城市废水资源化面临的挑战及其对策

城市废水资源化对于缺水城市或水资源污染严重的城市具有十分重要的意义。本文论述了当前城市废水资源化实践中面临的发展战略、立法、评价体系、水质标准、处理技术、设施建设、管理水平、公众态度等方面的障碍和挑战，提出了加强制定有关城市废水资源化的法规和政策、制定合理的回用水水质标准和规范、加强宣传教育、发展运行稳定且高效低耗的废水处理工艺以及将废水资源纳入整体的水资源管理体系等对策和建议。     

入世中国环境保护的挑战与机遇

本文着重分析了入世给中国环境保护事业带来的挑战和机遇。作者认为,入世在短期内将给中国的环境状况和环境保护带来沉重的压力;但从长远来看,入世将改善我国的环境状况并推动环境保护的发展。     

Framing community forestry challenges with a broader lens: case studies from the Brazilian Amazon

Community forestry initiatives have been shown to reduce rural poverty while promoting the conservation and sustainable use of forests. However, a number of challenges face communities wanting to initiate or maintain formal, community-based forest management. Through a grounded theory approach, this paper uses three case studies of community forest management models in the eastern Amazon to create a framework showing challenges faced by communities at different phases of formal management. The framework shows that, in the development phase, four root problems (land ownership, knowledge acquisition, community organization, and adequate capital) need to be addressed to obtain legal management permission. With this permission in hand, further challenges to operationalization are presented (deterring illegal loggers, maintaining infrastructure, obtaining necessary managerial skills and accessing markets). The interrelatedness of these challenges emphasizes that all challenges need to be addressed in a holistic manner for communities to maintain a profitable and self-sufficient operation. This contradicts current development approaches that only address part of this framework. The framework proposed here can be used as a starting point for community forestry initiatives in other regions.     

Determining heavy metals in spent compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and their waste management challenges: Some strategies for improving current conditions

From environmental viewpoint, the most important advantage of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) is reduction of green house gas emissions. But their significant disadvantage is disposal of spent lamps because of containing a few milligrams of toxic metals, especially mercury and lead. For a successful implementation of any waste management plan, availability of sufficient and accurate information on quantities and compositions of the generated waste and current management conditions is a fundamental prerequisite. In this study, CFLs were selected among 20 different brands in Iran. Content of heavy metals including mercury, lead, nickel, arsenic and chromium was determined by inductive coupled plasma (ICP). Two cities, Tehran and Tabriz, were selected for assessing the current waste management condition of CFLs. The study found that waste generation amount of CFLs in the country was about 159.80, 183.82 and 153.75 million per year in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. Waste generation rate of CFLs in Iran was determined to be 2.05 per person in 2012. The average amount of mercury, lead, nickel, arsenic and chromium was 0.417, 2.33, 0.064, 0.056 and 0.012 mg per lamp, respectively. Currently, waste of CFLs is disposed by municipal waste stream in waste landfills. For improving the current conditions, we propose by considering the successful experience of extended producer responsibility (EPR) in other electronic waste management. The EPR program with advanced recycling fee (ARF) is implemented for collecting and then recycling CFLs. For encouraging consumers to take the spent CFLs back at the end of the products’ useful life, a proportion of ARF (for example, 50%) can be refunded. On the other hand, the government and Environmental Protection Agency should support and encourage recycling companies of CFLs both technically and financially in the first place.     

Smart chemical industry parks in China: Current status,challenges, and pathways for future sustainable development

The chemical industry has been pivotal to the rapid economic expansion and high standards of living in China. As an important carrier of the chemical industry, China has designated as many as 723 chemical industrial parks (CIPs). Unfortunately, safety concerns have become an obstacle to the sustainability of China's CIPs. Ever since the two devastating hazardous chemical accidents, namely “Tianjin Port 8·12 Explosion” and “Jiangsu 3·21 Explosion,” which occurred in 2015 and 2019 respectively, China has prioritized the safety of CIPs. The smart chemical industrial parks (SCIPs) are considered the optimal strategies toward the goal of sustainable development in China's CIPs. However, there has been a lack of research and subsequent discussion on the role of SCIPs in the forthcoming years. The period between 2020 and 2025 is considered a crucial period for the future development of CIPs and SCIPs in China mainly because the country has released a series of important government documents and national standards (such as “Fourteenth Five-Year (2020–2025) Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety” and “Guidelines of SCIPs construction”) to promote hazardous chemical safety. With the aim of analyzing the future sustainable development for the construction of SCIPs in China, this paper proposes a systematic methodology in order to conduct an integrated and in-depth review on the standardization construction status (framework with Chinese characteristics, key events, spatial features, and national pilots), future tasks, problems, and sustainable development pathways of China's SCIPs. The method is implemented in accordance with the current scenarios of hazardous chemical safety in China and the latest government documents, regulations, and standards. Furthermore, this study provides basic data and a basis for future studies associated with the safety and sustainability of the SCIPs construction and chemical industry, both within China and in other countries.     

Some of the challenges in implementing Education for Sustainable Development: perspectives from Brazilian engineering students

This article aims to analyse some of the main challenges evidenced in the insertion of sustainability in engineering courses, according to the view from a sample of Brazilian students. Through a systematic literature review, a set of 10 challenges were structured to base the research instrument (questionnaire). These challenges were evaluated by 91 engineering students who participate in sustainable action programs promoted by Enactus Brazil. The collected data were analysed in terms of the averages assigned and via the multi-criteria decision technique TOPSIS, which allowed ranking the challenges. The averages were higher than 5.0 on the scale used, indicating that the students notice the existence of the challenges in the courses in which they are enrolled. The ranking via TOPSIS presented the most evident challenges: ‘Sustainable issues debated only in specific disciplines in a limited extent’; ‘Difficulty to integrate disciplines for the broad teaching of sustainability’; ‘Lack of practical and real examples of how sustainability can be embedded in the specific context of the course’; and ‘Activities and examples presented focus exclusively on environmental issues’. The results presented here may be useful for course coordinators to improve their curriculum; educators to enrich their disciplines from the findings reported here; and researchers interested in the subject can use these findings as a starting point for proposing new teaching techniques. No similar publications were found in the literature, which indicates its originality and contribution to the knowledge base.