Thermal Degradation and Kinetic Parameters of Polyester and Poly(Lactic Acid) Blends Used in Shopping Bags in Brazil

In this work, synthetic polyester and poly(lactic acid) blends used as biodegradable shopping plastic bags were studied, together with control samples of polyethylene containing pro-oxidant catalysts (called “oxidegradable bags” in the market). Samples of these materials were weighed and buried in simulated soil for 3 months, and then studied by Thermal Analysis including a non-isothermal kinetic analysis. It was observed that although there was no significant mass loss in the period of the ageing, the activation energies for the thermal decomposition processes were substantially reduced for the biodegradable samples, but not for the oxidegradable ones.     

Environmental impact of APC residues from municipal solid waste incineration: reuse assessment based on soil and surface water protection criteria

Waste management and environmental protection are mandatory requirements of modern society. In our study, air pollution control (APC) residues from municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWI) were considered as a mixture of fly ash and fine particulate solids collected in scrubbers and fabric filters. These are hazardous wastes and require treatment before landfill. Although there are a number of treatment options, it is highly recommended to find practical applications rather than just dump them in landfill sites. In general, for using a construction material, beyond technical specifications also soil and surface water criteria may be used to ensure environmental protection. The Dutch Building Materials Decree (BMD) is a valuable tool in this respect and it was used to investigate which properties do not meet the threshold criteria so that APC residues can be further used as secondary building material. To this end, some scenarios were evaluated by considering release of inorganic species from unmoulded and moulded applications. The main conclusion is that the high amount of soluble salts makes the APC residues a building material prohibited in any of the conditions tested. In case of moulding materials, the limits of heavy metals are complied, and their use in Category 1 would be allowed. However, also in this case, the soluble salts lead to the classification of "building material not allowed". The treatments with phosphates or silicates are able to solve the problem of heavy metals, but difficulties with the soluble salts are still observed. This analysis suggests that for APC residues to comply with soil and surface water protection criteria to be further used as building material at least a pre-treating for removing soluble salts is absolutely required.     

A case study of industrial symbiosis development using a middle-out approach

Industrial symbiosis (IS) emerged as a collective, multi-industrial approach to improve economic and environmental performance through the use of wastes/by-products as substitutes for raw materials. The development of IS initiatives depends on the context in which they occur, characterised in terms of social, economic, political, spatial and temporal embeddedness. As a consequence, the context can be influenced to become more supportive of IS through a continuous, interactive process, combining top-down governmental directives and bottom-up spontaneous business initiatives. A strategy to develop and enhance this process is explored in this paper and described by the authors as a middle-out approach.Policies and policy instruments introduced by governmental agencies provide objectives and incentives to businesses. The middle-out approach induces the development of a strategy to create positive feedback loops among agents (e.g. government, industries) that may guide their actions into setting the conditions to support IS emergence.This paper provides a case study that discusses a regional development of IS in Portugal that highlights critical factors for success in implementing IS, and shows that the middle-out approach can also be understood as an extension and combination of previous research on context factors and planned/spontaneous approaches to IS development.     

Frequency of hepatocellular fibrillar inclusions in European flounder (Platichthys flesus) from the Douro River estuary,Portugal

Liver lesions in wild fish have been associated with xenobiotic exposure. Facing reports of pollution in the Douro River estuary (north of Portugal), we have been making field surveys using fishes and targeting histopathological biomarkers of exposure and effect. Herein, we intended to better characterize and report the rate of one poorly understood lesion—hepatocellular fibrillar inclusions (HFI)—found in European flounder (Platichthys flesus). With this report, we aimed to establish sound baseline data that could be viewed as a starting point for future biomonitoring, while offering the world's second only pool of field data on such a liver toxicopathic lesion, which could be compared with data available from the UK estuaries. Sampling was done in the Douro River estuary over 1 year. A total of 72 animals were fished with nets, in spring–summer (SS) and autumn–winter (AW) campaigns. Livers were processed for histopathology and both routine and special staining procedures (alcian blue, periodic acid Schiff (PAS), tetrazonium coupling reaction). Immunohistochemistry targeted AE1/AE3 (pan cytokeratins). The severity of the HFI extent was graded using a system with four levels, varying from 0 (absence of HFI) to 3 (high relative density of cells with HFI). Cells (isolated/groups) with HFI appeared in 35 % or more of the fish, in the total samples of each season, and over 40 % in more homogeneous sub-samples. There were no significant differences when comparing samples versus sub-samples or SS versus AW. When merging the data sets from the two seasons, the frequency of fish with HFI was ≈36 % for the total sample and ≈49 % for the sub-sample. The extreme group (biggest and smallest fish) revealed a HFI frequency of only 16 %, which differed significantly from the total and sub-sampled groups. Immunostaining and PAS were negative for the HFI, and alcian blue could, at times, faintly stain the inclusions. These were positive with the tetrazonium reaction. We showed the presence of HFI in European flounder from the Douro River estuary, proving that they are essentially protein in nature, that no seasonal changes existed in the HFI frequency, and that it was rarer in the smallest and biggest fish groups. Within the ranges of weight/size of our total sample, we estimate that the frequency of HFI in the local flounder is ≈35 %. That rate stands as a baseline value for future assessments, namely for biomonitoring purposes targeting correlations with the estuary pollution status.