Use of Plastic Waste in Bitumen

2022 ◽  
pp. 156-188
Author(s):  
Aditya Singh ◽  
Saumyadeep Bhowmik
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Economic ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Plastic Waste ◽  
Sudden Increase ◽  
Binding Material

There has been a sudden increase in population and in the establishment of different industries due to which we are having waste pollution problems, including plastic waste. Discarding of plastic waste is a major problem, as it is non-biodegradable. When we mix plastic waste with bitumen, we are able to enhance bitumen's physical properties for a specific road mix. Then, bitumen's stability and water resisting capacity is upgraded. Plus, it acts as a more superior binding material than without the addition of plastic waste. Through this work, we are able to find the optimum percentage of bitumen to be substituted with plastic waste. This will also act as a part of smart waste disposal in smart cities and improve the air quality with increase environmental, economic parameters of the place leading to the improvement in human health in urban areas.

Temporal patterns and trends of surface ozone concentrations over Portugal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Gama ◽  
Alexandra Monteiro ◽  
Myriam Lopes ◽  
Ana Isabel Miranda
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Ozone Concentrations ◽  
Long Term Study

<p>Tropospheric ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) is a critical pollutant over the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, due to systematic exceedances to the thresholds for the protection of human health. Due to the location of Portugal, on the Atlantic coast at the south-west point of Europe, the observed O<sub>3</sub> concentrations are very much influenced not only by local and regional production but also by northern mid-latitudes background concentrations. Ozone trends in the Iberian Peninsula were previously analysed by Monteiro et al. (2012), based on 10-years of O<sub>3</sub> observations. Nevertheless, only two of the eleven background monitoring stations analysed in that study are located in Portugal and these two stations are located in Porto and Lisbon urban areas. Although during pollution events O<sub>3</sub> levels in urban areas may be high enough to affect human health, the highest concentrations are found in rural locations downwind from the urban and industrialized areas, rather than in cities. This happens because close to the sources (e.g., in urban areas) freshly emitted NO locally scavenges O<sub>3</sub>. A long-term study of the spatial and temporal variability and trends of the ozone concentrations over Portugal is missing, aiming to answer the following questions:</p><p>-           What is the temporal variability of ozone concentrations?</p><p>-           Which trends can we find in observations?</p><p>-           How were the ozone spring maxima concentrations affected by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020?</p><p>In this presentation, these questions will be answered based on the statistical analysis of O<sub>3</sub> concentrations recorded within the national air quality monitoring network between 2005 and 2020 (16 years). The variability of the surface ozone concentrations over Portugal, on the timescales from diurnal to annual, will be presented and discussed, taking into account the physical and chemical processes that control that variability. Using the TheilSen function from the OpenAir package for R (Carslaw and Ropkins 2012), which quantifies monotonic trends and calculates the associated p-value through bootstrap simulations, O<sub>3</sub> concentration long-term trends will be estimated for the different regions and environments (e.g., rural, urban).  Moreover, taking advantage of the unique situation provided by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020, when the government imposed mandatory confinement and citizens movement restriction, leading to a reduction in traffic-related atmospheric emissions, the role of these emissions on ozone levels during the spring period will be studied and presented.</p><p> </p><p>Carslaw and Ropkins, 2012. Openair—an R package for air quality data analysis. Environ. Model. Softw. 27-28,52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.008</p><p>Monteiro et al., 2012. Trends in ozone concentrations in the Iberian Peninsula by quantile regression and clustering. Atmos. Environ. 56, 184-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.03.069</p>

scholarly journals Emission of fine particles (PM2.5) from residential biomass combustion in Croatia and how to reduce it

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Mirela Poljanac
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Fine Particles ◽  
Biomass Combustion ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Wood Burning ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pm2.5 Emissions

Wood burning in residential appliances is very represented in the Republic of Croatia. It is a main or an additional form of heating for many households in rural and urban areas and is therefore an important source of air pollution. The choice of energy and the combustion appliance used in home have a significant impact on PM2.5 emissions. The paper informs the reader about PM2.5 emissions, their main sources and impacts on human health, environment, climate, air quality, and the reason why PM2.5 emissions from residential wood burning are harmful. Paper also gives an overview of spatial PM2.5 emission distribution in Croatia, their five air quality zones and four agglomerations. The paper analyses the sources and their contribution to PM2.5 emissions with the relevance of PM2.5 emissions from residential plants, the use of fuels in residential plants and their contribution to PM2.5 emissions and PM2.5 emissions by fuel combustion technologies in residential sector. Appropriate strategies, policies, and actions to reduce the impact of residential biomass (wood) burning on the environment, air quality and human health are considered.

scholarly journals Ambient air quality in an urban area and its effects on plants and human beings: a case study of Tiruchirappalli, India

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirajuddin M Horaginamani ◽  
M Ravichandran
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Area ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Ambient Air ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ambient Air Quality

Though water and land pollution is very dangerous, air pollution has its own peculiarities, due to its transboundary dispersion of pollutants over the entire world. In any well planned urban set up, industrial pollution takes a back seat and vehicular emissions take precedence as the major cause of urban air pollution. Air pollution is one of the serious problems faced by the people globally, especially in urban areas of developing countries like India. All these in turn lead to an increase in the air pollution levels and have adverse effects on the health of people and plants. Western countries have conducted several studies in this area, but there are only a few studies in developing countries like India. A study on ambient air quality in Tiruchirappalli urban area and its possible effects selected plants and human health has been undertaken, which may be helpful to bring out possible control measures. Keywords: ambient air quality; respiratory disorders; APTI; human health DOI: 10.3126/kuset.v6i2.4007Kathmandu University Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Vol.6. No II, November, 2010, pp.13-19

scholarly journals Status of Air Pollution in Botswana and Significance to Air Quality and Human Health

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. 8-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Modise Wiston
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Vehicular Emissions ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
The World

Background. Air pollution is an important issue in developed and industrialized countries. The most common sources of air pollution are anthropogenic activities such as construction dust, vehicular emissions and mining. For low- and middle-income countries, biomass burning and indoor heating are the leading sources of air pollution. As more of the world undergoes development and human populations increase, industrialization is also increasing, along with the potential for air pollution. Objectives. This article reviews the status of air pollution to raise awareness of air quality and human health in Botswana. Discussion. Since independence, Botswana has experienced one of the highest economic development growth rates in the world. These changes have occurred as a result of economic growth and resource utilization associated with increased industrialization. However, there is growing worldwide concern about the effect and impact of pollution due to industrial growth. Botswana is ranked amongst the most polluted countries with serious air pollution, despite a population of just over 2 million. Conclusions. Rapid development and increased urbanization have had a major environmental impact around the world. This increased growth has the potential to lead to air quality degradation. Significant health threats are posed by industrial and vehicular emissions, especially in urban and peri-urban areas where the population is most concentrated. It is important that the linkage between air pollution and health effects is fully examined across all scales of life, especially in developing countries. In addition, programs should be devised to educate the public about the pollution impacts on health. Competing Interests: The authors declare no financial competing interests.

Stacking Regression Algorithms to Predict PM2.5 in the Smart City Using Internet of Things

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisha Banga ◽  
Ravinder Ahuja ◽  
Subhash Chander Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Absolute Error ◽  
Dew Point ◽  
Beijing City ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Regression Algorithms ◽  
Ensemble Algorithms

Background and Objective: With the increase in populations in urban areas, there is an increase in pollution also. Air pollution is one of the challenging environmental issues in smart cities. Real-time monitoring of air quality can help the administration to take appropriate decisions on time. Development in the Internet of Things based sensors has changed the way to monitor air quality. Methods: In this paper, we have applied two-stage regressions. In the first stage, ten regression algorithms (Decision Tree, Random Forest, Elastic Net, Adaboost, Extra Tree, Linear Regression, Lasso, XGBoost, Light GBM, AdaBoost, and Multi-Layer Perceptron) is applied and in second stage best four algorithms are picked and stacking ensemble algorithms is applied using python to predict the PM2.5 pollutants in air. Data set of five Chinese cities (Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang) has taken into consideration and compared based on MAE (Mean Absolute Error), RMSE (Root Mean Square Error), and R2 parameters. Results and Conclusion: We observed that out of ten regression algorithms applied extra tree algorithm is giving the highest performance on all the five datasets, and stacking further improves the performance. Feature importance for Sheyang, and Beijing city is computed using three regression algorithms, and we found the four most important features are Humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and dew point.

scholarly journals Air quality resolution for health impact assessment: influence of regional characteristics

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 969-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Thompson ◽  
R. K. Saari ◽  
N. E. Selin
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Health Benefits ◽  
Health Benefit ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Regional Characteristics ◽  
Human Health Impacts ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. We evaluate how regional characteristics of population and background pollution might impact the selection of optimal air quality model resolution when calculating the human health impacts of changes to air quality. Using an approach consistent with air quality policy evaluation, we use a regional chemical transport model (CAMx) and a health benefit mapping program (BenMAP) to calculate the human health impacts associated with changes in ozone and fine particulate matter resulting from an emission reduction scenario. We evaluate this same scenario at 36, 12 and 4 km resolution for nine regions in the eastern US representing varied characteristics. We find that the human health benefits associated with changes in ozone concentrations are sensitive to resolution. This finding is especially strong in urban areas where we estimate that benefits calculated using coarse resolution results are on average two times greater than benefits calculated using finer scale results. In three urban areas we analyzed, results calculated using 36 km resolution modeling fell outside the uncertainty range of results calculated using finer scale modeling. In rural areas the influence of resolution is less pronounced with only an 8% increase in the estimated health impacts when using 36 km resolution over finer scales. In contrast, health benefits associated with changes in PM2.5 concentrations were not sensitive to resolution and did not follow a pattern based on any regional characteristics evaluated. The largest difference between the health impacts estimated using 36 km modeling results and either 12 or 4 km results was at most ±10% in any region. Several regions showed increases in estimated benefits as resolution increased (opposite the impact seen with ozone modeling), while some regions showed decreases in estimated benefits as resolution increased. In both cases, the dominant contribution was from secondary PM. Additionally, we found that the health impacts calculated using several individual concentration–response functions varied by a larger amount than the impacts calculated using results modeled at different resolutions. Given that changes in PM2.5 dominate the human health impacts, and given the uncertainty associated with human health response to changes in air pollution, we conclude that, when estimating the human health benefits associated with decreases in ozone and PM2.5 together, the benefits calculated at 36 km resolution agree, within errors, with the benefits calculated using fine (12 km or finer) resolution modeling when using the current methodology for assessing policy decisions.

scholarly journals The Historical Trend of Air Pollution and Its Impact on Human Health in Campania Region (Italy)

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 553
Author(s):  
Domenico Toscano ◽  
Fabio Murena
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Average Concentration ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Concentration Data ◽  
Limit Values ◽  
Campania Region ◽  
The Impact

The Campania region covers an area of about 13,590 km2 with 5.8 million residents. The area suffers from several environmental issues due to urbanization, the presence of industries, wastewater treatment, and solid waste management concerns. Air pollution is one of the most relevant environmental troubles in the Campania region, frequently exceeding the limit values established by European directives. In this paper, airborne pollutant concentration data measured by the regional air quality network from 2003 to 2019 are collected to individuate the historical trends of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), coarse and fine particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters smaller than 10 μm (PM10) and 2.5 μm (PM2.5), and ozone (O3) through the analysis of the number of exceedances of limit values per year and the annual average concentration. Information on spatial variability and the effect of the receptor category is obtained by lumping together data belonging to the same province or category. To obtain information on the general air quality rather than on single pollutants, the European Air Quality Index (EU-AQI) is also evaluated. A special focus is dedicated to the effect of deep street canyons on air quality, since they are very common in the urban areas in Campania. Finally, the impact of air pollution from 2003 to 2019 on human health is also analyzed using the software AIRQ+.

scholarly journals Responsibility of Local Government Against Sea Pollution, Plastic Waste In Sea Waters, Sorong City

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-113
Author(s):  
Hotlan Samosir
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Organic Waste ◽  
Plastic Waste ◽  
Marine Ecology ◽  
Marine Waters ◽  
Waste Plastic ◽  
Final Disposal

This study aims to determine the impacts arising from the handling of waste (waste plastic) which is not effective in urban areas. Waste in urban areas that are not handled properly will be wasted into rivers and ends at sea. Increasing the amount of plastic waste in the marine waters of Sorong City can cause disruption to the convenience of sea users, especially for fishermen and tourists who aim to Raja Ampat regency. The wider impact due to increased waste of plastics in the marine waters of Sorong City is able to threaten the marine ecology. Pollution of marine waters of Sorong City is the responsibility of local government that is local government of Sorong City. Efforts to overcome the pollution can be done by streamlining waste management in urban areas by socializing the use of government-provided waste containers provided by local government with color variations to distinguish types of organic waste and non-organic waste and wet garbage. Adjustment needs to be made between the number of residents with the availability of waste disposal facilities and including the janitor so that the waste can be handled up to the landfill (Final Disposal Place).

scholarly journals Indoor Ecosystem Services: Impacts of Plants on Air Quality

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 12-16
Author(s):  
Martina Zorić ◽  
Mitar Simić ◽  
Saša Orlović ◽  
Emina Mladenović ◽  
Zdenka Babić
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Sudden Increase ◽  
Measuring Device ◽  
Purification System

Summary Ecosystem services have been the focus of recent research on ecology, biodiversity and human health. As most of this research has placed emphasis on natural ecosystems, there is a lack of data on the effect of indoor and urban ecosystems on both human health and the quality of human life. One of the most common health issues associated with urban and indoor spaces is the quality of air. Considering that humans spend most of their time indoors, accompanied by a lack of fresh air due to industry growth and environmental degradation, there is an obvious need for a non-invasive and non-obtrusive air purification system. This paper presents the results of the indoor air quality monitoring under non-controlled conditions, i.e. the changes in air quality induced by the common indoor ornamental plant Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’. The following air quality parameters were observed: the relative humidity and temperature of air, as well as the concentrations of carbon-dioxide, methane and overall VOCs. Measurements were performed using the commercial CO2 data logger Extech SD800 and the in-house developed Arduino Uno-based measuring device with different sensors. The results obtained show the changes in the indoor air quality relative to the presence or absence of the selected plants. A sudden increase in the overall VOC (NH3, NOx, benzene and smoke), methane and carbon-dioxide concentrations was recorded after the plants were removed from the indoor space. The purpose of this research is to form a basis for designing a biological purification system as a low-cost and environment-friendly method for the monitoring and purification of indoor air.

scholarly journals Atmospheric aerosols and their influence on air quality in urban areas

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Tasic ◽  
Slavica Rajsic ◽  
Velibor Novakovic ◽  
Zoran Mijic
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Atmospheric Aerosols ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Urban Atmosphere ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Pm10 And Pm2.5 ◽  
Air Quality Assessment

The quality and pollution of air and its impact on the environment and particularly on human health, is an issue of significant public and governmental concern. The emission of the main air pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides) has declined significantly but the trends in concentrations of a particulate matter are less clear and this pollutant still pose a risk to human health. The studies on the quality of air in urban atmosphere related to suspended particles PM10 and PM2.5, and first measurements of their mass concentrations have been initiated in our country in 2002, and are still in progress. The results of preliminary investigations revealed the need for the continuous and long-term systematical sampling measurements and analysis of interaction of the specific pollutants ? PM10 and PM2.5 as well as ozone, heavy metals in the ground level. Survey of some basic knowledge and features of atmospheric particles will be given and the results of air quality assessment in Belgrade will be presented as well.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document