价标准,完善动态评价机制,增强企业与责任人的关联,以促进社会信用体系向更为完备的方向发展。     

化工危险源环境安全监测和应急响应系统的研发与应用

通过分析化工危险源环境污染的危害性,提出了将工业无线传感器网络技术、视频监控技术和自动控制、无线通讯、地理信息系统(GIS)、数据库及网络工程等计算机技术应用于化工危险源的监测和监控,建立一个化工危险源的环境安全监测和应急响应系统的必要性。概述了系统的需求分析和架构,详细介绍了系统的组成、功能和关键技术,探讨了如何将该系统应用于泰州某化工公司危险源的环境监控和应急管理。     

淄博化工园区大气有机污染应急监测与管理对策

针对工业聚集区内多种恶臭混杂的情况，以淄博化工园区为例，研究了大气有机污染突发事件中有机物的应急监测方法，并提出了治理对策。利用便携式气相色谱-质谱联用仪，对重点企业事先监测，掌握各企业特征污染物，作为应急监测查找污染源头的依据；现场分析受污染空气中的化合物组成及浓度，通过查询、比对各企业特征污染物，确认责任排污企业。提出了末端监测处罚治理与对重点污染企业推行清洁生产相结合，应急监测与有机污染物在线监测相结合，建立企业污染源特征组分数据库，加强企业无组织排放监测与监管等治理大气有机污染的建议。     

用三氯化铁定量测定苯酚的探索与应用

探索用三氯化铁作显色剂定量测定苯酚,测定波长５８０ｎｍ,线性范围１００×１０－３～１００×１０－２ｍｏｌ／Ｌ,相对误差小于±１％,与紫外吸光光度法的测定结果吻合     

电石法生产聚氯乙烯行业危险废物判定要点分析

聚氯乙烯树脂是用途极广的热塑性高分子材料,然而,电石法生产聚氯乙烯树脂(PVC)的过程中会产生大量的危险废物,如处置不当会对环境造成严重污染。本文对电石法生产聚氯乙烯树脂(PVC)过程中产生危险废物的类型、环节和产生特性进行了分析,以供环保部门和相关企业作为针对危险废物环境管理的判定依据。     

Transition to Lead-Free Products in the US Electronics Industry: A Model of Environmental,Technical, and Economic Preferences

The European Union’s Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (Directive 2002/95/EC) targeted at electronic products took effect in 2006. In contrast, the USA has no comparable national policy on these products. To understand corporate responses to policy differences across jurisdictions, we conducted a structured-questionnaire survey of individuals in 109 companies that are representative of the US electronics industry. The results reveal that 70% of these companies have already adopted lead-free solder for electronics with 49% of the total preferring the SnAgCu formulation, despite uncertainties associated with environmental impacts of this alternative alloy. We use a modified life cycle impact assessment method based on endpoint modeling approach to derive weighting factors that represent the respondents’ value system for tradeoffs among environmental impacts. We use a modified fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution approach to evaluate technical criteria dominance in declared preferences. A statistical model of corporate behavior is also presented. The results provide the first systematic framework that accounts for environmental impact, technological challenge, and business strategy concurrently toward formulating a comprehensive national policy for materials selection in electronic products.     

Circular economy application for a Green Stadium construction towards sustainable FIFA world cup Qatar 2022™

The construction industry is responsible for a significant amount of raw material consumption and environmental footprints. Therefore, sustainable construction became a hot topic, which strives to reduce material consumption, limit constructional waste disposal, and decrease contribution to climate change. In line with Qatar's commitment to organizing a sustainable FIFA World Cup in 2022, this study aims to conduct an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) for the construction of the Education City Stadium. The work presented here provides the first empirical LCA for analyzing the environmental and economic impacts of circular economy application in a World Cup stadium. In this research, the cyclopean concrete (CYC) methodology was utilized, which incorporate the site excavated boulders with the concrete mix to cast the under-raft foundation of the stadium. This approach was compared to the conventional concrete (CC) casting approach to assess the extent to which the newly developed methodology can reduce the environmental and economic burdens. The obtained results have shown a 32% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when adapting the CYC approach. Thus, the CYC holds a strong promise to achieve the required structural behavior with a low-cost alternative material from existing waste products in Qatar and a lower environmental impact than the CC.     

A more comprehensive and quantitative approach to corporate sustainability

This study proposes a new quantitative methodology and extendable framework to assess corporate sustainability more comprehensively and to capture interrelationships across the multiple domains of sustainability. A case study from the mining industry is presented to demonstrate the application of this new approach and its ability to extract meaningful insights regarding the company's progress towards sustainability. The comprehensive sustainability target method (CSTM) is a novel extension to an existing environmental burden sustainability assessment technique with additional focus on impacts within and across the societal and social justice domain. CSTM extends sustainability assessment recognizing planetary limits from human activity and relevant societal and community-based targets by formalizing assessment to include social and environmental beneficial impacts, as well as the interdependencies between the economic, environmental and societal domains. Outcomes from the mining industry case study reveal new insights into the sustainability of corporate operations as the comprehensive assessment framework provides a deeper and more extensive evaluation as compared to traditional sustainability assessments and corporate disclosures. In addition to maximal earth carrying capacity estimates for environmental burden targets, this study proposes that companies should assess sustainability for minimal limits applying to social beneficial impacts and maximal limits for social burden impacts. The overall theoretical construct and framework are presented to illustrate the robustness and extendibility of the technique to broadly incorporate various sustainability domains, assessment boundaries, and temporal considerations.     

Towards a green and fast production system: Integrating life cycle assessment and value stream mapping for decision making

Integrating environmental commitment to manufacturing concerns seems unavoidable towards a more sustainable conduct. In the contemporary scenario, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) has been bringing new perspectives into companies' economics, improving production performance, whereas Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been the most complete tool for environmental assessment. Therefore, the present study aims to propose a model based on the integration of LCA and VSM to improve environmental and manufacturing aspects of organizations, the LCA-VSM model. Possible spots for integration, overlaps between LCA and VSM and potential gains were identified. The LCA-VSM model provides a simple tool for prioritizing action measures to improve the environmental-economic performance, and unlike many existing methods, it encourages continuous improvement instead of a one-off approach. The company where a case study was conducted to test the LCA-VSM model is a manufacturer of tools and painting materials for the civil construction sector. The use of the proposed model guided actions that decreased from 5% to 15% of environmental impacts (across nine impact categories), and reduced both non-value adding (lead time went from 103.26 to 24.01 days) and value adding (cycle time went from 35.7 s to 33.75 s) time. The main contribution of this paper is providing a structured approach to a practical integration of LCA and VSM towards decision making, prioritizing action measures based on the following criteria: environmental preference, economic feasibility, and ease of implementation, aiding more eco-efficient practices.     

Environmental Issues for the Chinese Strong Aromatic Liquor Industry: an Assessment for the Brewing System

Environmental assessments are often performed for industries due to a lot of issues produced in the processes. However, few studies are reported for environmental assessment of Chinese liquor production. A lot of material consumptions in Chinese liquor industries often bring about serious environmental pollution. Thus, Chinese strong aromatic liquor (CSAL) is taken as a representative for the environmental issues assessment of Chinese liquor industry in view of cleaner production (CP). The assessment is performed for the brewing system of CSAL including three main phases: crude liquor brewing, crude liquor blending, and steam production, which addresses resource and energy consumptions and environmental impacts. The results indicate that, according to the standards of Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, the consumptions of materials and energy are acceptable while the water consumption is higher than the requirement. Moreover, the discharge of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the brewing phase is above the standard requirement and contributes much to eutrophication. The total environmental impacts in the blending phase are less than those in the brewing and steam production phases. In detail, in the brewing phase, high concentration of volatile organic compounds in the wastewater results in the odor threshold values and photochemical ozone creation. In the blending phase, the main environmental impact is eutrophication owing to the wastewater. In the steam production phase, the most and least significant impacts are global warming and soot emission, respectively, wherein waste gas emission is dominated. Cost analysis reveals that when the water consumption and COD discharge meet the requirements according to the CP option, there are plenty of economic and environmental benefits for the CSAL industry. The results confirm that the reform strategies for the Chinese liquor enterprise should be performed to decrease the water consumption, promote the utilization efficiency of water, improve recycle and reuse of by-products, reduce the pollutant discharge, and enhance waste treatment efficiency.     

An environmental impact assessment of fossil fuel subsidies in emerging and developing economies

The impact of fossil fuel subsidies on environmental degradation has not been adequately examined in the existing literature. However, environmental degradation is often suggested as one of the causes of climate change. This paper examines the factors driving environmental degradation, emphasising the role of fossil fuels, in 35 emerging and developing countries. The ecological footprint is used as a proxy for environmental degradation. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the results show that an increase in fossil fuel subsidies leads to an increase in ecological footprint. Specifically, a 10% increase in fossil fuel subsidies will increase the ecological footprint by between 0.3% and 1.5%. The results further suggest that variables such as population size, real GDP per capita, urbanisation and the non-dependent population also boost environmental degradation. It is also shown that primary energy supply per capita, industry share, resource rent and globalisation have a positive effect on environmental degradation. However, the global oil price and human capital development do not have a significant impact on environmental degradation. The implications of these empirical findings are analysed in the paper.     

Environmental assessment and investment strategies of provincial industrial sector in China — Analysis based on DEA model

As an energy-intensive industry, the industrial sector consumes 70% of energy consumption and causes serious environmental pollution in China. Also, the government emphasized the promotion of R&D investment in the industrial sector in China's National Plan on Climate Change (2014–2020). It is meaningful and contributes to assessing energy and environmental performance, as well as R&D and industrial pollution control (IPC) investment strategies of China's industrial sector. A non-radial DEA model, as with natural and managerial disposability, was adopted to evaluate this from provincial and regional perspectives during the 2008–2012 period. Energy and environmental performance was evaluated by unified efficiency under natural disposability (UEN), unified efficiency under managerial disposability (UEM), and unified efficiency under natural and managerial disposability (UENM). The empirical results indicated that Shandong and Hainan were efficient under natural and managerial disposability, while other provinces had the potential to improve their energy and environmental performance. The number of provinces that was fit for investments of R&D and IPC increased from 2008 to 2010, then decreased in 2011 and 2012. In spite of this, many provincial industrial sectors should make efforts to reduce pollution by investment on technology. Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi and Henan were especially the best investment objects because investments of R&D and IPC turned to be effective for them during the whole study period. Moreover, western China had the highest average UENM, followed by eastern China and central China. Eastern China and central China were rewarding to expand investments. Coal consumption was the main factor to negatively affect unified efficiency whereas the increase in economic development level was primarily responsible for the improvement of unified efficiency. According to the results, differentiated suggestions to further improve energy and environmental performance were proposed.     

江苏省水泥制造业经济发展与大气环境变化相关性分析

选取了2001—2014年的相关数据,分析了江苏省水泥制造业的经济发展、资源能源消耗和污染物排放特征,同时对行业经济发展与大气环境污染变化进行了相关性分析。结果表明,2001—2014年,江苏省水泥制造业工业总产值呈现波动增加趋势,工业煤炭消费量呈现波动增加趋势,投入产出比呈现逐年波动上升态势;SO2的排放强度呈现波动下降的趋势,低于全省平均水平;烟粉尘的排放强度波动下降,高于全省平均水平;NOX的排放强度呈现波动上升的趋势,高于全省平均水平;SO2与烟粉尘排放量与GDP均高度呈负相关,回归曲线模拟基本类似U型的左半段,随着GDP的增加,SO2和烟粉尘的排放量呈现下降趋势。     

Native Seed Collection and Use in Arid Land Reclamation: A Low-Tech Approach

Loss of vegetation production in arid lands has been difficult to remediate and has signifi- cant economic impacts on human populations. Restoration efforts based on non-local materials and large-scale mechanization have not been capable of efficiently reversing the trend of environmental degradation. The use of traditional knowledge and simplified methods of seed harvesting, storing, marketing and soil preparation have proven that regeneration of native species and efficient land reclamation is possible in areas that have traditionally been considered degraded beyond redemption. This paper describes a method of land reclamation that combines tradition and simple mechanics that can be applied in all arid areas that face desertification. Because the work builds on cultural practices long used in non-industrialized societies, it is particularly adapted to rural areas. The methods described have the potential to open new low-tech economic opportunities to all segments of local non-urban populations while combating desertification and creating a more ecologically sound environment.     

Influence of Brazilian herbal regulations on the use and conservation of native medicinal plants

For decades, several native medicinal species have been used by the pharmaceutical industry in Brazil to create commercial products. In 1995, the Ministry of Health, following the recommendations of the World Health Organization, established herbal regulations (RDC 17) in order to improve the quality of such products. In fact, only plant species with conclusive results from pharmacological and toxicological studies can be used for creating medicines. In this study, we evaluated the consequences of RDC 17 on the use and conservation of native medicinal plants by comparing the plant material used by six companies in 1995/1996 and 10 years later (2005/2006). Eighty-three different species were used in 1995/1996, 50 of them native (60.2%), 16 exotic (19.3%), and 17 imported (20.5%). In 2005/2006, 44 species were used by the companies and only 19 (43.2%) were native. The category of plant material that saw the largest decrease in use was roots, and in 2005/2006 leaves were more used. The study shows a strong reduction in the collection of native species signalizing the importance of herbal regulations on their conservation. It also points to the need for pharmacological and toxicological studies of the Brazilian native medicinal flora, as well as studies on their ecology and conservation.     

Organic Liquids Storage Tanks Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCS) Emissions Dispersion and Risk Assessment in Developing Countries: The Case of Dar-Es-Salaam City, Tanzania

The emission estimation of nine volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from eight organic liquids storage tanks companies in Dar-es-Salaam City Tanzania has been done by using US EPA standard regulatory storage tanks emission model (TANKS 4.9b). Total VOCs atmospheric emission has been established to be 853.20 metric tones/yr. It has been established further that petrol storage tanks contribute about 87% of total VOCs emitted, while tanks for other refined products and crude oil were emitting 10% and 3% of VOCs respectively. Of the eight sources (companies), the highest emission value from a single source was 233,222.94 kg/yr and the lowest single source emission value was 6881.87 kg/yr. The total VOCs emissions estimated for each of the eight sources were found to be higher than the standard level of 40,000 kg/yr per source for minor source according to US EPA except for two sources, which were emitting VOCs below the standard level. The annual emissions per single source for each of the VOCs were found to be below the US EPA emissions standard which is 2,000~kg/yr in all companies except the emission of hexane from company F1 which was slightly higher than the standard. The type of tanks used seems to significantly influence the emission rate. Vertical fixed roof tanks (VFRT) emit a lot more than externally floating roof tanks (EFRT) and internally floating roof tanks (IFRT). The use of IFRT and EFRT should be encouraged especially for storage of petrol which had highest atmospheric emission contribution. Model predicted atmospheric emissions are less than annual losses measured by companies in all the eight sources. It is possible that there are other routes for losses beside atmospheric emissions. It is therefore important that waste reduction efforts in these companies are directed not only to reducing atmospheric emissions, but also prevention of the spillage and leakage of stored liquid and curbing of the frequently reported illegal siphoning of stored products. Emission rates for benzene, toluene, and xylene were used as input to CALPUFF air dispersion model for the calculation of spatial downwind concentrations from area sources. By using global positioning system (GPS) and geographical information system (GIS) the spatial benzene concentration contributed by organic liquid storage tanks has been mapped for Dar-es-Salaam City. Highest concentrations for all the three toxic pollutants were observed at Kigamboni area, possibly because the area is located at the wind prevailing direction from the locations of the storage tanks. The model predicted concentrations downwind from the sources were below tolerable concentrations by WHO and US-OSHA. The highest 24 hrs averaging time benzene concentration was used for risk assessment in order to determine maximum carcinogenic risk amongst the population exposed at downwind. Established risk for adult and children at 2.9×10^-3 and 1.9×10^-3 respectively, are higher than the acceptable US-EPA risk of 1×10^-6. It is very likely that the actual VOCs concentrations in some urban areas in Tanzania including Dar-es-Salaam City are much higher than the levels reported in this study when other sources such as petrol stations and motor vehicles on the roads are considered. Tanzania Government therefore need to put in place: an air quality policy and legislation, establish air quality guidelines and acquire facilities which will enable the implementation of air quality monitoring and management programmes.     

江苏省“十一五”环境质量状况及成因分析

结合江苏省“十一五”期间环境质量状况及变化情况,综合分析了环境空气、水环境、声环境质量及污染物排放状况.“十一五”期间,江苏省经济总量以13.5％的平均速度增长,社会、经济的快速发展给全省环境质量带来巨大的胁迫压力,资源能源消耗迅速攀升,“三废”产生总量持续增长;而由于加大了节能减排和环境治理投入力度,采取了一系列措施...