Two sides of the same coin: increasing material extraction rates and social environmental conflicts in Mexico

This article seeks to explain the multiplication of social environmental conflicts in Mexico as a consequence of expanding and intensifying extractive activities. It examines how the Mexican state has provided private and foreign capital greater access to the country’s natural resources in the transition from state-led import-substituting industrialization to export-oriented market-led development. This, it argues, has led to accelerating material extraction rates in the context of rising global demand for primary commodities; while the negative environmental and social impacts have in turn led to a growing number of conflicts involving the inhabitants of directly affected rural communities, who organize to resist. Based on standardized procedures for material flow analysis, it presents the results of an investigation into the domestic extraction rates of minerals, metal ores, biomass, and fossil fuels from Mexico, between 1990 and 2018. It finds that domestic extraction rates increased significantly during this period, with the exception of fossil fuels, which peaked in 2006, declining thereafter due to the exhaustion of the country’s most important oil reserves. The evolution of domestic extraction rates is juxtaposed with the emergence of related social environmental conflicts by drawing on multiple databases of conflicts around extractive activities in Mexico.

EC-SEG: Electronic Component Segmentation for PCB Assurance and Counterfeit Avoidance

PCB Assurance currently relies on manual physical inspection, which is time consuming, expensive and prone to error. In this study, we propose a novel automated segmentation algorithm to detect and isolate PCB components from the boards called EC-Seg. Segmentation and component localization is a vital preprocessing step in component identification, component authentication, as well as in detecting logos and text markings in components. EC-Seg is an efficient method to automate Quality assurance tool-chains and also to aid Bill of Material Extraction in PCBs. Finally, EC-Seg can be used as a Region proposal algorithm for object detection networks to detect and classify microelectronic components, and also to perform sensor fusion with X-Rays to aid in artifact removal in PCB X-Ray tomography. Index Terms—PCB Hardware Assurance, Component Segmentation, Component detection, AutoBoM, Physical Inspection, Visual inspection, Counterfeit detection

Why Socio-metabolic Studies are Central to Ecological Economics

Global material extraction has tripled since the 1970s, with more than 100 billion tonnes of materials entering the world economy each year. Only 8.6% of this is recycled, while 61% ends up as waste and emissions that is the leading cause of global warming, and large-scale pollution of land, rivers, and oceans. This paper introduces Socio-metabolic Research (SMR) and demonstrates its relevance for ecological economics scholarship in India. SMR is a research framework for studying the biophysical stocks and flows of material and energy associated with societal production and consumption. SMR is widely conducted in Europe, US, and China. In India, it is still at an infant stage. In this paper, we review pioneering efforts of SMR in India, and make the case for advancing the field in the sub-continent. The crucial question is whether India can source materials and energy necessary for human development in a sustainable manner.

A Road to Circular Economy: Mindful Consumption

With higher level of the ecological crisis and the impacts of climate change becoming more and more visible every year, there is an urgent need to search for ways to render our society more sustainable. The purpose of this article is to study the influence of mindful consumption on the transition towards circular economy. Documentary study and literature review were used for data collection. The problems of irrational consumption were examined, circular economy principles were investigated, and explore how right mindfulness effects consumer’s behaviors in the consumption process and how it influences the business sector towards circular economy. Results showed that right mindfulness, when applied to an individual’s consumption behaviors, it can promote individuals’ awareness of waste problems, resource depletion, pollution, environmental degradation and climate change when they make their decision on purchasing. Thus, their consumption process develops in more sustainable way which contributes to resources conservation and environmental sustainability. As a result, it will influence business sector to make a transition towards circular economy; reducing raw material extraction, designing and manufacturing more sustainable/eco-friendly products, and using more recycle materials. Circular economy concept is a great move towards environmental sustainability. Consumers play an important role in the economic system of a nation. If there is no consumers’ effective demand, the producers would have no motivation to produce and sell to consumers. To move forwards on the path towards circular economy, consumers are required to make their choice with mindfulness.

Chitosan Nanocrystals Synthesis via Aging and Application Towards Alginate Hydrogels for Sustainable Drug Release

Marine biomass waste is a remarkable source of functional molecules and materials. Yet material extraction, conversion and processing are often chemically intensive, preventing the widespread and clean use of these...

REGARDING THE THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF SYSTEM MANAGEMENT OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION BY ROAD TRANSPORT

Suggestions for the development of theoretical and methodological foundations of system management of energy efficiency and environmental pollution by road transport in the life cycle are given. It takes into account all essential areas covering transportation, infrastructure, maintenance, also energy, chemical and automotive industries, raw material extraction, utilization, and related processes of energy consumption and environmental pollution, distributed in space and time. A universal structural scheme of the “supersystem” is proposed, which reflects the processes of consumption of energy, material and other resources, distributed environmental pollution through the functioning of road transport and related industries, and linked damage as well. The target function of the “supersystem” can be represented as the fulfilment during a certain period (covering the life cycle of the main elements – objects of influence (regulation) and investment of financial resources) of the specified volumes of certain types of transport work with the minimum possible and economically justified consumption of energy, consumables, materials, other resources (including those consumed by the transportation, infrastructure, maintenance, also energy, chemical and automotive industries, raw material extraction, utilization), the minimum possible losses due to artificial pressure on the recipients (human beings, fauna and flora, buildings, etc.) of directly the transport system and infrastructure, as well as side effects of processes in other elements of the “supersystem”, that may be reduced to the total cost of transport, taking into account the inflation index of monetary units. It is proposed to carry out a mathematical description of complicated sets, dynamically distributed in the space of objects that change the structure and properties over time, based on the further development of such a tool as the theory of multisets. In a simplified form, it is presented an example of a fragment of the management system based on measures to regulate the first access of vehicles to the market, further operation, and to certain elements of infrastructure, with the introduction of low emission zones in cities. The development, creation and effective functioning of the management system of transport and related sectors of the economy in those mentioned above and other parts, requires a coherent system approach based on forecasting (modelling) the consequences of decisions, which can be implemented using the tools described in this article. Keywords: wheeled vehicles, road transport, systems management, energy efficiency, environmental pollution.

The Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Selected Plastics

The present article deals with a method of the environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool for the evaluation of environmental burden of selected products. The assessment of the life cycle of individual products should be carried out while considering emissions released during production, use and disposal of products and during processes of raw material extraction, production of materials and energy, auxiliary processes or sub-processes.

A Framework for Life Cycle Assessment and Cost Analysis of Precast and Cast-in-Place Buildings in United States

The concept of construction sustainability has been gaining traction over years now. A large number of tools has been used to assess economic and environmental impacts of the buildings. LCA and LCCA are one of the most widely used tools to evaluate the environmental and economic impacts of the buildings over their complete life cycle. The aim of this research is to develop a framework for assessing the economic and environmental impacts of precast and cast-in-place buildings constructed in United States through Open LCA software. The study will include unit processes and material flows from raw material extraction and manufacturing phase to demolition phase of a building (cradle-to-grave) over the life span of 50 years. The developed framework for LCA and LCCA could be applied to all concrete construction projects across the world and could be used as platform for conducting future LCA and LCCA studies as well. Future research could be conducted through probabilistic approach of calculating the annual cost impacts over the complete life cycle of a building.