Livestock waste treatment systems for reducing environmental exposure to hazardous enteric pathogens: Some considerations

Intensive livestock production systems produce significant quantities of excreted material that must be managed to protect water, air, and crop quality. Many jurisdictions mandate how livestock wastes are managed to protect adjacent water quality from microbial and chemical contaminants that pose an environmental and human health challenge. Here, we consider innovative livestock waste treatment systems in the context of multi-barrier strategies for protecting water quality from agricultural contamination. Specifically, we consider some aspects of how enteric bacterial populations can evolve during manure storage, how their fate following land application of manure can vary according to manure composition, and finally the challenge of distinguishing enteric pathogens of agricultural provenance from those of other sources of fecal pollution at a policy-relevant watershed scale. The beneficial impacts of livestock waste treatment on risk to humans via exposure to manured land are illustrated using quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) scenarios. Overall, innovative livestock treatment systems offer a crucially important strategy for making livestock wastes more benign before they are released into the broader environment.     

Turning food waste to energy and resources towards a great environmental and economic sustainability: An innovative integrated biological approach

Food waste (FW) management is a global conundrum because of the rapid population growth and growing economic activity. Currently, incineration and landfill are still the main means for FW management, while their environmental sustainability and economic viability have been in question. Recently, the biological processes including anaerobic digestion, aerobic composting, bioethanol fermentation, feed fermentation etc. have attracted increasing interest with the aims for energy and resource recovery from FW. However, these biological approaches have inherent drawbacks, and cannot provide a comprehensive solution for future FW management. Therefore, this review attempts to offer a critical and holistic analysis of current biotechnologies for FW management with the focus on the challenges and solutions forward. The biological approaches towards future FW management should be able to achieve both environmental sustainability and economic viability. In this instance, the concept of zero solid discharge-driven resource recovery has thus been put forward. According to which, several innovative biological processes for FW management are further elucidated with critical analysis on their engineering feasibility and environmental sustainability. It turns out that is an urgent need for turning current single task-orientated bioprocess to an integrated biological process with multiple tasks of concurrent recovery of water, resource and energy together with zero-solid discharge.     

Reconciling the new demands for food protection with environmental needs in the management of livestock wastes

Government policy in many countries has been to promote manure management methods to reduce the negative impacts related to water and air pollution. The central strategy of encouraging manure as a fertiliser rather than treating it as a waste, is under threat from new concerns on public health and especially food quality. Restrictions on manure applications to certain food crops and the stipulation of treatment to 70 °C for 1 h (in the case of manure products) represent barriers to the use of such material as a useful organic product in the farming and horticultural industries. However, the sensible development of spreading plans in which high and low risk land is identified can enable appropriate and effective treatment for each situation and minimise overall cost. In the high risk situations, processes based on heat treatment remain the most reliable but there still remains the need to ensure a minimum temperature to ensure a satisfactory treatment. Direct application of heat available from biogas coupled with heat recovery may make thermal treatment of effluents a viable option where no effective environmental friendly alternatives exist.     

Enzyme-based strategy for toxic waste treatment and waste minimization

The increasing amounts of pesticides used throughout the world, as well as the increasingly stringent governmental regulations concerning waste disposal, mandates improved techniques of waste disposal and minimization. In this article, parathion hydrolase, an enzyme with proven effectiveness at hydrolyzing organophosphates, was used to treat a cattle dipping liquid containing the pesticide, coumaphos, which is used to kill a disease-causing tick. Waste is generated from this process when a toxic dechlorination product of coumaphos, potasan, accumulates to concentrations hazardous to the cattle. This pesticide system was used as a model to demonstrate how enzyme technology can be applied to waste treatment and minimization. Kinetic experiments showed that the hydrolysis of the two organophosphate substrates can be modeled as first-order reactions with identical rate constants. It was further shown that the enzyme is capable of hydrolyzing only dissolved substrates. Because of the eightfold greater solubility of potasan than coumaphos (16.9 vs. 2.2 mumol/L), it was possible to utilize the enzyme to hydrolyze potasan selectively. Thus, by limiting the amount of enzyme, it is possible to remove potasan selectively to extend the lifetime of the cattle dipping liquid, thereby reducing the amount of waste generated. Based upon experimental results, a mathematical model describing the system was developed and verified. The mathematical model was then used to simulate the ability of the enzyme to hydrolyze the total amount of organophosphates, and to degrade selectively all of the toxic potasan without a significant loss of coumaphos.     

Enzyme inhibition-based biosensors for food safety and environmental monitoring

Analytical technology based on sensors is an extremely broad field which impacts on many major industrial sectors such as the pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, and agriculture industries as well as environmental monitoring. This review will highlight the research carried out during the last 5 years on biosensors that are based on enzyme inhibition for determination of pollutants and toxic compounds in a wide range of samples. Here the different enzymes implicated in the inhibition, different transducers forming the sensing devices, and the different contaminants analyzed are considered. The general application of the various biosensors developed, with emphasis on food and environmental applications, is reviewed as well as the general approaches that have been used for enzyme immobilization, the enzyme catalysis, and the inhibition mechanism.     

Solid waste treatment and disposal: effects on public health and environmental safety

The safety and acceptability of many widely used solid waste management practices are of serious concern from the public health point of view. Such concern stems from both distrust of policies and solutions proposed by all tiers of government for the management of solid waste and a perception that many solid waste management facilities use poor operating procedures. Waste management practice that currently encompasses disposal, treatment, reduction, recycling, segregation and modification has developed over the past 150 years. Before that and in numerous more recent situations, all wastes produced were handled by their producers using simple disposal methods, including terrestrial dumping, dumping into both fresh and marine waters and uncontrolled burning. In spite of ever-increasing industrialisation and urbanisation, the dumping of solid waste, particularly in landfills, remains a prominent means of disposal and implied treatment. Major developments have occurred with respect to landfill technology and in the legislative control of the categories of wastes that can be subject to disposal by landfilling. Even so, many landfills remain primitive in their operation. Alternative treatment technologies for solid waste management include incineration with heat recovery and waste gas cleaning and accelerated composting, but both of these technologies are subject to criticism either by environmentalists on the grounds of possible hazardous emissions, failure to eliminate pathogenic agents or failure to immobilise heavy metals, or by landfill operators and contractors on the basis of waste management economics, while key questions concerning the effects of the various practices on public health and environmental safety remain unanswered. The probable and relative effects on both public health and environmental safety of tradition and modern landfill technologies will be evaluated with respect to proposed alternative treatment technologies.     

Pollution,food safety,and the distribution of knowledge

Human perceptions of the relationship between pollution and food safety are often haphazard and contradictory, based on a variety of sources of information. Recent media events concerning seafood and coastal pollution have generated concern that an otherwise healthy food— fish and shellfish—has become dangerous. We assess consumer knowledge about seafood safety and coastal pollution using several methods, including tests of cultural consensus. We find that consumers view seafood as far more threatened by pollution than scientific analysis suggests, due in part to their perceptions about the dynamics of the marine environment. Finding variation in perceptions within our population based on income and other factors, we explore the use of the cultural consensus approach in large and heterogeneous populations.     

Advances in photosynthesis research: Unlocking the potential for food security,renewable energy,and environmental sustainability

<正>Photosynthesis is the most important biochemical process and the largest-scale process of matter and energy conversion on Earth.It is the process by which plants,algae,and certain bacteria convert light energy into chemical energy.Through photosynthesis,solar energy is used to transform carbon dioxide and water into organicmatter (such as glucose) and oxygen.     

Applications of commercial biosensors in clinical,food, environmental,and biothreat/biowarfare analyses

The lack of specific, low-cost, rapid, sensitive, and easy detection of biomolecules has resulted in the development of biosensor technology. Innovations in biosensor technology have enabled many biosensors to be commercialized and have enabled biomolecules to be detected onsite. Moreover, the emerging technologies of lab-on-a-chip microdevices and nanosensors offer opportunities for the development of new biosensors with much better performance. Biosensors were first introduced into the laboratory by Clark and Lyons. They developed the first glucose biosensor for laboratory conditions. Then in 1973, a glucose biosensor was commercialized by Yellow Springs Instruments. The commercial biosensors have small size and simple construction and they are ideal for point-of-care biosensing. In addition to glucose, a wide variety of metabolites such as lactate, cholesterol, and creatinine can be detected by using commercial biosensors. Like the glucose biosensors (tests) other commercial tests such as for pregnancy (hCG), Escherichia coli O157, influenza A and B viruses, Helicobacter pylori, human immunodeficiency virus, tuberculosis, and malaria have achieved success. Apart from their use in clinical analysis, commercial tests are also used in environmental (such as biochemical oxygen demand, nitrate, pesticide), food (such as glutamate, glutamine, sucrose, lactose, alcohol, ascorbic acid), and biothreat/biowarfare (Bacillus anthracis, Salmonella, Botulinum toxin) analysis. In this review, commercial biosensors in clinical, environmental, food, and biowarfare analysis are summarized and the commercial biosensors are compared in terms of their important characteristics. This is the first review in which all the commercially available tests are compiled together.     

Ecosystem, environmental quality and ecotechnology in the Taipei metropolitan region

The “self-design” capability of a natural environment is ignored in currently practiced environmental technology and urban planning professionals. Therefore, we propose an ecological engineering approach to conduct scenarios for environmental management in the metropolitan region of Taipei. Ecological energetic analysis is applied to assess the ecological economic status and the role and contribution of solid waste and water resources in the Taipei metropolitan region. The benefit of an ecological engineering approach to the environmental quality and sustainable development of the metropolitan region is evaluated using emergy synthesis. The results indicate that Taipei metropolitan region operates its activity mainly on the imported fuels and goods and services, which account for 90% of total emergy used. The treatment of waste as resources and the use of the self-design capability of the natural environment according to the ecological engineering approach can generate positive contribution and aid the environmental quality and productive potential of the ecological economic system. It is concluded that ecological sustainability should be used as a reference of environmental quality for urban development policy.     

High-pressure processing – effects on microbial food safety and food quality

High-pressure processing (HPP) is a nonthermal process capable of inactivating and eliminating pathogenic and food spoilage microorganisms. This novel technology has enormous potential in the food industry, controlling food spoilage, improving food safety and extending product shelf life while retaining the characteristics of fresh, preservative-free, minimally processed foods. As with other food processing methods, such as thermal processing, HPP has somewhat limited applications as it cannot be universally applied to all food types, such as some dairy and animal products and shelf-stable low-acid foods. Herein, we discuss the effects of high-pressure processing on microbial food safety and, to a lesser degree, food quality.     

Aqueous two-phase extraction as a platform in the biomanufacturing industry: economical and environmental sustainability

The biotech industry is, nowadays, facing unparalleled challenges due to the enhanced demand for biotechnology-based human therapeutic products, such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This has led companies to improve substantially their upstream processes, with the yield of monoclonals increasing to titers never seen before. The downstream processes have, however, been overlooked, leading to a production bottleneck. Although chromatography remains the workhorse of most purification processes, several limitations, such as low capacity, scale-related packing problems, low chemical and proteolytic stability and resins' high cost, have arisen. Aqueous two-phase extraction (ATPE) has been successfully revisited as a valuable alternative for the capture of antibodies. One of the important remaining questions for this technology to be adopted by the biotech industries is, now, how it compares to the currently established platforms in terms of costs and environmental impact. In this report, the economical and environmental sustainability of the aqueous two-phase extraction process is evaluated and compared to the currently established protein A affinity chromatography. Accordingly, the ATPE process was shown to be considerably advantageous in terms of process economics, especially when processing high titer cell culture supernatants. This alternative process is able to purify continuously the same amount of mAbs reducing the annual operating costs from 14.4 to 8.5 million (US$/kg) when cell culture supernatants with mAb titers higher than 2.5 g/L are processed.     

Aptamers-based assays for diagnostics, environmental and food analysis

Aptamers are single stranded DNA or RNA ligands which can be selected for different targets starting from a huge library of molecules containing randomly created sequences. Aptamers have been selected to bind very different targets, from proteins to small organic dyes. In addition to the very important aspect of having an unlimited source of identical affinity recognition molecules available due to the selection process, aptamers can offer advantages over antibodies that make them very promising for analytical applications. The use of aptamers as therapeutic tools is nowadays well established. On the contrary, the analytical application of aptamers in diagnostic devices or in systems for environmental and food analysis, is still under investigation and the scientific community still need further research to demonstrate the advancements brought by this new kind of ligands. This review will focus on these latter applications with particular attention to the detection of food pathogens, terrorism threat agents, thrombin and cytokines.     

How origin,packaging and seasonality determine the environmental impact of apples,magnified by food waste and losses

Purpose

Using apple consumption in Belgium as a case study, this study examines the environmental impacts associated with Belgian (BE) and New Zealand (NZ) apples, how impacts evolve throughout the year and how packaging affects this impact. Additionally, impacts associated with food losses and food waste along the chain are assessed. The study aims to delineate the most important factors in determining environmental impacts associated with apple.

Methods

The environmental impacts are calculated using the ILCD (International Reference Life Cycle Data System) approach. The functional unit is 1 kg of apples purchased by a consumer in the supermarket. Primary data was collected through players along the chain. Various scenarios are analysed for both the BE and NZ apples, based on the moment of purchase and packaging method. Food loss and waste impacts are assessed by splitting the impacts along the chain into three categories: apples lost along the supply chain, apples purchased and eaten by the consumer and apples purchased and wasted by the consumer.

Results and discussion

For all impact categories assessed, NZ apples come at a higher environmental cost than BE ones due to overseas transport. For both BE and NZ apples, minimum impacts are found for bulk apples at the beginning of the season, whereas maximum values are found for pre-packed apples at the end of the season. For BE apples, the choice of packaging method highly affects the impact, while it is negligible relative to shipping impacts for NZ apples. Altering secondary packaging materials of BE apples allows for impact reductions up to 50%. In the case of climate change, food waste and losses contribute up to 25% or 15% for BE or NZ apples, respectively, as all lost food travels in vain through the food chain and needs to be disposed of.

Conclusions

The study shows the importance of origin and packaging, whereas the moment of purchase hardly affects the environmental impact of apples. From a supply chain perspective, there is room for improvement as altering the use of secondary packaging greatly reduces impacts along the chain. The study further highlights how impacts are magnified by food waste and losses.

     

Advanced swine manure treatment and utilization in Brazil

Animal production has changed from subsistence to an industrial model, lowering production costs but giving rise to higher potential environmental impact. When the effluents are not correctly managed, serious pollution events can occur. In Brazil liquid manure is commonly stored in reception pits or covered lagoons (biodigestors), followed by land application as a biofertilizer. In some regions there is an excess of manure due to low soil support capacities, and in these cases new technologies have to be adopted to export or treat the excess effluent. Manure storage time in pits/covered lagoons and new polymers to separate the solid fraction have been studied in Brazil. Treatment technologies, like swine manure treatment systems (SMTS), have been developed from a technical and economical point of view to optimize the processes and give a technological alternative to pork producers increasing production while reducing environmental impact.