Impacts on industry of Europe's emerging chemicals policy REACh

For Europe, a new regime in chemicals regulation is about to start. After the proposal of the European Commission concerning the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACh) passed its readings in the European Parliament and some differences with the European Council of Ministers were resolved, the regulation will come into force in June 2007. This paper is focused on the question how serious the cost burdens for industry induced by REACh will be, and whether the New European Member States (NMS) which joined the European Union in May 2004 will be able to cope with the regulation. This evaluation has been done by assessing the legislative, administrative and economic framework in New Member States and by analysing real business cases in companies. The empirical showcase business impact studies are at the same time of interest for companies of EU-15 states, other European countries who may implement the regulation, and even for exporters of raw materials and chemicals outside Europe, who will also have to comply with REACh if they market in the European Community. The results give no indications that REACh adoption will bring significant drawbacks to companies in the NMS. The emerging regulation will bring challenges for individual companies, especially for small and medium-sized ones, but for the European chemical industry as a whole, there is no question that it will be able to cope with REACh burdens without losing its global competitiveness.     

Evaluation of leachate composition by multivariate data analysis (MVDA)

Landfills generate emissions in the form of gas and leachate. The emissions are often measured within monitoring programmes. It is likely that the requirements of such monitoring programmes can be extended in the future, particularly in light of the increased interest in specific organic substances. Multivariate data analyses (MVDA) have been used to evaluate the possibility of predicting the content of specific organic substances from more common analyses. The results indicate that this is possible for a specific leachate. MVDA can also be used to reduce the number of analyses performed within existing monitoring programmes while retaining information about all the variables formerly included in the programmes.     

泰安市医疗废物的特性研究

通过实验分析了医疗废物的组成、灰分、水分、挥发分、固定碳和热值等特性参数,探讨其燃烧特性。研究表明,医疗废物具有高热值、高挥发分的特点,其热值远高于一般城市生活垃圾,而高挥发分的特点决定了其容易着火和稳定燃烧的特性。     

三维电极电解硝基苯废水处理实验研究

以涂膜活性炭-活性炭为填充粒子,对三维电极电解硝基苯废水进行了研究。通过实验探讨了投盐量、槽电压、主电极间距、反应时间及初始浓度对电解硝基苯废水的影响。结果表明,三维电极在电极间距为9mm、槽电压为20V、硫酸钠投加量为1.5g/L、pH值为6、电解时间为90min的条件下,硝基苯去除率可达90%以上。在三维电极电解作用下,硝基苯转化为可生化和低毒的苯胺,苯胺在三维电极电解作用下还可以得到进一步的降解。     

活性炭膜处理工业废水的试验研究

将活性炭膜与常规弹性材料同时作为生物接触氧化处理工艺的填料,分别加装在相同条件的两套接触氧化池中,采用生物接触氧化处理工艺,在同样的条件下处理工业废水,经过对试验数据的对比分析得出:以活性炭膜为填料,处理废水的能力更强,净化效果更好。     

物联网在感知矿山建设中的应用研究

感知矿山建设是当前矿山建设研究的重要领域,主要是将目前备受国家、行业和企业界重视的物联网技术应用到矿山建设中,实现矿山生产安全的全面感知。在论述物联网发展、可视化管理理念的基础上,从感知矿山建设的步骤和主要内容等角度进行分析,提出了感知矿山建设模型,为基于物联网的感知矿山建设提供理论指导。     

Stock market responses to chemical accidents in Japan: An event study

Despite recent major chemical process accidents in Japan, the top management teams of firms still avoid taking costly risk reduction measures because of their low perceived impact on firm performance. The disclosure of information on accident risks might motivate managers to enhance workplace safety because of the subsequent evaluation of firms by investors in stock markets. If the disclosed risk information is newly available for investors, firms with a high risk of accidents would receive a poor evaluation by stock markets and thus managers would take risk reduction measures to prevent stock prices from declining. In this study, we conduct an event study analysis to examine whether accident risk information is already reflected in stock prices, using data on the Japanese chemical industry. The results of our event study show that the estimated cumulative average abnormal returns of firms' stocks are significantly negative after severe accidents actually occurred. This finding implies that risk information is not already reflected in the stock prices of Japanese chemical firms and that the disclosure of accident risk information has the potential to motivate the top management teams of firms to reduce their firms’ accident risk.