Waste management policies for industrial symbiosis development: case studies in European countries

Industrial symbiosis (IS) emerged as a self-organizing business strategy among firms that are willing to cooperate to improve their economic and environmental performance. The adoption of such cooperative strategies relates to increasing costs of waste management, most of which are driven by policy and legislative requirements.Development of IS depends on an enabling context of social, informational, technological, economical and political factors. The power to influence this context varies among the agents involved such as the government, businesses or coordinating entities. Governmental intervention, as manifested through policies, could influence a wider range of factors; and we believe this is an area which is under-researched.This paper aims to critically appraise the waste policy interventions from supra-national to sub-national levels of government. A case study methodology has been applied to four European countries i.e. Denmark, the UK, Portugal and Switzerland, in which IS emerged or is being fostered.The findings suggest that there are commonalities in policy instruments that may have led to an IS enabling context. The paper concludes with lessons learnt and recommendations on shaping the policy context for IS development.     

Persistence and degradation of coumaphos in model cattle dipping vats

The stability of coumaphos [O,O-diethyl O-(3-chloro-4-methyl-2-oxo-2H-1-benzopyran-7 yl)phosphorothioatel was studied in model dipping vats under field conditions using 14C-labelled and unlabelled coumaphos, with or without additives. The stability of coumaphos in model vats increased significantly by maintaining a pH of 5 by addition of superphosphate. Copper sulphate amendment did not seem to have any additional effect on stability. Potasan was the major metabolite in addition to chlorferon and 4-methylumbelliferone. Coumaphos concentration was doubled in the sediment of vat treated with copper sulphate as compared to the control vat as a result of emulsion breakdown. Chlorferon was the only metabolite detected in the sediment of the former vat indicating inhibition of the anaerobic degradation.     

Demonstration of sperm head shape abnormality and clastogenic potential of cypermethrin

Adult male Swiss albino mice were administered ip. suspension solution of cypermethrin in 0.15% DMSO at the doses of 30 mg, 60 mg and 90 mg/kg b. wt. daily for 5 days. Another group of animals was injected cyclophosphamide ip. (60 mg/kg b. wt.) in similar manner which served as positive control. Effect of cypermethrin on body and testes weight and sperm head morphology was studied. Clastogenic potential of cypermethrin was studied by using modified Allium test. The cytological changes were studied in the root tip cells of Allium cepa after 3 days treatment with three different concentration of cypermethrin (0.1, 1.0 and 10.0 microg/ml). The results revealed that body weight gain was considerably reduced in higher dose groups, but the testicular weight did not change significantly in any of the cypermethrin treated groups. However, a significant elevation in the number of abnormal shape of sperm head was noticed in higher dose groups as compared to control. It was observed that the abnormality in the shape of sperm head was dose-dependent. The cytological changes in the root tip cells of Allium cepa indicated that cypermethrin is having toxic effects on the root tip cells in the form of stickiness of chromosomes and also affect the mitotic activity. This study suggest that cypermethrin may have the potential to induce adverse effects on sperm head shape morphology of mouse as well as clastogenic effects on root tip cells of Allium cepa.     

Comparison of a Subjective and a Physical Approach for Identification of Priority Areas for Soil and Water Management in a Watershed – A Case Study of Nagwan Watershed in Hazaribagh District of Jharkhand, India

The present investigation was an attempt to compare the within-watershed prioritization capabilities of a physical model based SDSS with the SYI and RPI model based subjective-SDSS, conventionally devised for between-watershed prioritizations, by All India Soil Survey and Land Use Planning Division of Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. Application of these two approaches on a test watershed situated in Damodar-Barakar catchment in India, the second most seriously eroded area in the world, demonstrated that the proposed physical model based SDSS was capable of realistically and logically mimicking the sub-watershed-scaled water and soil losses thereby suggesting its immense application potential for priority area identification within the test watershed. In contrast to the proposed physical method, the subjective approaches, which assigned totally reverse priorities to about 67–93% of the test-sub-watersheds, were observed to be incapable of realistically assessing the impact of topography and varied land use and soil types in the test watershed on their sub-watershed scaled run-off and soil loss generating potential. Besides, the physical approach could be used for assessing the annual dynamics of the total water and sediment yields, under prevailing resource management systems in the test watershed with good to moderately good correlation coefficients of 0.83 and 0.65; model efficiency coefficients of 0.54 and 0.70; mean relative errors of –4.28% and –17.97% and root mean square prediction errors of 71.8 mm and 9.63 t/ha, respectively.     

Physicochemical variations in atmospheric aerosols recorded at sea onboard the Atlantic–Mediterranean 2008 Scholar Ship cruise (Part II): Natural versus anthropogenic influences revealed by PM10 trace element geochemistry

The geochemistry of PM₁₀ filter samples collected at sea during the Scholar Ship Atlantic–Mediterranean 2008 research cruise reveals a constantly changing compositional mix of pollutants into the marine atmosphere. Source apportionment modelling using Positive Matrix Factorization identifies North African desert dust, sea spray, secondary inorganic aerosols, metalliferous carbon, and V–Ni-bearing combustion particles as the main PM₁₀ factors/sources. The least contaminated samples show an upper continental crust composition (UCC)-normalised geochemistry influenced by seawater chemistry, with marked depletions in Rb, Th and the lighter lanthanoid elements, whereas the arrival of desert dust intrusions imposes a more upper crustal signature enriched in “geological” elements such as Si, Al, Ti, Rb, Li and Sc. Superimposed on these natural background aerosol loadings are anthropogenic metal aerosols (e.g. Cu, Zn, Pb, V, and Mn) which allow identification of pollution sources such as fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, metalliferous industries, and urban–industrial ports. A particularly sensitive tracer is La/Ce, which rises in response to contamination from coastal FCC oil refineries. The Scholar Ship database allows us to recognise seaborne pollution sourced from NW Africa, the Cape Verde and Canary islands, and European cities and industrial complexes, plumes which in extreme cases can produce a downwind deterioration in marine air quality comparable to that seen in many cities, and can persist hundreds of kilometres from land.     

Electricity nanogenerator from egg shell membrane: A natural waste bioproduct

ABSTRACT

In the era of developing technologies, there is always been a crisis of rising demands of energy. There is no skepticism that a lot of energy is being produced every hour for almost each and every field, but still an exploration is needed to come up with new and viable options for energy creation. The same is the objective of this paper which proposes the use of waste biomaterials in association with organic and inorganic materials as a source of energy to power up small electronic devices. In this research egg shell membrane (ESM)-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is proposed in combination with calotropis (Calo), cellulose from fruit of Bombax Ceiba (BOM), cellulose in form of tissue paper (TISU), dog hair (DH), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), aluminum (Al), and copper (Cu). ESM is eco-friendly waste food by-product and available in abundance. Characterization of ESM is done by scanning electron microscope (SEM), atomic force microscope (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (FTIR). The proposed ESM-PTFE-based TENG power up 462 green LEDs (462 × 2 V = 924 V ~ 1 kV) without rectifier and produced up to 7.61 µJ energy with 4.7 µF capacitor at 200 tapings. All the proposed ESM-based TENG combinations generate sufficient voltage to turn ON the wrist watch. This green-energy-based TENG has potential application in various fields especially related to medical devices.     

Ambient air quality during wheat and rice crop stubble burning episodes in Patiala

Open crop stubble burning events were observed in and around Patiala city, India. A ground level study was deliberated to analyze the contribution of wheat (Triticum aestivum) and rice (Oriza sativa) crop stubble burning practices on concentration levels of aerosol, SO₂ and NO₂ in ambient air at five different sites in and around Patiala city covering agricultural, commercial and residential areas. Aerosols were collected on GMF/A and QMF/A (Whatman) sheets for a 24 h period throughout the year in 2007. Simultaneously, sampling of SO₂ and NO₂ was conducted and results obtained during stubble burning periods were compared to the non-stubble burning periods. Results clearly pointed out a distinct increase in aerosol, SO₂ and NO₂ levels during the crop stubble burning periods.     

Chemistry of fogs at Agra, India: Influence of soil particulates and atmospheric gases

Fog water samples were collected in the months of December and January during 1998–2000 at Agra, India. The samples were analyzed for pH, major anions (F⁻, Cl⁻, SO₄ ²⁻, NO₃ ⁻, HCOO⁻ and CH₃COO⁻), major cations (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺ and K⁺) and NH₄ ⁺ using ion chromatography, ICP-AES and spectrophotometer methods, respectively. pH of fog water samples ranged between 7.0 and 7.6 with a volume weighted mean of 7.2, indicating its alkaline characteristic. NH₄ ⁺ contributed 40%, SO₄ ²⁻ and NO₃ ⁻ accounted for 28%, while Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺ and K⁺ accounted for 16% of the total ionic concentration. The ratios of Mg²⁺/Ca²⁺ and Na⁺/Ca²⁺ in fog water indicates that 50–75% of fog water samples correspond to the respective ratios in local soil. Significant correlation between Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺ and K⁺ suggests their soil origin. The order of neutralization, NH₄ ⁺ (1.4) > Ca²⁺ (0.28) > Mg²⁺ (0.12), indicates that NH₄ ⁺ is the major neutralizing species. Fog water and atmospheric alkalinity were also computed and were found to be 873 and 903 neqm⁻³, respectively. Both of these values are higher than values reported from temperate sites and thus indicate that at the present level of pollutants, there is no risk of acid fog problem. The study also shows that the alkaline nature of fog water is due to dissolution of ammonia gas and partly due to interaction of fog water with soil derived aerosols.