Industrial Ecology

"Movements for ecological awareness and protection, such as those against climate change, are making important contributions to social understanding regarding the effects of industrial production and consumption. However, many arguments and analyses against ecological destruction and for environmental protection are seemingly not based on a class analysis and not informed by the lives of working class people. Thus many of these analyses do not question the systems of domination that lie at the root of social inequality and ecological devastation: capitalism and the nation state.

What follows is an anarchist analysis of a way forward for linking environmental awareness and protection to working class and poor people’s issues (as do movements for environmental justice), as an attempt to make these relevant to the majority in our society. In doing so, I argue that ecological protection must be intrinsic to any fight for social, political and economic freedom, as ecological destruction impacts immediately on all our lives and especially those of the working poor. However, it is only a working class-led social revolution against social and economic domination that can ultimately guarantee a world that not only meets all our needs"

This paper presents the LCA-based results of a research programme called Cicle Pell: Industrial ecology in the animal-to-leather chain funded by the EU in the framework of the Community Program Interreg III C, Regional Framework Operation, "Ecosind". The main aim of the Ecosind is to define the basis to implement a new strategy of industrial sustainable development in the Southern Europe regions. In the Ecosind framework, the general aim of the Cicle Pell project is to identify the economic and environmental improvements which can be achieved by companies in the leather industry and the related supply-chain by applying the industrial ecology principles and tools. In this paper the results of the LCA of bovine leather manufactured in Italy and Spain will be described in order to put in evidence the eco-profile of the two systems and to find out if the difference in the adopted technologies and cooperative management solutions have led to significant environmental differences.

Waste foundry sand (WFS) and fly ash D-Optimal mixture design/response surface methodology/design of experiments Statistical optimization Geopolymer concrete (GPC) Compressive strength A B S T R A C T This work examines the partial replacement of fine aggregates with waste foundry sand (WFS) and fly ash, process by-products, to synthesize geopolymer concrete (GPC). D-optimal mixture design of experiments was adopted to guide the proportion of mixture constituents (fine aggregates, WFS, and fly ash) to obtain desired responses (high compressive strengths). The experimentally measured responses/compressive strengths were successfully fitted to Scheffe polynomial model to obtain cubic models which represent compressive strengths of solidified GPC at 7 th day curing time (CS 7) and at 28 th day curing time (CS 28). The models were statistically evaluated by the standard error of design estimation and experimentally verified by comparing their predicted responses to the independently performed experiments. The models were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and residuals (diagnostics) for statistical significance and validation, respectively. The established models, hence obtained, were used to assess the impacts of relative proportions of mixture constituents at CS 7 and CS 28. It was observed that, although the highest compressive strength requires a high proportion of fine aggregates, yet, some mixture compositions could be proposed for better utilization of waste materials. Finally, the optimization was performed to maximize the usage of WFS and fly ash. A recipe was identified which yielded 18.9 N/mm² CS 7 and 22.3 N/mm² CS 28 by mere 32 wt. % contribution of fine aggregates in a (fine aggregates + WFS + fly ash) mixture. This study can be helpful in designing experiments and optimizing the utilization of similar waste materials into useful products.

Recently, a novel approach to a highly sensitive and quantitative detection of rare earth element (REE) ions including La3+, Eu3+ and Tb3+, by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, has been reported. The detection of REE ions is based on the catalytic nature of REE ions targeting the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), thus monitoring of the ions can be achieved by reading the level of intact DNA by PCR. Despite of its high sensitivity (at ppb to ppt levels), the conventional PCR-based REE detection protocol requires certain length of time (1-2 hours). In the present study, we modified the PCR-based REE detection protocols by employing the high-speed PCR, and performed the automated and rapid detection of La3+ in small-sized aqueous samples within 5min.

ОПЫТ СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЯ ОБЪЕКТИВНОГО КОНТРОЛЯ ЭФФЕКТИВНОСТИ СИСТЕМ РАДИАЦИОННОЙ ЗАЩИТЫ ПЕРСОНАЛА ПЕЧНЫХ ОТДЕЛЕНИЙ. При добыче урана методом подземного скважинного выщелачивания (ПСВ) бóльшая часть рудного тела с сопутствующей радиоактивностью остается глубоко под землей, отсутствует рудная пыль и, как правило, применяются обычные меры защиты от радиации.  На всех Казахстанских предприятиях при лидирующей роли АО «НАК «Казатомпром» созданы, поддерживаются и развиваются в полном соответствии с национальным законодательством Республики Казахстан системы управления охраной труда и промышленной безопасностью (СУОТ ПБ), программы обеспечения качества радиационной безопасности, а также политики в области ОТ, ТБ, ООС, обеспечения ядерной и радиационной безопасности. Работники проходят регулярное обследование на наличие загрязнения альфа-активными веществами, а для контроля гамма-облучения носят индивидуальные дозиметры. Осуществляется ежедневный контроль воздушного, пылевого и поверхностного загрязнения.
Компания Uranium One, представленная в Республике Казахстан своим филиалом UrAsia Energy Holdings Ltd., является одной из крупнейших в мире уранодобывающих компаний с глобально диверсифицированным портфелем международных активов в Казахстане, США и Танзании. 100% акций Uranium One принадлежат Государственной корпорации по атомной энергии «Росатом». В Казахстане Uranium One является крупнейшим партнером национального оператора АО «НАК «Казатомпром» и владеет 70% долей в СП «ЮГХК» (рудники Акдала и Южный Инкай), 50%-ной долей в СП «Каратау», 50%-ной долей в СП «Акбастау», 49,98%-ной долей в СП «Заречное» и 30%-ной долей участия в СП «Хорасан-U». В США Корпорация владеет 100% долей в руднике Willow Creek, а также имеет ряд разрабатываемых месторождений в бассейнах рек Powder River и Great Divide в штате Вайоминг.

In order to stabilize the global climate the world’s governments must make significant commitments to drastically reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the most promising methods of curbing GHG emissions is a world transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. Solar photovoltaic (PV) cells offer a technically sustainable solution to the projected enormous future energy demands. This article explores utilizing industrial symbiosis to obtain economies of scale and increased manufacturing efficiencies for solar photovoltaic cells in order for solar electricity to compete economically with fossil fuel-fired electricity. The state of PV manufacturing, the market and the effects of scale on both are reviewed. Government policies necessary to construct a multi-gigaWatt PV factory and complimentary policies to protect existing solar companies are outlined and the technical requirements for a symbiotic industrial system are explored to increase the manufacturing efficiency while improving the environmental impact of PV. The results of the analysis show that an 8-factory industrial symbiotic system can be viewed as a medium-term investment by any government, which will not only obtain direct financial return, but also an improved global environment. The technical concepts and policy limitations to this approach were analyzed and it was found that symbiotic growth will help to mitigate many of the limitations of PV and is likely to catalyze mass manufacturing of PV by transparently demonstrating that large scale PV manufacturing is technically feasible and reaches an enormous untapped market for PV with low costs.

During abattoir operation numerous wastes obviously generated and pose a significant challenge to the effective environmental management practices. Rising of offensive odour and polluted water bodies and
Residential areas are affected by abattoir activities where effective waste treatment and disposal systems are not practiced. This study aims to generate information on environmental implications of abattoir
activities through scientific estimation of wastes generated, the corresponding slaughtered animals and waste management practices. For this, an analytical survey approach, questionnaire, personal communication and secondary data were used and found out a total of 18,599 cattle, 301,332 sheep and 8,948,761 goats were slaughtered and from these, a total of 23,864.73ton solid waste and 76,977.65m3 liquid waste has been generated in between September 2014 -March 2018. 1 percent of the total solid waste was incinerated, 0.5% was open
burned and the left over 98.5% was transported to landfill. In some cases, solid wastes are burred (put in the ground) but that was occurred on the odd occasions. Whereas, liquid waste management practices were highly improved from using primary and secondary treatment systems to reusing for greenery and cleaning purposes increased from 27% to 50%. Furthermore, waste management practices were found to be environmentally unfriend and need some improvement and so far, it seems no sufficient facilities as well legal enforcements that oblige abattoirs to treat and dispose their wastes in a way environmentally friendly. Therefore, developing strategies, monitoring and evaluation systems and providing successive environmental trainings parallel with legal enforcements are highly recommended.

Keywords: Abattoirs; Environment; Management practices; Waste generation

The exchange of wastes, by-products, and energy among closely situated firms in the Danish city of Kalundborg has become the impetus to and main template for the movement to plan ecoindustrial parks. In recent years, however, similar by-product exchange patterns have been observed in other regions of Europe and North America. Evidence also indicates that cities have historically played an important role in facilitating the creation of recycling linkages between different industries. If Kalundborg and other newly documented cases of localized interfirm recycling linkages are but contemporary manifestations of much older processes, then what are the policy implications for current attempts to plan eco-industrial parks?This article explores this issue by looking at the economic incentives that have always led to the formation of cities and interfirm recycling linkages at both the local and interregional levels. A critique of current interpretations and policy prescriptions based on the Kalundborg case is then offered. I argue that current attempts to foster the development of eco-industrial parks and eco-industrial networks are too narrow in their geographical scope, that public planning is unlikely to prove more efficient than private initiatives, and that perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from Kalundborg is thevalue of a flexible regulatory framework.

Задачей нашей работы явилось создание способа, позволяющего снизить затраты, повысить эффективность и стабильность работы и улучшить качество очистки вод от взвешенных примесей в больших объемах вне зависимости от климатических факторов методом биофлокуляции с применением в качестве агента флокуляции клетки микроводоросли.

Abstract: A case study of the chlor-alkali industry in Western Europe and Japan is presented examining the effects of environmental regulation on technological change. In Western Europe, standards were set for mercury emissions from chlor-alkali plants, which were gradually tightened subsequently. Research and development (R&D) efforts were directed to end-of-pipe technologies as well as process improvements for reducing mercury emissions, rather than to clean technologies, which eliminate mercury from within the production process. With a significant reduction in mercury emissions with end-of-pipe technologies, new plants continued to be built that relied on the mercury process. As long as these relatively new plants could be utilized, technological transition to the clean ion-exchange membrane process remained slow. The success in reducing mercury emissions with end-of-pipe technologies, in effect, helped to prolong the lifetime of the existing mercury process. In Japan, the government introduced policies to phase out the existing mercury process. The strict approach encouraged innovative companies to make R&D efforts on clean technologies, instead of end-of-pipe technologies for pollution abatement. Applied in a hasty and inflexible way, however, the stringent regulation initially induced most of the chlor-alkali producers to choose the diaphragm process, which later turned out to be inappropriate. After the regulatory schedule was modified to allow more time for process conversion, the remaining mercury-based plants were converted directly to the most efficient ion-exchange membrane process. The technological transition, however, was costly, as most of the diaphragm-based plants introduced following the regulatory mandate were operated only for a short period of time, with the large investment wasted.

This paper reports the activity, promoted by the Italian agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development (ENEA), in the framework of the project for the development and implementation of the first Italian Platform for Industrial Symbiosis implemented in Sicily (2011-2015). The goals of the project were: to provide a methodology and an instrument for industrial symbiosis implementation at regional scale, to implement a IS Platform as a support to SMEs to individuate symbiosis opportunities in the region. The whole approach includes: network activation, platform architecture design and implementation, analysis of the productive sector in Sicily, data collection and companies involvement. In particular the paper focuses on the activities developed for companies' network creation trough a preliminary analysis of the predominant productive sectors followed by the organization of operative meetings in Sicily for companies' involvement, analysis of potentia...

Extended producer responsibility is an important environmental policy expected to increase producer environmental innovation through source reduction, collection effort and recyclability. Using a model of vertical differentiation, we propose to test the effectiveness of the application of the extended producer responsibility (EPR) through two complementary measures: eco-tax and adhesion to eco-organization. We focus on the importance of funding modalities membership on the achievement of environmental objectives. Simulation results show the need of mix policy instruments in the field of packaging waste. Instruments efficiency should be evaluated with regard to environmental targets and should permit the total transfer of responsibility to producer.

Innovativeness and competitiveness are modern concepts upon which national and regional politics across the world are based. To achieve the global competitiveness of a certain country it is necessary to build regional competitiveness due to a significant role of a region as a basic development unit. Leaders of economic policy on a regional level need to be able to give answers to basic questions of economic policy: “what do we want to produce in our region”, “how do we want industrial companies to produce in our region” and “for whom is what to be done”. Pronounced regional imbalance of Croatia imposes the need for finding of new generators of economic growth and prosperity. The paper aims to discuss the green industry concept as a possible solution which will favourize regional locations that record the regional problem. Finally, it is discussed what a decentralized approach to industrial policy should be. Key factors required for decentralization should be assessed, such as the ma...

A variety of chemicals including foaming agents are used to aid in the protection of forest resources from the wild land fires. The fire-fighting foams (FFFs) are formulations composed principally of surfactants. As a part of Japanese national project, environmentally inert FFFs have been developed. There is an emerging need for testing the impacts of these FFFs on the living organisms composing the typical landscapes or ecosystems in Japan. In the present report, we aimed to describe our latest attempt for assessing both the short-tem and long-term impacts of FFFs in aquatic (fresh water) and semi-aquatic (wetland) ecosystems , by employing the laboratory-sized model assays (preliminary studies) and the biotope-based observation, respectively. In the biotope assays which was based on the observation in compact biotopes mimicking the fresh water environments and wetland, both the acute and long-term eco-toxic impacts of two FFFs (soap-based and synthetic detergent-based) were assessed. Spraying of synthetic detergent-based foam formula was shown to be more toxic compared to soap-based formula and mock water treatment.

The book introduces students to the background and key issues of sustainability and suggests ways in which these concepts can be applied in business practice. Though the book takes a business perspective, it is interdisciplinary in its nature and draws on knowledge from socio-economic, political, and environmental studies, thereby providing a practical understanding of sustainability in the changing paradigm of global business.

Baudoinia was described to accommodate a single species, B. compniacensis. Known as the ‘whiskey fungus’, this species is the predominant member of a ubiquitous microbial community known colloquially as ‘warehouse staining’ that develops on outdoor surfaces subject to periodic exposure to ethanolic vapours near distilleries and bakeries. Here we examine 19 strains recovered from environmental samples near industrial settings in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and the Far East. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of a portion of the nucLSU rRNA gene confirms that Baudoinia is a monophyletic lineage within the Teratosphaeriaceae (Capnodiales). Multilocus phylogenetic analysis of nucITS rRNA (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) and partial nucLSU rRNA, beta-tubulin (TUB) and elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF1) gene sequences further indicates that Baudoinia consists of five strongly supported, geographically patterned lineages representing four new species (viz. Baudoinia antilliensis, B. caledoniensis, B. orientalis and B. panamericana).

Debido a la crisis de desperdicios y de medios de producción en Puerto Rico se presentan como alternativas la economía circular y la ecología industrial. En este ensayo se discuten ambos modelos y se explican modelos que han funcionado en Puerto Rico.

Lifespan is an essential parameter for the accounting and analysis of material stocks and flows, one of the main research topics in industrial ecology. Lifespan is also important as a parameter that portrays the current and historical situation of industrial metabolism, which is an area of interest to industrial ecologists.In the present article, the available information from various reports on product lifespan was reviewed. Although we found a large number of data for many durables, the definition of lifespan in published articles varied, which limited our ability to compare reported values. We therefore first defined lifespan and then compared the international and historical data.We compiled more than 1,300 data sets from various sources and identified some differences among the types of goods and among regions. With the reviewed data noted in this article, we established a database, named LiVES (Lifespan Database for Vehicles, Equipment, and Structures), and will disclose it on the Internet to share the information.