178,826 research outputs found
COVID-19 and municipal solid waste management
No full textThe present work analyses the scientific literature available on the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 in the sector of municipal solid waste. After a bibliometric analysis based on data taken from Scopus®, the analysis deals with effects on waste composition, waste quantity, collection, and treatment. As expected, results show that the most productive authors on this topic belong to scientific bodies located in the countries more affected from COVID-19 in the world. Moreover, different strategies of international journals resulted in an unbalanced concentration of papers on this topic. Effects have been observed concerning municipal solid waste composition and amount (mostly for the role of masks and packaging). Impacts on management and circular economy are discussed too
Rada Il ruolo dell’ingegnere sanitario-ambientale nelle iniziative di sostenibilità ambientale di un ateneo
No full textIl tema della sostenibilità ambientale è ormai largamente dibattuto all'interno delle Università in tutti i Continenti. Gli Atenei attenti a questa tematica mettono in campo competenze e progetti con lo scopo di diminuire l'impatto che i campus hanno sul territorio e sull'ambiente. Ne sono un esempio anche le Università italiane con l'istituenda Rete delle Università per la Sostenibilità, e tra queste l'Università degli Studi di Trento, con diverse iniziative in atto.
Scopo del seguente documento è rimarcare l'importanza di introdurre un approccio sostenibile nelle realtà universitarie, e l'opportunità per l'ingegnere sanitario – ambientale di specializzarsi anche in questo ambito. Infatti l'ingegnere sanitario – ambientale è una figura professionale adatta a mettere le proprie competenze e conoscenze a servizio delle iniziative di sostenibilità ambientale organizzate da un Ateneo. In particolare, grazie alla sua formazione tecnica e scientifica, è in grado di definire gli indicatori per la quantificazione del livello di sostenibilità mostrato da ciascun Ateneo, evidenziandone le criticità e ricercando una metodologia oggettiva e condivisa. Gli indicatori appartengono principalmente alle seguenti aree di maggior impatto ambientale: energia, rifiuti, acqua, mobilità. Il carattere interdisciplinare dell'ingegnere sanitario – ambientale quindi ben si adatta ad un'organizzazione complessa ed eterogenea, quale un campus universitario, e il possesso di una visione progettuale e ingegneristica è di supporto per gli interventi tecnici. Inoltre, l'ingegnere sanitario – ambientale è in grado di valutare la scientificità e la validità di ranking, riferiti alla sostenibilità ambientale, che potrebbero essere usati senza un’adeguata validazione in termini sia di metodologia in sé, sia di dati di input
Special waste valorization and renewable energy generation under a circular economy: Which priorities?
No full textThe European Union regulation for emissions from waste incinerators had a significant evolution in the last 20 years. That allowed reaching a clear improvement in the environmental performances of the plants, synchronized with specific requests of compliance of the more and more stringent limits set at regulatory level. Today the main questions for the sector in Europe seem mostly related to the role of waste to energy plants in a scenario of circular economy and to the role of those plants in the generation of energy only in part renewable. It seems that the topic of the local environmental and health impact has become out to date in European Union. In spite of that, a big question remains on the suitability of the present regulation for the future of the sector, including co-incineration by the use of Secondary Recovered Fuel from waste as substitute of coal in cement works. The present article analyzes an aspect that should be a priority higher than the concept of circular economy and energy generation. Indeed, a question remains on the criticalities that could be present in the European Union for under-estimation of the role of heavy metals, in spite of the evolution of the regulation. If we look at the experience of the University of Trento (where the Author worked in various research projects since 2003) the last decade has been characterized by recurrent warnings from that University about the excessive simplification of the regulation in case of heavy metals. As an example, in case of waste incineration, a set of heavy metals are managed by summing their concentrations to be compared as sum to the regulation limit: no valorization of the specific knowledge on toxicity is made. In order to point out the consequences of this simplification, a few case-studies demonstrating a potential criticality on the role of CrVIare discussed. A control methodology integrating the present one is discussed in this article, to propose a solution suitable to avoid under-estimations of human exposure to heavy metals from incineration and co-incineration. This approach is particularly important when special waste is combusted as the composition of the input can present heavy metals concentrations higher than municipal solid waste
The sustainable city and air pollution
No full textThe present paper deals with the integrated approach typically adopted to improve the air quality in a European urbanized area. A case study is selected and analyzed in order to find out the viable criteria for the correct management of the problem, aimed at a sustainable city and the decrease of human health effects. The role of conventional and unconventional pollutants (e.g. PM10 and ultrafine particles) is discussed. The available measurement strategies are analyzed in order to point out the trend of the sector and the gap to be covered for guaranteeing a homogeneous protection of the territory (every citizen has the right to inhale air of the same quality). The importance of not limiting the analysis to the implementation of emission inventories is demonstrable through simple examples: indeed data of global balances can mislead decision makers; they must guarantee an acceptable human exposure that depends on the amount of pollutant that effectively reaches each inhabitant. Location criteria for urban planning are proposed to prevent unacceptable human exposure cases (e.g. kindergarten should not be authorized near an urban freeway; construction of street canyons should be avoided). Zooming out the urban area helps to demonstrate that the coordination among cities is compulsory. To this concern, the transport of air pollutants from region to region must be taken into account. Unconventional emerging solutions for improving the air quality in urban areas are presented and discussed in the paper together with cost-related viability aspects
Energy from municipal solid waste
No full textThis paper presents an overview of the solutions available for obtaining energy from municipal solid waste. Special waste is not taken into account because of its extreme variability of characteristics from region to region and from type to type. On the contrary, municipal solid waste shows aspects useful for a more homogeneous analysis of international interest concerning the exploitation of its energy content. The first part of this paper deals with the evolution of the interest towards energy recovery from municipal solid waste. The analysis is performed at an international level, but a zoom is presented referring to the European Union. The second part of the paper concerns the energy availability taking into account the dynamics of qualitative and quantitative composition of municipal solid waste. The third part analyses the role of selective collection in the frame of energy recovery. In this case it is pointed out how food waste selective collection can change the approach of biogas exploitation: from a landfill based concept (with sanitary landfill seen as a bioreactor) to a reactor based scenario (where the anaerobic digester allows for the collection of 100% of the biogas generated). The fourth section of the paper concerns the trend in residual municipal solid waste exploitation, taking into account the effects of the European Union directives on the energy recovery strategies and the role played by the Directive 1999/31/CE (a compulsory pre-treatment makes less interesting the option of landfilling, moving the energy exploitation of residual municipal solid waste towards thermal treatments). Finally, a section of this paper concerns a case study that offers a vision on how much anaerobic digestion and thermal treatments can support the energy demand of a citizen. © 2014 WIT Press
Sequence alignment of RecA family proteins from ( RadA), (RadA), (Rad51), (Rad51 and Dmc1), (Dmc1 and ScRad51) and (RecA)
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Crystal structure of the left-handed archaeal RadA helical filament: identification of a functional motif for controlling quaternary structures and enzymatic functions of RecA family proteins"</p><p></p><p>Nucleic Acids Research 2007;35(6):1787-1801.</p><p>Published online 28 Feb 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC1874592.</p><p>© 2007 The Author(s)</p> All these RecA-like strand exchange proteins have similar N-terminal domains. The C-terminal RecA domains have been removed for clarity. Secondary structural features of the left-handed RadA helical filament are indicated in cyan (α helices) and red (β strands). Functional motifs are indicated under their corresponding amino acid sequences: the putative dsDNA binding HhH motif, the putative ssDNA binding L1 and L2 loops, the ATP binding Walker A and B motifs, the polymerization motif (PM), the subunit rotation motif (SRM), and others. Positions of the R–E–E triad are indicated using blue arrows
Opportunities for the energy sector from unconventional environmental analyses and sensors
No full textThe typical problems of air pollution to be faced with in many anthropized areas, even where the environment is protected by modern approaches, make it strategic the integration of conventional methodologies for air quality monitoring with unconventional ones proposed in the sector but not yet considered suitable to be official. By these integrated approaches, it is possible to identify single or multiple sources responsible of local air pollution (also in form of peaks of pollution). The additional information generated by unconventional sampling and/or sensors can be used by decision makers for setting strategies of reduction of the impact of specific sources, when these last ones are responsible of an unsustainable incidence in contributing to the local air pollution. A few case studies were selected and have been analysed to discuss about the advantages in integrating the conventional monitoring tools with other ones that are innovative (not alternative) but not official yet. The selected case studies belong to two categories: A) the first one concerns the identification of the role of a single source in contributing to the local air pollution, b) the second one concerns the assessment of the role of a sector in the local presence of air pollutants. The cases belong to the civil and the industrial sectors. Diffused and conveyed emissions are analysed depending on the case
Environmental Pollution From Waste And Biomass Energy Generation
No full textIn the sectors of waste and biomass to energy, some debatable paradigms persist both among the specialists and among the population, concerning the performances of a few energy options. The present article wants to give a contribution to clarify the debate related to three cases: (a) local impact of waste to energy plants, from conventional solutions to innovative ones (thermochemical processes); (b) local impact of Solid Recovered Fuel generation before energy exploitation; (c) local impact of combustion of wood. Three key articles have been selected from the Author’s production (more than one hundred Scopus indexed works) in order to perform a deeper analysis. Results demonstrate that, changing the perspective, some paradigms on the environmental performances of a few waste and biomass options for energy generation must be at least modified
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