Behavioral risk and education: A united states case study

Summary Does educational achievement affect people's health-related behaviors? Differences in behavioral risk were found among 9,000 18 to 34 year old Americans surveyed for smoking, alcohol abuse, seat-belt-use, obesity, high blood pressure and physical activity. After controlling for sex, race/ethnicity and age, educational achievement was strongly associated with smoking and seat-belt use, and also with hypertension and obesity. New environmental health education programs in the USA are expected to reach the more educated, leading to enhanced health for most Americans, but not the less educated, resulting in a widening gap in American society.Dr Michael R. Greenberg is an Advisory Board member ofThe Environmentalist, he is Co-director of the Graduate Program in Public Health at Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.     

THE W-INDEX FOR RESIDENTIAL WATER CONSERVATION1

ABSTRACT: An index of residential water efficiency - a “W-Index” - can serve as a measure of effectiveness of water conservation features in the home. The index provides a calculated numerical value for each dwelling unit, derived from the number and kind of water-saving features present, including indoor and outdoor water savers and water harvesting or recycling systems. A W-Index worksheet, devised for on-site evaluation of single-family residences in the Tucson, Arizona, region shows that a nonconserving residence with all the water-using features would use 151,000 gallons per year or 148 gallons per capita per day (gpcpd), while the fully conserving model would use 35,300 gallons per year or 35 gpcpd and with water harvesting and graywater recycling systems would have a maximum W-Index of W-160. A Tucson water conservation demonstration home, Casa del Agua, received a rating of W-139, and field tests of about 30 homes in new Tucson subdivisions show values ranging from W-75 to W-100, indicating the incorporation of some water conservation in current new models. By adjustment of some climatic or water-use parameters, the W-Index format can be applied to various types of dwelling units or to other urban areas. The W-Index can be used by individual homeowners or builders to evaluate water efficiency of residential units, or by water providers or water management agencies as a device for promoting and achieving water conservation goals.     

And keep on looking: A film to reduce pedestrian crashes among 9 to 12 year olds

A pedestrian safety education film titled And Keep on Looking and aimed at children ages 9 to 12 was evaluated in several cities. The results showed an increase in safe street crossing knowledge among 9- to 12-year-old Connecticut children who viewed the film, and some improvement in safe street crossing behavior among 9- to 12-year-old Seattle, Washington, children. Crash reduction was assessed in a 2-year, citywide field test conducted in Milwaukee. The field test indicated a crash reduction of more than 20% for 9- to 12-year-old children in Milwaukee compared with children in areas surrounding Milwaukee and children in comparison cities.     

Low intervention soil remediation approaches

Traditional bioremediation approaches have been used to treat petroleum source contamination in readily accessible soils and sludges. Contamination under existing structures is a greater challenge. Options to deal with this problem have usually been in the extreme (i.e., to dismantle the facility and excavate to an acceptable regulated residual, or to pump and treat for an inordinately long period of time). The excavated material must be further remediated and cleanfill must be added to close the excavation. If site assessments were too conservative or incomplete, new contamination adulterating fill soils may result in additional excavation at some later date. Innovative, cost-efficient technologies must be developed to remove preexisting wastes under structures and to reduce future remediation episodes. An innovative soil bioremediation treatment method was developed and evaluated in petroleum hydrocarbon contaminated (PHC) soils at compressor stations of a natural gas pipeline running through Louisiana. The in-situ protocol was developed for remediating significant acreage subjected to contamination by petroleum-based lubricants and other PHC products resulting from a chronic leakage of lubricating oil used to maintain the pipeline itself. Initial total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) measurements revealed values of up to 12,000 mg/kg soil dry weight. The aim of the remediation project was to reduce TPH concentration in the contaminated soils to a level of <200 mg/kg soil dry weight, a level negotiated to be acceptable to state and federal regulators. After monitoring the system for 122 days, all sites showed greater than 99-percent reduction in TPH concentration.     

Mercury cleanup: The commercial application of a new mercury removal/recovery technology

Efficient, economical treatment of mercury-contaminated soils and industrial wastes requires a treatment process that reduces mercury content to near background levels (<1 ppm) and recovers the removed mercury in pure recyclable form without producing liquid, solid, or gaseous secondary wastes. This article reviews the results achieved using a medium-temperature thermal desorption process developed and commercialized by Mercury Recovery Services, Inc. (MRS) that has successfully achieved these goals.     

An evaluation of resource inventory and monitoring program used in national forest planning

The National Forest Management Act (1976) specifies that multiresource inventories be conducted to provide baseline data for development and, later, monitoring of national forest management plans. This mandate entails the most ambitious and complex resource planning effort ever attempted. In this paper we evaluate the structure and use of current inventory-monitoring programs and recommend a framework for gathering data to improve national forest planning. Current national guidelines are general and provide only basic directions to forest-level planners. Forest inventories have traditionally concentrated on timber. Although these inventories are often well designed, the questions we are now asking about forest resources have outgrown these methods. Forest management is impeded by general confusion over definitions of resources and the interactions among them. We outline a simple classification scheme that centers on identification of basic ecosystem elements that can be readily measured. Furthermore, spatial and temporal scales must be considered in the design of inventory-monitoring programs. The concept of ecological indicators is reviewed, and caution is advised in their use. Inventory-monitoring programs should be goal-directed and based on as rigorous a statistical design as possible. We also review fundamental issues of variable selection, validation, and sampling bias. We conclude by developing a flexible inventory-monitoring program that is designed to provide information on individual characteristics of the environment, rather than being based on fixed definitions of resources.     

Large-scale constructed wetlands for nutrient removal from stormwater runoff: An everglades restoration project

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) constructed a wetland south of Lake Okeechobee to begin the process of removing nutrients (especially phosphorus) from agricultural stormwater runoff entering the Everglades. The project, called the Everglades Nutrient Removal (ENR) project, is a prototype for larger, similarly constructed wetlands that the SFWMD will build as part of the Everglades restoration program. This innovative project is believed to be one of the largest agricultural stormwater cleanup projects in the United States, if not in the world. This publication describes the ENR project's design, construction, and proposed operation, as well as the proposed research program to be implemented over the next few years.     

An approach for analysing the potential for material efficiency improvement

Material efficiency improvement saves energy and reduces the consumption of primary resources and reduces the volume of waste. In this article an approach for analysing the potential for material efficiency improvement is proposed and discussed. In this approach the product functions performed by the materials and various improvement measures are taken into account. The potential for material saving and associated energy saving is assessed and evaluated economically. In this paper the approach is tested in an analysis of the potential for material efficiency improvement with respect to plastic packaging in the Netherlands. The technical reduction potential is found to be 34 ± 7% (157 ± 30 ktonne virgin plastics). Realization of this potential would improve the energy efficiency of the lifecycle of plastic packaging by 31% (10 PJ in 1988). From our study we conclude that our approach can indeed be used to investigate the potential for material efficiency improvement. However, a reliable technical and particularly an economical assessment of reduction measures cannot be made until more detailed data become available.