Waste recovery using packaging waste recovery notes: a cost-effective way of meeting targets?

To comply with EU recycling targets for packaging waste, the UK relies on an industry run and market based eco-tax levied by reprocessors on obligated businesses. After examining the details of this approach, the use of Packaging Waste Recovery Notes is assessed in terms of its allocative impact and the contribution made to eco-efficiency. The evidence indicates the UK system has minimized the cost of delivering current EU targets, but has not been able to deliver allocative efficiency or to demonstrate dynamic improvements in resource use. Its effectiveness in meeting impending higher targets remains open to question.     

Greening the Fife Economy: Ecological Modernization as a Pathway for Local Economic Development

Progress in the greening of UK local government has been hampered by uncertainty about the relationship between resource use and environmental protection. Ecological modernizationmay offer the most appropriateparadigm to reconcile economic, social and environmentalinterpretationsof sustainability. The transition from corporate to strategic environmental management currently being attempted by some 'green' authorities can be construed as an attempt to promote ecological modernization in the form of institutional learning. Fife Council in Scotland provides an interesting case study. Progress with corporate environmental management has become bound up with a radical devolution of decision making. Efforts to link the authority's Sustainable Development Policy to a Local Agenda 21 programme have been initiated with the piloting of sustainability indicators.     

Aging and compressibility of municipal solid wastes

The expansion of a municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill requires the ability to predict settlement behavior of the existing landfill. The practice of using a single compressibility value when performing a settlement analysis may lead to inaccurate predictions. This paper gives consideration to changes in the mechanical compressibility of MSW as a function of the fill age of MSW as well as the embedding depth of MSW. Borehole samples representative of various fill ages were obtained from five boreholes drilled to the bottom of the Qizhishan landfill in Suzhou, China. Thirty-one borehole samples were used to perform confined compression tests. Waste composition and volume-mass properties (i.e., unit weight, void ratio, and water content) were measured on all the samples. The test results showed that the compressible components of the MSW (i.e., organics, plastics, paper, wood and textiles) decreased with an increase in the fill age. The in situ void ratio of the MSW was shown to decrease with depth into the landfill. The compression index, Cc, was observed to decrease from 1.0 to 0.3 with depth into the landfill. Settlement analyses were performed on the existing landfill, demonstrating that the variation of MSW compressibility with fill age or depth should be taken into account in the settlement prediction.     

Environmental Effects Monitoring in Sydney Harbor During Remediation of One of Canada's Most Polluted Sites: A Review and Lessons Learned

This article reviews a comprehensive marine environmental effects monitoring program (MEEMP) comprised of components capable of detecting changes in the marine environment over short or extended temporal scales during remediation of one of Canada's most polluted sites at the Sydney Tar Ponds. The monitoring components included: water and sediment quality, amphipod toxicity testing, mussel tissue, crab hepatopancreas tissue, and benthic community assessments. The MEEMP was designed to verify the impact predictions for the remediation project (i.e., no immediate damage to the marine ecosystem through remediation activities). Some components were capable of providing conclusive data (e.g., sediment and water quality), while others only yielded data that were inconclusive or difficult to attribute to remediation activities (e.g., intertidal community assessments and amphipod toxicity testing). Components that provided only inconclusive results or were difficult to attribute to remediation activities were discontinued, resulting in substantial cost savings during the project, but without compromising the overall objectives of the program, which was to monitor for potential adverse environmental effects of remediation on the marine environment in Sydney Harbor and to verify environmental effects predictions made in the Environmental Impact Statement for the project. The rationale for discontinuing certain MEEMP components and discussion of conclusive results are incorporated into “lessons learned” for environmental remediation practitioners and regulators working on similar large‐scale multiyear remediation projects. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How to do Animal Ethics

Many think doing animal ethics demands we see moral humanism as a speciesist prejudice of the kind found with sexism and racism. The only serious case for this rests on the Argument from Marginal Cases. We find that argument to the point, but show that properly understood it supports humanism. Understanding why it does this lets us see how we ought to go on in animal ethics.     

ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF RIPARIAN BUFFERS IN AN AGRICULTURAL WATERSHED1

ABSTRACT: This study determines the most cost effective spatial pattern of farming systems for improving water quality and evaluates the economic value of riparian buffers in reducing agricultural nonpoint source pollution in a Midwestern agricultural watershed. Economic and water quality impacts of alternative farming systems are evaluated using the CARE and SWAT models, respectively. The water quality benefits of riparian buffers are estimated by combining experimental data and simulated water quality impacts of fanning systems obtained using SWAT. The net economic value of riparian buffers in improving water quality is estimated by total watershed net return with riparian buffers minus total watershed net return without riparian buffers minus the opportunity cost of riparian buffers. Exclusive of maintenance cost, the net economic value of riparian buffers in reducing atrazine concentration from 45 to 24 ppb is $612,117 and the savings in government cost is $631,710. Results strongly support efforts that encourage farmers to develop or maintain riparian buffers adjacent to streams.     

Protecting the Green Behind the Gold: Catchment-Wide Restoration Efforts Necessary to Achieve Nutrient and Sediment Load Reduction Targets in Gold Coast City,Australia

The Gold Coast City is the tourist center of Australia and has undergone rapid and massive urban expansion over the past few decades. The Broadwater estuary, in the heart of the City, not only offers an array of ecosystems services for many important aquatic wildlife species, but also supports the livelihood and lifestyles of residents. Not surprisingly, there have been signs of imbalance between these two major services. This study combined a waterway hydraulic and pollutant transport model to simulate diffuse nutrient and sediment loads under past and future proposed land-use changes. A series of catchment restoration initiatives were modeled in an attempt to define optimal catchment scale restoration efforts necessary to protect and enhance the City’s waterways. The modeling revealed that for future proposed development, a business as usual approach to catchment management will not reduce nutrient and sediment loading sufficiently to protect the community values. Considerable restoration of upper catchment tributaries is imperative, combined with treatment of stormwater flow from intensively developed sub-catchment areas. Collectively, initiatives undertaken by regulatory authorities to date have successfully reduced nutrient and sediment loading reaching adjoining waterways, although these programs have been ad hoc without strategic systematic planning and vision. Future conservation requires integration of multidisciplinary science and proactive management driven by the high ecological, economical, and community values placed on the City’s waterways. Long-term catchment restoration and conservation planning requires an extensive budget (including political and societal support) to handle ongoing maintenance issues associated with scale of restoration determined here.     

Phosphorus and nitrogen in runoff after phosphorus- or nitrogen-based manure applications

Application of beef cattle () manure based on nitrogen (N) requirements of crops has resulted in elevated concentrations of soil test phosphorus (P) in surface soils, and runoff from this cropland can contribute to eutrophication of surface waters. We conducted a 3-yr field study (2005-2007) on a Lethbridge loam soil cropped to dryland barley () in southern Alberta, Canada to evaluate the effect of annual and triennial P-based and annual N-based feedlot manure on P and N in runoff. The manure was spring applied and incorporated. There was one unamended control plot. A portable rainfall simulator was used to generate runoff in the spring of each year after recent manure incorporation, and the runoff was analyzed for total P, total dissolved P, total particulate P, dissolved reactive P, total N, total dissolved N, total particulate N, NO-N, and NH-N. Annual or triennial P-based application resulted in significantly ( ≤ 0.05) lower (by 50 to 94%) concentrations or loads of mainly dissolved P fractions in runoff for some years compared with annual N-based application, and this was related to lower rates of annual manure P applied. For example, mean dissolved reactive P concentrations in 2006 and 2007 were significantly lower for the annual P-based (0.12-0.20 mg L) than for the annual N-based application (0.24-0.48 mg L), and mean values were significantly lower for the triennial P-based (0.06-0.13 mg L) than for the annual N-based application. In contrast, other P fractions in runoff were unaffected by annual P-based application. Our findings suggested no environmental benefit of annual P-based application over triennial P-based application with respect to P and N in runoff. Similar concentrations and loads of N fractions in runoff for the P- and N-based applications indicated that shifting to a P-based application would not significantly influence N in runoff.     

Field demonstration of the combined effects of absorption and evapotranspiration on septic system drainfield capacity.

Drainfields for disposal of septic tank effluents are typically designed by considering the loss of water by either upward evapotranspiration into the atmosphere or lateral and downward absorption into the adjacent soil. While this approach is appropriate for evapotranspiration systems, absorption systems allow water loss by both mechanisms. It was proposed that, in areas where high evapotranspiration rates coincide with permeable soils, drainfield sizes could be substantially reduced by accounting for both mechanisms. A two-year field demonstration was conducted to determine appropriate design criteria for areas typical of the Texas High Plains. The study consisted of evaluating the long-term acceptance rates for three different drainfield configurations: evapotranspiration only, absorption only, and combined conditions. A second field demonstration repeated the experiments for additional observation of the combined evapotranspiration and absorption and achieved similar results as the first study. The field tests indicated that the current design loading criteria may be increased by at least a factor of two for the Texas High Plains region and other Texas areas with similar soil composition and evapotranspiration rates, while still retaining a factor of safety of two.