Packaging glass contained in the heavy residual fraction refused by Portuguese Mechanical and Biological Treatment plants

Mechanical and Biological Treatment (MBT) is an important strategy to manage Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Europe. The presence of recyclable materials on MSW depends on different factors such as inefficiencies in the Municipal Solid Waste collecting schemes and to the low level of citizenship environmental education. Among other products, MBT plants produce a residual fraction, named here as heavy residual fraction, that contains a significant amount of packaging glass which in Portugal is currently landfilled. This material is not recycled because it is heavily contaminated with other materials, preventing its processing in Material Recovery Facilities (MRF).In this paper the characterization, including particle size and composition, of the residual fraction of six Portuguese MBT plants is presented. The relevant variables that determine the heavy residual fraction characteristics were identified. It was observed that the MBTr particle size distribution is different and depends mainly on the place on the flowsheet where the MBTr exits the process, which is determined by the type of biological process and by the aperture of the last screen where the product passes through. The content in glass varies from 33 to 83%. These values are mainly related with the upstream glass sorting and with the efficiency of the recovery of the organic fraction which is the glass main contaminant. The second main contaminant is “stones”.The quantity of glass contained in this product in all the plants that will be in operation in Portugal in 2014 was estimated. The work shows that if all the 48,000 of glass could be recovered the Portuguese recycling rate would increase by 4.4%.     

西藏邱桑温泉古人类手脚印的年代测定及其岩面艺术价值

青藏高原中部海拔超过4000 m的中更世古人类手脚印的发现引起了国内外古环境、考古、人类史学界的广泛关注,并予以很高评价。众多评论文章中,《河北师范大学学报（哲学与社会科学版）》上有一篇题为《西藏邱桑温泉手脚印遗迹及相关问题》的文章,对手脚印研究中的“年代”和“岩面艺术如何界定”这两个方面提出了质疑。因此特撰写此文,对这两个方面的质疑做出回应。本文将系统梳理Zhang et al.(2021)所发表的手脚印“岩面艺术”中有关“年代学”和“艺术界定”这两方面的内容,从U-Th测年在碳酸盐沉积中的应用和史前艺术的特征等方面来解答部分学者对此研究存在的疑虑和误导,并提出本文的看法：U-Th法是目前对邱桑温泉方解石泉华进行年龄测定的最合适方法,所测的年代是可靠的,并且“岩面艺术”一词是这些手脚印组合最适合的名称。