Electrical and electronic waste management in China: progress and the barriers to overcome.

Serious adverse impacts on the environment and human health from e-waste recycling have occurred in the past and continue to occur in China today, due to a lack of national management strategies. China has made great efforts to face the challenges of the approaching peak increase in the domestic generation of e-waste and the illegal shipment of e-waste from other countries. This study examined recent progress and analysed the main problems associated with this issue in China. It was found that the material and the financial flows of e-waste in China had their own specific characteristics. Nearly 60% of the generated e-wastes were sold to private individual collectors and passed into informal recycling processes. More than 90% of Chinese citizens are reluctant to pay for the recycling of their e-waste. This is due to their traditional understanding that there remained value in these end-of-life products. Regulations concerning e-waste in China have been drafted but their deficiencies are obvious. The extended producer responsibilities (EPR) have been introduced but are not well defined. Eight formal facilities have been planned and are under construction or are in operation along the eastern coast of China but it will be difficult for them to compete with the informal processes for the reasons identified during the study.     

Recent trends in ILO conventions related to occupational safety and health.

The present study was conducted to analyze the ratification status of International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions related to occupational safety and health (OSH) by ILO member states in terms of national indicators (length of ILO membership and national income status) and regional affiliation. 17 conventions designated as OSH-related by the 2003 International Labour Conference were examined. In general, countries with longer ILO membership ratified higher numbers of conventions related to OSH. With some variation, long-membership countries had the largest number of ratifications, followed by middle- and short-membership countries in all regions. There were also incremental increases in the number of ratifications for OSH-related conventions according to the national income status. Common regional characteristics that could not be explained by the factors studied also existed. Future efforts to increase ratification at an international level will need to consider the factors influencing ratification practice among the member states.     

Linking fate model in freshwater and PBPK model to assess human internal dosimetry of B(a)P associated with drinking water

In the present study, we demonstrate an integrated modeling approach for predicting internal tissue concentrations of chemicals by coupling a multimedia environmental model and a generic physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model. A case study was designed for a region situated on the Seine river watershed, downstream of the Paris megacity, and for benzo(a)pyrene emitted from industrial zones in the region. In this case study, these two models are linked only by water intake from riverine system for the multimedia model into human body for the PBPK model. The limited monitoring data sets of B(a)P concentrations in bottom sediment and in raw river water, obtained at the downstream of Paris, were used to re-construct long-term daily concentrations of B(a)P in river water. The re-construction of long-term series of B(a)P level played a key role for the intermediate model calibration (conducted in multimedia model) and thus for improving model input to PBPK model. In order to take into account the parametric uncertainty in the model inputs, some input parameters relevant for the multimedia model were given by probability density functions (PDFs); some generic PDFs were updated with site-specific measurements by a Bayesian approach. The results of this study showed that the multimedia model fits well with actual annual measurements in sediments over one decade. No accumulation of B(a)P in the organs was observed. In conclusion, this case study demonstrated the feasibility of a full-chain assessment combining multimedia environmental predictions and PBPK modeling, including uncertainty and sensitivity analyses.     

Assessing the economic value of urban green spaces in Kuala Lumpur

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study assessed the economic value of public urban green spaces (UGSs) in Kuala Lumpur (KL) city by using the hedonic price method (HPM). It...     

Woody biomass and RPF gasification using reforming catalyst and calcium oxide

This study focused on steam gasification and reforming of waste biomass using a reforming catalyst. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the durability of a commercial Ni reforming catalyst and the effect of CaO on the reforming behavior, and to clarify detailed factors of catalytic performance, as well as the effect of operating parameters on the characteristics of produced gas composition. Moreover, catalyst regeneration was carried out and the behavior of catalytic activity based on gas composition was investigated. Using a fluidized bed gasifier and a fixed bed reformer, gasification and reforming of waste biomass were carried out. Commercial Ni-based catalyst and calcined limestone (CaO) were applied to the reforming reaction. Temperature of the gasifier and reformer was almost 1023 K. Ratio of steam to carbon in the feedstock [mol mol⁻¹] and equivalence ratio (i.e., ratio of actual to theoretical amount of oxygen) [-] were set at about 2 and 0.3, respectively. The feed rate of the feedstock into the bench-scale gasifier was almost 15 kg h⁻¹. The results of waste biomass gasification confirmed the improvement in H₂ composition by the CO₂ absorption reaction using the reforming catalyst and CaO. In addition, CaO proved to be especially effective in decreasing the tar concentration in the case of woody biomass gasification. Catalytic activity was maintained by means of catalyst regeneration processing by hydrogen reduction after air oxidation when woody biomass was used as feedstock.     

Estrogen content and relative performance of Japanese and British sewage treatment plants and their potential impact on endocrine disruption.

Both the UK and Japan are densely populated islands with relatively short rivers. Therefore, both countries are likely to be highly exposed to contaminants emanating from their human populations. This review considered how effective the different sewage treatment facilities of the two countries are at removing steroid estrogens from the effluent. The methods of estrogen analysis in sewage effluent, the number and importance of different sewage treatment types, and their apparent effectiveness at removing estrogens were all considered. In both countries, the activated sludge treatment was dominant in terms of people served and water discharged. The analytical techniques used by those studying estrogen concentrations in effluents in both countries were broadly similar. Activated sludge plant (ASP) effluent in the UK typically contained around 2 ng/L estradiol (E2) and 8 ng/L estrone (E1), while Japanese ASPs typically reported E2 as below detection, and 10 ng/L E1 in their effluents. When estrogenic bioassays were used in Japan, they typically record an estrogenic potency of 10 ng/L E2 equivalents. Even taking into account ethinylestradiol (EE2) (not found in Japanese effluents), the overall estrogenicity of British sewage effluents would appear to be the same as that of Japanese sewage effluents (around 10 ng/L E2 equivalents). This suggests that the ASPs serving the large urban communities in Japan and the UK would have effluent of similar estrogenic potencies. Less information is available about the more numerous biological (trickling) filter plants (BFP) in the UK and oxygen ditches (OD) in Japan which tend to serve smaller, more rural communities. The available data would suggest that the BFPs are significantly less efficient than the ODs at removing E1. This would suggest that in similar circumstances, British headwaters (where this sewage treatment plant (STP) type is often found) might be more at risk from endocrine disruption than their Japanese counterparts. Overall, the apparently higher incidence of endocrine disruption in British wild fish than in Japanese wild fish cannot be attributed to differences in the efficiency of their respective STPs.     

Report on hazardous household waste generation in Japan.

Surveys of over 2000 households in Japan were conducted to investigate the characteristics of hazardous household waste (HHW) generation. In Japan, about 2.5 to 4.3 kg of HHW are produced per tonne of the residential waste stream. The percentage of used batteries in HHW was over 50%. Every household using spray (aerosol) cans had more than seven cans on average. The generation of HHW, in terms of both quantities and type of waste produced, appeared to vary with dwelling type. Detached dwelling residents tended to store HHW such as used batteries, whereas apartment residents tended not to store waste. The amounts of discarded HHW were larger at the end of the year in comparison with other months. The data accumulated were used to estimate the quantities of HHW disposed off annually, and the quantities and type of waste that might be received by a typical depot collection programme in Japan.     

The onion fly modulates the adult eclosion time in response to amplitude of temperature cycle

To confirm whether the amplitude of diel temperature cycles causes a phase shift of adult eclosion rhythm of the onion fly, Delia antiqua, the peak time (Ø _E) of adult eclosion was determined under various thermoperiods with a fixed temperature either in the warm or cool phase and temperature differences ranging from 1°C to 4°C between the two phases. Irrespective of the temperature level during the warm or cool phase, Ø _E occurred earlier with decreasing amplitude of the temperature cycle. The results strongly support the previous conclusion of Tanaka and Watari (Naturwissenschaften 90:76–79, 2003) that D. antiqua responds to the amplitude of temperature cycle as a cue for the circadian adult eclosion timing. The phase advance was larger in thermoperiods with a fixed warm-phase temperature than in those with a fixed cool-phase temperature. This might be ascribed to the interaction between the amplitude and level of temperature in the thermoperiodic regimes.     

Sediment tolerance of Sargassum algae inhabiting sediment-covered rocky reefs

Although sediment deposition has detrimental effects on macroalgal settlement and recruitment, fucoid algae (mainly Sargassum duplicatum) thrive on rocky reefs always overlaid with fine sediments in sheltered sites of Kagoshima, Japan. The aim of the present study was to assess their ability to settle and recruit onto sediment-covered substrata. A transplant experiment using boulders with Sargassum juveniles attached showed that the 30-day survival rate was as high as 50% even for the juvenile stage (<10 mm) on boulders completely buried with sediment. In addition, an outdoor tank experiment testing the effects of different sediment thicknesses (0–4 mm) on already settled 4-day old S. duplicatum germlings indicated significant reductions in growth by the presence of sediment cover even at 0.5 mm but no significant increase in mortality up to 2 mm. Furthermore, an in situ experiment in which sterilized cobbles were placed at a sediment-covered site to allow sediment to settle over them before the embryo release showed a uniformly high recruitment of Sargassum over the cobbles. This suggests the presence of unknown mechanisms to allow the settlement of propagules on substrata thinly but completely covered by fine sediments.