Unsettled Economic, Environmental, and Health Issues of Ammonia for Automotive Applications

Ammonia has been previously trialed as an automotive fuel; however, it was hardly competitive with fossil fuels in terms of cost, energy density, and practicality. However, due to climate change, those practical and cost-related parameters have finally become secondary deciding factors in fuel selection. Ammonia is safer than most fuels and it offers superior energy densities compared to compressed or liquefied hydrogen. It is believed that ammonia might be an ultimate clean fuel choice and an extension to the emerging hydrogen economy. Unsettled Economic, Environmental, and Health Issues of Ammonia for Automotive Applications examines the major unsettled issues of using ammonia as a clean automotive fuel alternative, including the lack of regulations and standards for automotive applications, technology readiness, safety perception, and presently limited supply. While ammonia as a fuel is still in its infancy, identifying and addressing these challenges early could enable a safe and smooth transition.

Use of microbial consortium along with biosurfactants in oil sludge treatment

Due to the excessive use of various oils, a large amount of oil sludge or waste water is produced annually which is causing various environmental and health issues. Bioremediation through the use of microbial consortium is an effective method. The use of consortium instead of single specie of bacteria has shown 89-94% improved results. However the microbes are still not able to work effectively due to bioavailability issues. This is mainly because of the low solubility of hydrophobic contaminants and microbes. This problem is overcome by use of biosurfactants which enhance the solubility and emulsification of hydrophobic substrates and microbes. These biosurfactants are produced by various organisms (mainly microbes) which are later isolated and used. Certain new and efficient insitu techniques are used for the application of microbial consortium which includes suspended growth, attached growth and hybrid growth. Waste water treated this way can be reused in the refinery procedures or can be dumped safely.

Comparison between Homemade Stain Remover and Commercial Stain Remover for Textiles

Stain remover is used to remove or masks stain from textiles. Two types of textile stain removers were compared in this study; store bought and home prepared types. Due to the environmental and health issues associated with commercial household cleaners, as well as costly, there have been attempts by consumer especially housewives to prepare cleaning products by using materials which can be found in the kitchens. Hence, the main objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness of home prepared textile stain remover with commercial stain remover by assessing the stain properties on cotton and polyester fabrics. Two different brands of stain remover and easily found materials were applied on these two fabrics. The stains on the fabrics were then assessed according to AATCC Test Method 130 and by using chromameter for the intensity of the stain after cleaning. The results showed that, for the cotton fabric, the most effective stain remover is Commercial Brand 1. Commercial Brand 1 and vinegar with baking soda demonstrated an encouraging effect on polyester fabric. The commercial textile stain remover shows great cleaning effect on both cotton and polyester, while home prepared stain remover has limited ability to clean the stains on cotton. However, its cleaning effect on polyester is equivalent to commercial product.

13.D. Workshop: SDGs in the focus of environmental and health issues

This workshop is dedicated on SDGs in the focus of environmental and health issues, as very important and actual topic. One of the characteristics of today's societies is the significant availability of modern technologies. Over 5 billion (about 67%) people have a cellphone today. More than 4.5 billion people worldwide use the Internet, close to 60% of the total population. At the same time, one third of the people in the world does not have access to safe drinking water and half of the population does not have access to safe sanitation. The WHO at UN warns of severe inequalities in access to water and hygiene. Air, essential to life, is a leading risk due to ubiquitous pollution and contributes to the global disease burden (7 million deaths per year). Air pollution is a consequence of traffic and industry, but also of demographic trends and other human activities. Food availability reflects global inequality, famine eradication being one of the SDGs. The WHO warns of the urgency. As technology progresses, social inequality grows, the gap widens, and the environment continues to suffer. Furthermore, the social environment in societies is “ruffled” and does not appear to be beneficial toward well-being. New inequalities are emerging in the availability of technology, climate change, education. The achievement reports on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also point out to the need of reviewing individual indicators. According to the Sustainable Development Agenda, one of the goals is to reduce inequalities, and environmental health is faced by several specific goals. The Global Burden of Disease is the most comprehensive effort to date to measure epidemiological levels and trends worldwide. It is the product of a global research collaborative and quantifies the impact of hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in countries around the world. This workshop will also discuss Urban Health as a Complex System in the light of SDGs. Climate Change, Public Health impacts and the role of the new digital technologies is also important topic which is contributing to SDG3, improving health, to SDG4, allowing to provide distance health education at relatively low cost and to SDG 13, by reducing the CO2 footprint. Community Engagement can both empower vulnerable populations (so reducing inequalities) and identify the prior environmental issues to be addressed. The aim was to search for public health programs using Community Engagement tools in healthy environment building towards achievement of SDGs. Key messages Health professionals are involved in the overall process of transformation necessary to achieve the SDGs. Health professionals should be proactive and contribute to the transformation leading to better health for the environment, and thus for the human population.

Exergy-Based Sustainability Analysis for Tile Production From Waste Plastics in Uganda

This paper presents an exergy-based sustainability analysis of manufacturing roof tiles from plastic waste in Uganda. This work focuses specifically on the developing country context and on utilizing waste material. A summary of the current Ugandan plastic waste situation, environmental and health issues associated with plastic waste, current means of recycling plastic waste into new products, and an analysis of the Ugandan roofing market is presented. The total exergy consumed to produce one batch of 75 tiles is over 240 MJ, the potentially recoverable exergy is nearly 17 MJ (8% of consumed exergy), and the realistic recoverable exergy is over 6.4 MJ (nearly 3% of consumed exergy). Recycling plastic waste into roof tiles saves a net 188 kg of CO2 from entering the atmosphere per batch when compared with open burning. If all of Kampala’s plastic waste was converted to roofing tiles, nearly 560 tonnes of CO2 could be saved per year.

Distance makes the mind grow broader: an overview of psychological distance studies in the environmental and health domains

Environmental and health issues are two of the most pressing issues society faces today. People often view both environmental and health issues as psychologically distant: they believe that the problems will occur in the future, to other people, in other places and that the exact outcomes are uncertain. This paper provides an overview of studies that have investigated how the different psychological distance dimensions (viz., temporal, spatial, social and hypothetical) influence perceptions, intentions, and decision making in the environmental and health domains. This overview suggests that psychological distance indeed matters in both domains. There are indications that threat perceptions are mostly heightened when communicated or perceived as being psychologically close. However, the studies also show that a mere increase in perceived threat does not necessarily alter intentions or behavior. Moreover, with regard to the effects of psychological distance, there are neither clear differences between the environmental and the health domain nor between the four psychological distance dimensions. We discuss possible moderators that may explain the range of findings. Finally, we conclude with discussing the current stance of the literature and discuss specific research topics that are yet to be studied. As environmental and health behavior involve more than just one decision or one behavior, we suggest, for example, that future studies should investigate how psychological distance influences not only the target behavior, but related behavior as well.

Informal Recycling In Developing Nations

The topic of my research is informal recycling with a focus on developing nations. Scavengers are considered people who sort through garbage but not through an organization. There is a negative stigma that is associated with this type of lifestyle. The discussion will explore the benefits of organized informal recycling programs in countries such as Brazil and Nigeria. When informal recycling becomes organized jobs are created allowing for more residents to become employed. Some of the benefits of informal recycling include reducing the volume of waste, the life span of disposal sites is increased as well it helps reduce the amount of methane produced. These programs also allow for certain materials to be discovered which can easily be reused. For example, there are metals that can be sorted through and ultimately sold to companies. Another example would be the organics from the garbage are used in order to support pig farms. This decreases the cost of production for the pig farmers, which allows them a larger profit margin. Also, social, economic, environmental and health issues will be discussed in further detail. Finally, terms will be defined to allow a better understanding of the informal recycling world and how it operates.