Fertiliser products from new sanitation systems: Their potential values and risks

The plant nutrients consumed in human society today are lost through the established wastewater treatment systems in industrialised countries as well as via insufficient or non-existent handling of sewage in the developing world. New sanitation systems have been designated to overcome this failure. The source separated wastewater streams collected within these systems contain a high nutrient content, and can be used as fertiliser as well as soil conditioner after appropriate storage and/or treatment. Application in agriculture with existing techniques is feasible. However, pathogens and pharmaceuticals contained in these fertiliser types are a potential hazard. Nevertheless, storage and appropriate treatment can minimise the risks. The products deriving from these systems have a high potential to preserve available plant nutrient resources and deficiencies in agriculture as well as being able to substitute synthetic plant nutrients and at the same time prevent unwanted environmental nutrient over-enrichment.     

Pharmaceuticals in the environment: scientific evidence of risks and its regulation

During the past two decades scientists, regulatory agencies and the European Commission have acknowledged pharmaceuticals to be an emerging environmental problem. In parallel, a regulatory framework for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of pharmaceutical products has been developed. Since the regulatory guidelines came into force the German Federal Agency (UBA) has been evaluating ERAs for human and veterinary pharmaceutical products before they are marketed. The results show that approximately 10% of pharmaceutical products are of note regarding their potential environmental risk. For human medicinal products, hormones, antibiotics, analgesics, antidepressants and antineoplastics indicated an environmental risk. For veterinary products, hormones, antibiotics and parasiticides were most often discussed as being environmentally relevant. These results are in good correlation with the results within the open scientific literature of prioritization approaches for pharmaceuticals in the environment. UBA results revealed that prospective approaches, such as ERA of pharmaceuticals, play an important role in minimizing problems caused by pharmaceuticals in the environment. However, the regulatory ERA framework could be improved by (i) inclusion of the environment in the risk–benefit analysis for human pharmaceuticals, (ii) improvement of risk management options, (iii) generation of data on existing pharmaceuticals, and (iv) improving the availability of ERA data. In addition, more general and integrative steps of regulation, legislation and research have been developed and are presented in this article. In order to minimize the quantity of pharmaceuticals in the environment these should aim to (i) improve the existing legislation for pharmaceuticals, (ii) prioritize pharmaceuticals in the environment and (iii) improve the availability and collection of pharmaceutical data.     

Method for Setting Environmental Targets in Product Development: Incorporating Use‐Phase Impact by Subsystem

In order to address environmental aspects during redesign, the product specification must include related targets that are reachable and challenging. To do so, this article presents a stepwise approach for combining benchmarking information and component impact, out of life cycle assessment (LCA) scaling. This approach requires allocating environmental impacts to each subsystem, which is not commonly done for some life cycle phases in LCAs, most particularly for use phases. This article includes a methodology for allocating such impacts. The underlying criterion is avoiding complex calculations, to make the method more agile. This methodology is presented in a full case study of a complex product: a knuckle boom crane. The case study results in the percentage of impact reduction needed to meet the market average or best competitors. In particular, the results show that the cylinders of the crane have a high contribution to environmental impact, not only because of their weight, but also because of the active power consumed to activate them.     

High-Resolution Spatial Distribution and Estimation of Access to Improved Sanitation in Kenya

BackgroundAccess to sanitation facilities is imperative in reducing the risk of multiple adverse health outcomes. A distinct disparity in sanitation exists among different wealth levels in many low-income countries, which may hinder the progress across each of the Millennium Development Goals.MethodsThe surveyed households in 397 clusters from 2008–2009 Kenya Demographic and Health Surveys were divided into five wealth quintiles based on their national asset scores. A series of spatial analysis methods including excess risk, local spatial autocorrelation, and spatial interpolation were applied to observe disparities in coverage of improved sanitation among different wealth categories. The total number of the population with improved sanitation was estimated by interpolating, time-adjusting, and multiplying the surveyed coverage rates by high-resolution population grids. A comparison was then made with the annual estimates from United Nations Population Division and World Health Organization /United Nations Children''s Fund Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation.ResultsThe Empirical Bayesian Kriging interpolation produced minimal root mean squared error for all clusters and five quintiles while predicting the raw and spatial coverage rates of improved sanitation. The coverage in southern regions was generally higher than in the north and east, and the coverage in the south decreased from Nairobi in all directions, while Nyanza and North Eastern Province had relatively poor coverage. The general clustering trend of high and low sanitation improvement among surveyed clusters was confirmed after spatial smoothing.ConclusionsThere exists an apparent disparity in sanitation among different wealth categories across Kenya and spatially smoothed coverage rates resulted in a closer estimation of the available statistics than raw coverage rates. Future intervention activities need to be tailored for both different wealth categories and nationally where there are areas of greater needs when resources are limited.     

转基因植物环境监测进展

近20年来,转基因植物的商业化应用规模越来越大,而转基因生物安全问题依然是转基因植物产业进一步发展的最主要制约因素。转基因植物在商业化应用之前虽然预先进行了风险评估,但是,包括环境监测在内的风险管理措施是确保转基因植物安全应用的必要手段。在转基因作物大规模应用近20年之后,其在靶标生物抗性、对生物多样性的影响、基因漂移、在生态系统中的长期存留等方面产生的环境风险已经渐渐显现出来,表明风险评估无法为转基因植物应用提供足够的安全保障,还必须通过开展系统而长期的环境监测,明确转基因植物在生产应用后的实际环境影响。联合国环境规划署和欧盟等已经制定了转基因植物环境监测的法规和技术指南,一些国家实施了系统的转基因植物环境监测。对转基因植物所产生的环境风险以及环境监测应包括的内容进行了综述。     

Detection and drivers of exposure and effects of pharmaceuticals in higher vertebrates

Pharmaceuticals are highly bioactive compounds now known to be widespread environmental contaminants. However, research regarding exposure and possible effects in non-target higher vertebrate wildlife remains scarce. The fate and behaviour of most pharmaceuticals entering our environment via numerous pathways remain poorly characterized, and hence our conception and understanding of the risks posed to wild animals is equally constrained. The recent decimation of Asian vulture populations owing to a pharmaceutical (diclofenac) offers a notable example, because the exposure route (livestock carcasses) and the acute toxicity observed were completely unexpected. This case not only highlights the need for further research, but also the wider requirement for more considered and comprehensive ‘ecopharmacovigilance’. We discuss known and potential high risk sources and pathways in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems where pharmaceutical exposure in higher vertebrate wildlife, principally birds and mammals, may occur. We examine whether approaches taken within existing surveillance schemes (that commonly target established classes of persistent or bioaccumulative contaminants) and the risk assessment approaches currently used for pesticides are relevant to pharmaceuticals, and we highlight where new approaches may be required to assess pharmaceutical-related risk.     

Pharmaceutical Contaminants in Potable Water: Potential Concerns for Pregnant Women and Children

There has been increasing concern of late over measurable levels of pharmaceutical contaminants in drinking water. Because most data on water contaminants pertains to aquatic organisms, we wished to assess the risk of these contaminants to human health at currently reported levels. Unlike most other chemicals, there are large amounts of information for the effects of most pharmaceuticals to humans and the current model uses the clinical dose required to cause biological effects as an endpoint to assess risks for pregnant women, children, and the healthy adult population. Twenty-six drugs have been detected in water systems worldwide: 7 in drinking water, 16 in ground water and post-treatment effluent, and 3 in both. Current water treatment practices, clearly, do not always remove pharmaceutical residues. Although healthy adults are unlikely to be adversely affected at the levels of exposure reported, children were shown to have up to eightfold higher risk and may be exposed to several drugs that are contraindicated or not established for safe use in pediatric medicine. The time taken to ingest a single clinically used dose was 3.4–34,000 years. In addition, pregnant women may be exposed to several drugs that are teratogenic (range of % single doses ingested over 36 weeks was 0.0006–12.6%) and in the post-natal period to drugs that are not recommended during breastfeeding. Albeit at low levels, the exposure of pregnant women and children to contraindicated drugs through drinking water is of concern. Further research in this area should focus on integrated ecological and human health consequences of long-term, low-level exposure to pharmaceutical contaminants, particularly in pregnancy and childhood.     

Trends in undernutrition mortality among children under five years of age and adults over 60

Introduction: Children under five years of age living in poor areas and with low availability of healthy food have a higher risk of undernutrition-related mortality. However, this relationship has not been well established among older adults.Objective: To analyse socioeconomic inequality trends related to undernutrition mortality in children under five years of age and adults over 60 in Colombian municipalities during 2003-2009 and 2010-2016.Materials and methods: We conducted an ecological study of trends between 2003 and 2016. The study population consisted of children under five years of age and adults over 60 residing in the Colombian municipalities during the study period. We estimated smoothed and standardized mortality rates by fitting a hierarchical Bayesian model and explored their relationship with five socioeconomic area-level variables.Results: In most of the municipalities, undernutrition-related mortality was three times higher in older adults compared to children. Moreover, the difference in the risk of undernutrition-related mortality between municipalities showed a marked reduction. Finally, the poor and less developed municipalities had higher rates of undernutrition-related mortality in children; conversely, wealthier territories had higher rates in older adults.Conclusions: Although in most of the municipalities the mortality rates due to undernutrition in children under five and older adults have decreased, their socioeconomic conditions influence in different ways the risk of mortality for these two populations so there is the need to develop age-specific strategies to close social gaps considering the structural conditions of the areas.     

Pollution from drug manufacturing: review and perspectives

As long ago as the sixteenth century, Paracelsus recognized that ‘the dose makes the poison’. Indeed, environmental concentrations of pharmaceuticals excreted by humans are limited, most importantly because a defined dose is given to just a fraction of the population. By contrast, recent studies have identified direct emission from drug manufacturing as a source of much higher environmental discharges that, in some cases, greatly exceed toxic threshold concentrations. Because production is concentrated in specific locations, the risks are not linked to usage patterns. Furthermore, as the drugs are not consumed, metabolism in the human body does not reduce concentrations. The environmental risks associated with manufacturing therefore comprise a different, wider set of pharmaceuticals compared with those associated with risks from excretion. Although pollution from manufacturing is less widespread, discharges that promote the development of drug-resistant microorganisms can still have global consequences. Risk management also differs between production and excretion in terms of accountability, incentive creation, legal opportunities, substitution possibilities and costs. Herein, I review studies about industrial emissions of pharmaceuticals and the effects associated with exposure to such effluents. I contrast environmental pollution due to manufacturing with that due to excretion in terms of their risks and management and highlight some recent initiatives.     

我国省级卫生应急人员风险评估认知现状评价

?????? 目的 了解我国省级卫生应急人员对突发公共卫生事件风险评估的认知状况。方法 采用问卷调查的方法,对全国31个省（市、自治区）承担突发公共卫生事件应急处置的省级卫生应急工作人员进行调查,共计调查415名。结果 应急人员普遍意识到突发公共卫生事件信息监测的重要性,但对监测信息来源认知较局限;对风险评估概念熟悉程度较低,且不同机构之间的认知存在一定差异;对风险评估工作的认知也存在分歧,认知水平亟待进一步提高。结论 应完善信息获取途径、加强风险评估的宣传与培训、建立健全风险评估制度。     

Integrated environmental risk assessment approach for transportation modes

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to develop and implement new integrated environmental risk assessment for transportation activities. With this purpose, environmental risks occur from transportation activities from different transportation modes which are air, road, sea and rail are determined. Transportation modes are compared with the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach in order to obtain importance weights and impact categories of air, soil and water are used as criteria where the weights are determined with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). For the risk assessment process, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) has been used and prioritizations of risks are calculated with weights of the calculated transportation modes. In the study, integrated multi-criteria decision-making methods with the classic FMEA method with different categories of impacts reveal new multidimensional perspective to classic environmental risk assessment methods.     

LCA application to Russian Conditions

The environmental impact assessment existing in the Russian Federation at the present moment cannot provide potential scenarios of consequences for the environment from examined processes, since its goal is to calculate the money equivalent of emissions to the environment. Also, it cannot help the environmental specialist to choose the most environmentally sustainable scenario or process, proceeding from the whole life cycle of the object, because it is usually performed only for the use phase of an object. This study also aims to show possibilities for applying LCA methodology, as accepted in the ISO standards series 14040, and as applied to Russian conditions. The main purpose was to investigate a possibility of using the existing environmental impact assessment as the inventory stage in the LCA. As the minor goal, normalisation and weighting factor data for the Russian Federation were calculated on the basis of energy consumption extrapolation. In this paper, the environmental impacts are associated with a sewage wastewater facility. The inventory analysis is performed with data obtained from the MosvodokanalNIIproject (Moscow Research Institute for sewage wastewater treatment facilities) and supplemented with the SimaPro 5.0 database (the Netherlands). The environmental impact categories included and discussed in this study are eutrophication, global warming, landfill, acidification, ozone layer depletion and photochemical ozone creation. This study was performed for several design alternatives or scenarios of the wastewater facility. According to the LCA performed in this study, the most environmentally sustainable scenario is that which has the most effective and complicated treatment of sewage water and sludge.     

“I Have No Clue What I Drunk Last Night” Using Smartphone Technology to Compare In-Vivo and Retrospective Self-Reports of Alcohol Consumption

AimThis research compared real-time measurements of alcohol consumption with retrospective accounts of alcohol consumption to examine possible discrepancies between, and contextual influences on, the different accounts.MethodBuilding on previous investigations, a specifically designed Smartphone technology was utilized to measure alcohol consumption and contextual influences in de facto real-time. Real-time data (a total of 10,560 data points relating to type and number of drinks and current social / environmental context) were compared with daily and weekly retrospective accounts of alcohol consumption.ResultsParticipants reported consuming more alcoholic drinks during real-time assessment than retrospectively. For daily accounts a higher number of drinks consumed in real-time was related to a higher discrepancy between real-time and retrospective accounts. This effect was found across all drink types but was not shaped by social and environmental contexts. Higher in-vivo alcohol consumption appeared to be related to a higher discrepancy in retrospectively reported weekly consumption for alcohol beverage types other than wine. When including contextual factors into the statistical models, being with two or more friends (as opposed to being alone) decreased the discrepancy between real-time and retrospective reports, whilst being in the pub (relative to being at home) was associated with greater discrepancies.ConclusionsOverall, retrospective accounts may underestimate the amount of actual, real-time alcohol consumed. Increased consumption may also exacerbate differences between real-time and retrospective accounts. Nonetheless, this is not a global effect as environmental and social contexts interact with the type of alcohol consumed and the time frame given for reporting (weekly vs. daily retrospective). A degree of caution therefore appears warranted with regards to the use of retrospective self-report methods of recording alcohol consumption. Whilst real-time sampling is unlikely to be completely error free, it may be better able to account for social and environmental influences on self-reported consumption.     

Environmental Transmission of Typhoid Fever in an Urban Slum

BackgroundEnteric fever due to Salmonella Typhi (typhoid fever) occurs in urban areas with poor sanitation. While direct fecal-oral transmission is thought to be the predominant mode of transmission, recent evidence suggests that indirect environmental transmission may also contribute to disease spread.MethodsData from a population-based infectious disease surveillance system (28,000 individuals followed biweekly) were used to map the spatial pattern of typhoid fever in Kibera, an urban informal settlement in Nairobi Kenya, between 2010–2011. Spatial modeling was used to test whether variations in topography and accumulation of surface water explain the geographic patterns of risk.ResultsAmong children less than ten years of age, risk of typhoid fever was geographically heterogeneous across the study area (p = 0.016) and was positively associated with lower elevation, OR = 1.87, 95% CI (1.36–2.57), p <0.001. In contrast, the risk of typhoid fever did not vary geographically or with elevation among individuals less than 6b ten years of age.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence of indirect, environmental transmission of typhoid fever among children, a group with high exposure to fecal pathogens in the environment. Spatially targeting sanitation interventions may decrease enteric fever transmission.     

Assessing the exposure risk and impacts of pharmaceuticals in the environment on individuals and ecosystems

The use of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals is increasing. Over the past decade, there has been a proliferation of research into potential environmental impacts of pharmaceuticals in the environment. A Royal Society-supported seminar brought together experts from diverse scientific fields to discuss the risks posed by pharmaceuticals to wildlife. Recent analytical advances have revealed that pharmaceuticals are entering habitats via water, sewage, manure and animal carcases, and dispersing through food chains. Pharmaceuticals are designed to alter physiology at low doses and so can be particularly potent contaminants. The near extinction of Asian vultures following exposure to diclofenac is the key example where exposure to a pharmaceutical caused a population-level impact on non-target wildlife. However, more subtle changes to behaviour and physiology are rarely studied and poorly understood. Grand challenges for the future include developing more realistic exposure assessments for wildlife, assessing the impacts of mixtures of pharmaceuticals in combination with other environmental stressors and estimating the risks from pharmaceutical manufacturing and usage in developing countries. We concluded that an integration of diverse approaches is required to predict ‘unexpected’ risks; specifically, ecologically relevant, often long-term and non-lethal, consequences of pharmaceuticals in the environment for wildlife and ecosystems.     

Evaluation of “Classic” and Emerging Contaminants Resulting from the Application of Biosolids to Agricultural Lands: A Review

The presence of detectable amounts of contaminants in treated sewage sludge (concentrations μg/kg – mg/kg) has led to concerns that land applications of biosolids may result in an accumulation of contaminants in the soil and their subsequent translocation through the food chain. Despite advances in wastewater management (e.g., anaerobic, thermophilic, and mesophilic digestion), many compounds and their metabolites remain intact following treatment. This review looks at the main risk factors relating to the occurrence of “classic” (persistent organic pollutants [POPs]) and emerging pollutants (pharmaceuticals and personal care products) in biosolids. Relevant EU legislation and risk assessment strategies for the control of emerging contaminants are also considered. Organic pollutants regulated under the Stockholm Convention on POPs along with PPCPs were identified as contaminants of concern based on the risk factors: persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity (PBT). PPCPs were recognized as being of particular concern as their high transformation/removal rates are compensated by their continuous introduction into the environment. This study highlights the growing concern in relation to emerging contaminants in biosolids and highlights risk assessment strategies that can be used to characterize potential human/environmental risks.     

Prospective sustainability assessment: the case of wood in automotive applications

Purpose

The introduction of renewable materials into automotive applications is perceived as an innovative lightweight solution. Wood-based materials are advantageous in that they have potentially lower environmental impacts as compared with other materials such as steel. However, using wood per se does not automatically ensure more sustainability. Few prospective sustainability assessment methods or studies on the use of wood-based materials in automotive applications have been carried out, although these are needed to reduce unintended, negative sustainability effects and to support sustainable oriented research and innovation. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the potential sustainability effects and consequences of introducing a wood-based component into an automotive application.

Methods

A combination of methods was used to analyze the potential sustainability effects when introducing wood into automotive applications. This prospective life cycle sustainability analysis solely relied on secondary data. The environmental impacts were analyzed using a simplified environmental life cycle assessment on the product level. A multi-regional input-output-based assessment was conducted to model the country-specific environmental and socioeconomic consequences. The potential shift in social risks and opportunities on a national scale was analyzed by conducting a generic social life cycle assessment. Various aspects of each approach differ, with each providing a specific perspective of the system under study.

Results and discussion

The results indicate that implementing wood into automotive application can have environmental, social, and economic benefits, according to most of the indicators analyzed. Mostly due to the product weight reduction due to the use of a wood-based component, the results show that environmental impacts decrease. Some possible consequences of using wood-based materials are increased value added and increasing the number of jobs in European countries. Similarly, the social risks and opportunities are shifted from countries all over the world to European countries, which perform better than developing countries according to several indicators. However, some indicators, such as migrant acceptance or local supplier quantity, perform better in the current situation.

Conclusions

The presented case study is particularly notable, because the results clearly indicate the advantages of using wood-based materials in automotive applications, although the application of such relatively holistic and complex approaches often may lead to rather indifferent pictures. Policy makers, researchers, and companies can apply this combination of methods that rely solely on generic data to obtain both feasible and informative results. These methods also allow users to link the product level assessment with a regional and social perspective and screen critical topics to support sustainability research and innovation.

     

An Assessment of the Methodological Quality of Published Network Meta-Analyses: A Systematic Review

ObjectiveTo assess the methodological quality of published network meta-analysis.DesignSystematic review.MethodsWe searched the medical literature for network meta-analyses of pharmaceuticals. We assessed general study characteristics, study transparency and reproducibility, methodological approach, and reporting of findings. We compared studies published in journals with lower impact factors with those published in journals with higher impact factors, studies published prior to January 1^st, 2013 with those published after that date, and studies supported financially by industry with those supported by non-profit institutions or that received no support.ResultsThe systematic literature search identified 854 citations. Three hundred and eighteen studies met our inclusion criteria. The number of network meta-analyses has grown rapidly, with 48% of studies published since January 2013. The majority of network meta-analyses were supported by a non-profit institution or received no support (68%). We found considerable inconsistencies among reviewed studies. Eighty percent reported search terms, 61% a network diagram, 65% sufficient data to replicate the analysis, and 90% the characteristics of included trials. Seventy percent performed a risk of bias assessment of included trials, 40% an assessment of model fit, and 56% a sensitivity analysis. Among studies with a closed loop, 69% examined the consistency of direct and indirect evidence. Sixty-four percent of studies presented the full matrix of head-to-head treatment comparisons. For Bayesian studies, 41% reported the probability that each treatment was best, 31% reported treatment ranking, and 16% included the model code or referenced publicly-available code. Network meta-analyses published in higher impact factors journals and those that did not receive industry support performed better across the assessment criteria. We found few differences between older and newer studies.ConclusionsThere is substantial variation in the network meta-analysis literature. Consensus among guidelines is needed improve the methodological quality, transparency, and consistency of study conduct and reporting.