Quality control of waste to incineration--waste composition analysis in Lidk?ping, Sweden.

In order to decrease environmental impacts in waste management the choice of treatment method must be based on the characteristics of the waste. Present sampling procedures do not provide statistically representative samples of solid waste and this provides difficulties in characterization. The objective of this study was to develop a procedure for waste component analysis and sampling of waste after collection and at plant level. A further objective was to characterize the waste delivered to an incineration plant for physical and chemical properties and to determine the amounts of delivered waste that could be classified as biofuels and fossil fuels. The proportions of recyclables and hazardous waste were also examined. Samples were taken randomly from waste trucks and divided by square implementation. Statistical analysis of the results showed that the number of sub-samples could be decreased with only a moderate increase in the confidence interval. This means that future waste composition analyses could be made more efficient and thereby less expensive. The analysis of the waste delivered to the Lidk?ping incineration plant (Central Sweden) showed that 66.4% of the household waste was composed of biofuels and 21.3% of non-renewable combustibles, of which 40.3% were recyclables. In addition, 11.6% of the household waste was non-combustible and 0.6% hazardous waste. The heat value for the biofuels was 18.0-19.7 MJ kg(-1) dry mass (DM) and for the fossil fuels 28.2-33.9 MJ kg(-1) DM. The industrial waste consisted of 35.9% biofuels, 62.0% fossil fuels, 1.6% non-combustible and 0.5% hazardous waste. The heat value was 19.5 MJ kg(-1) DM for the biofuels and 31.4 MJ kg(-1) DM for the fossil fuels.     

Environmental assessment of plant protection strategies using scenarios for pig feed production

Two scenarios for future pig meat production were constructed. The first was a "business as usual" scenario, where the pig feed was based on domestic grain and imported soy-meal, and no efforts were made to reduce pesticide use. The second scenario had a strong environmental focus, and both peas and rapeseed were grown at pig-farm level to produce grain and protein feed. Preventive measures, such as a more diverse crop rotation and mechanical weed control, were combined to reduce pesticide use. The two scenarios were environmentally assessed by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a pesticide risk indicator model (PRI-Farm). The results showed environmentally sound possibilities to reduce pesticide dependency and risks by using altered plant protection strategies in pig-feed production. Organizing on-farm feed production so that protein feed crops are integrated with grain crops contributes to a more diverse crop rotation.     

工业化加工和家庭烹饪:三种备餐方法的环境效应评估

在当今的瑞典,食品的工业化加工代替传统的家庭制作的趋势越来越明显,公众担心由此可能增加的来自食品的环境影响.本文采用生命周期评估的方法,对三类食品--家庭制作的食品、半成品和即食成品的环境效应进行了定量的分析.结果表明:这些食品对环境的影响基本一致,即食成品消耗了最多的能源,而家庭制作的食品具有较高的排放量,引起富营养化作用和全球变暖;对环境的影响最大因素是农业,因为其30%的影响关系到能源,95%的影响关系到富营养化作用,工业、包装业、消费者家庭运输和食品制备方式对环境也具有明显的影响;加工业、家庭制作、包装业、废物处理过程中的原材料的消耗和能源效率是重要的因素,所以降低食品消费带来的环境影响,农业方面的改进是非常重要的,同时工业和家庭制作食品过程中的原材料利用也是非常重要的环节.     

Antibodies Against Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) in European Moose and White-Tailed Deer in Finland

Food and Environmental Virology - The main animal reservoirs of zoonotic hepatitis E virus (HEV) are domestic pigs and wild boars, but HEV also infects cervids. In this study, we estimated the...     

Contribution of non-timber forest products to livelihoods of communities in southeast Nigeria

This paper examines the value of non-timber forest products (NTFP) and their determinants in communities in the vicinity of the Okwangwo Division of the Cross River National Park, Nigeria. The data for this study were generated from personal interviews conducted in three villages located near the buffer area of the national park. The study showed that income from NTFP was almost 13% of the total annual income of the respondents. Income from NTFP was influenced by factors such as income from non-traditional employment, the distance of respondents' residences to the park, income from farming and age. The results suggest that a shift from primarily subsistence to a more of cash economy may lead to unsustainable exploitation of NTFP.     

A note on attitudes and knowledge concerning environmental issues in Sweden

As part of a larger research effort, the empirical basis for this note is responses to four out of many questions in a mailed survey, which primarily focused on national environmental objectives in Sweden. The results show that out of eight broad areas for use of tax money, five-including environment-are rated as important by over 90% of the respondents. Respondents appear to be less willing to discriminate between different issues covered by national environmental objectives, as all of these are rated as important by more than 80% of the respondents. The function of the ozone layer is an example of an environmental issue where the knowledge among people is relatively high, while this is not the case when it comes to the amount of pesticides used in agriculture. The results also show less support for actions at the individual level to improve the environment, as compared to support for actions taken by society at large through, e.g., technological improvement or policy intervention.     

Industrial processing versus home cooking: an environmental comparison between three ways to prepare a meal

Today there is a strong trend in Sweden for industrially processed meals to replace homemade meals. In the public debate this is often claimed to increase the environmental impact from foods. In the study presented in this article, we used life-cycle assessment to quantify the environmental impact of three meals: homemade, semiprepared, and ready-to-eat. The differences in environmental impact between the meals were small; the ready-to-eat meal used the most energy, whereas the homemade meal had higher emissions causing eutrophication and global warming. The dominating contributor to the environmental impact was agriculture, accounting for 30%, of the impact related to energy and 95% of that related to eutrophication. Industry, packaging, and consumer home transport and food preparation also contributed significantly. Important factors were raw material use, energy efficiency in industry and households, packaging, and residue treatment. To decrease the overall environmental impact of food consumption, improvements in agriculture are very important, together with raw-material use within industry and households.     

应用猪饲料生产情景分析法的植物保护策略环境评价

对未来的猪肉生产构建了两种情景.一种是"基型"(即一切照旧)(business as usual)情景,这一情景中,猪饲料是以国内生产的谷谷和进口的豆饼为基本原料,未努力减少农药的用量.第二种情景更多的关注环境,在猪场还种植豌豆和油菜用以提供谷物和蛋白质饲料.采用更多种不同作物的轮作和机械除草相结合来降低农药的用量,以达到降低环境污染的目的.这两种情景同时用两种方法进行环境评估:生命周期评价法(LCA)(Life cycle Assessment)和农药风险指标模型(PRI-Farm)(Pesticide risk indicator model).结论表明:在猪饲料生产中通过运用改变作物的保护策略以期降低农药的用量和减小其风险是环保可行的.组织起农场的饲料生产,使蛋白质饲料和谷物生产相结合可促成更多种作物的轮作.     

Atmospheric Nutrient Input to the Baltic Sea from 1850 to 2006: A Reconstruction from Modeling Results and Historical Data

In this study, a consistent basin-wise monthly time series of the atmospheric nutrient load to the Baltic Sea during 1850-2006 was compiled. Due to the lack of a long time series (1850-1960) of nutrient deposition to the Baltic Sea, the data set was compiled by combining a time series of deposition data at the Baltic Nest Institute from 1970 to 2006, published historical monitoring data and deposition estimates, as well as recent modeled Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) emission estimates. The procedure for nitrogen compounds included estimation of the deposition in a few intermediate reference years, linear interpolation between them, and the decomposition of annual deposition into a seasonal deposition pattern. As no reliable monitoring results were found for the atmospheric deposition of phosphorus during the early period of our study, we used published estimates for the temporal and spatial pattern of the phosphorus load.     

Reconstructing the Development of Baltic Sea Eutrophication 1850–2006

A comprehensive reconstruction of the Baltic Sea state from 1850 to 2006 is presented: driving forces are reconstructed and the evolution of the hydrography and biogeochemical cycles is simulated using the model BALTSEM. Driven by high resolution atmospheric forcing fields (HiResAFF), BALTSEM reproduces dynamics of salinity, temperature, and maximum ice extent. Nutrient loads have been increasing with a noteworthy acceleration from the 1950s until peak values around 1980 followed by a decrease continuing up to present. BALTSEM shows a delayed response to the massive load increase with most eutrophic conditions occurring only at the end of the simulation. This is accompanied by an intensification of the pelagic cycling driven by a shift from spring to summer primary production. The simulation indicates that no improvement in water quality of the Baltic Sea compared to its present state can be expected from the decrease in nutrient loads in recent decades.