Initiating resource partnerships for industrial symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis is a strategy to limit carbon emissions whilst promoting resource efficiency and business development. This study interprets industrial symbiosis as waste-to-resource innovation. Understanding how these innovations are actually realized, and hence how they can be promoted by public and private partners, is still limited. Particularly, initiating resource partnerships for waste-to-resource innovations in the absence of a government-funded facilitator, such as previously the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) in the UK, has remained underexplored. This paper explores how companies identify potential resource partners in terms of network and geographical distances. Based on case studies of waste-to-resource innovation in the Humber region of the UK, the paper concludes that (1) companies can identify resource partners among/through their direct contacts that are involved in resource production/management themselves; and (2) that about 73% of these connections are located within a 75 miles’ radius. Furthermore, various new ‘facilitators’ were identified, demonstrating the need for a refined government approach to facilitate industrial symbiosis as part of the wider transition towards the circular economy

CPR vs. DNR in the context of palliative care

Medical advances have significantly improved the chances of survival for many patients with life-threatening illnesses. Simultaneously, complex ethical dilemmas have arisen. While limiting and/or forgoing a particular treatment in some situations at the end of life is now commonly accepted, many patients still die after heroic, extraordinary means were applied to postpone their inevitable death. This paper considers some of the issues surrounding the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and arranging “do not resuscitate” orders for palliative care patients.Medical advances have significantly improved the chances of survival for many patients with life-threatening illnesses. Simultaneously, complex ethical dilemmas have arisen. While limiting and/or forgoing a particular treatment in some situations at the end of life is now commonly accepted, many patients still die after heroic, extraordinary means were applied to postpone their inevitable death. This paper considers some of the issues surrounding the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation and arranging “do not resuscitate” orders for palliative care patients

Delivering Radical Change in Waste and Resource Management: Industry Priorities

RRfW has been working with academia, government and industry to develop a shared vision for the transition to a circular economy. This reports captures the industry perspectives, with participants from a range of industries with interests in UK resource and waste management. The industry view on the future changes required to enable a circular economy aligned well the academia and government perspectives, although industry gave less priority to wellbeing and human rights. A range of important barriers were identified, strikingly all within government’s control to change. Six key actions for industry were identified, including embedding extended producer responsibility within corporate responsibility policy, engaging with policy development, innovating processes and business models, and educating staff and consumers about resource recovery to support behavioural change. The report is discussed in more detail in the following RRfW blog

Highlighting the need to embed circular economy in low carbon infrastructure decommissioning: The case of offshore wind

Development and deployment of low carbon infrastructure (LCI) is essential in a period of accelerated climate change. The deployment of LCI is, however, not taking place with any obvious long term or joined up thinking in respect of life-cycle material extraction, usage and recovery across technologies or otherwise. This proposition is demonstrated through empirical quantification of selected infrastructure and a review of decommissioning plans, as exemplified by offshore wind in the United Kingdom. There is wide acknowledgement that offshore wind and other LCI are dependant on the production and use of many composite and critical materials that can and regularly do inflict high impacts on the environment and society during their extraction and manufacturing. To optimise resource use from a whole system perspective, it is thus essential that the components of LCI and the materials they share and are comprised of, are designed with a circular economy in mind. As such, LCI must be designed for durability, reuse and remanufacturing, rather than committing them to sub-optimal waste management and energy recovery pathways. Beyond a promise to remove installed components, end-of-life decommissioning plans do not however provide any insight into a given operators’ awareness of the nuances of their proposed material management methods or indeed current or future management capacities. Decommissioning plans for offshore wind are at best formulaic and at worst perfunctory and provide no value to the growing movement toward a circular economy. At this time, millions of tonnes of composites, precious and rare earth materials are being extracted, processed and deployed in infrastructure with nothing in place that suggests that these materials can be sustainably recovered, managed and returned to productive use at the potential scales required to meet accelerating LCI deployment. Academic and industry literature, or lack thereof, suggest that this statement is largely reflected throughout LCI deployment and not just within the deployment of offshore wind in the UK

People v. Ferrer

COURT’S FINAL RULING ON DEMURRE

James B. Randall Collection

Miscellaneous bulletins, brochures; Louisiana Tech academic programs (management, business, engineering); issues of Tech Alumni News.https://digitalcommons.latech.edu/manuscript-finding-aids/1211/thumbnail.jp

Ehrlichia sp. em mielócito de cão

Na clínica médica, o esfregaço sangüíneo é o método  parasitológico de rotina mais utilizado no diagnóstico da erliquiose canina, devido o seu baixo custo e praticidade. Porém apenas 1% das células monucleadas estão infectadas por mórula de Ehrlichia sp. Neste trabalho teve-se objetivo de relatar as alterações clinico-hemotológicas e relatar a presença de mórula em células da medula óssea de um cão naturalmente infectado com Ehrlichia sp.  Na clínica médica do Hospital Veterinário da Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (HV/UFRPE), foi atendido um cão sem raça definida, fêmea, com dez anos de idade e com histórico de apatia há mais de 10 dias. No exame clínico observaram-se mucosas hipocoradas, hemorragias tipo petéquias na pele, icterícia, esplenomegalia, convulsão e presença de carrapatos. Alterações hematológicas foram observadas, destacando principalmente anemia e trombocitopenia. O mielograma apresentou hipoplasia megacariocítica. Na punção aspirativa de medula óssea foi encontrado uma inclusão de mórula de Ehrlichia sp no citoplasma de um mielócito, permitindo concluir que o mielograma pode ser utilizado como mais um exame auxiliar no diagnóstico deste agente etiológico. &nbsp

A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

Circular economy and renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind farms are often assumed to be developed in synergy as part of sustainable transitions. Offshore wind is among the preferred technologies for low-carbon energy. Deployment is forecast to accelerate over ten times faster than onshore wind between 2021 and 2025, while the first generation of offshore wind turbines is about to be decommissioned. However, the growing scale of offshore wind brings new sustainability challenges. Many of the challenges are circular economy-related, such as increasing resource exploitation and competition and underdeveloped end-of-use solutions for decommissioned components and materials. However, circular economy is not yet commonly and systematically applied to offshore wind. Circular economy is a whole system approach aiming to make better use of products, components and materials throughout their consecutive lifecycles. The purpose of this study is to enable the integration of a sustainable circular economy into the design, development, operation and end-of-use management of offshore wind infrastructure. This will require a holistic overview of potential circular economy strategies that apply to offshore wind, because focus on no, or a subset of, circular solutions would open the sector to the risk of unintended consequences, such as replacing carbon impacts with water pollution, and short-term private cost savings with long-term bills for taxpayers. This study starts with a systematic review of circular economy and wind literature as a basis for the coproduction of a framework to embed a sustainable circular economy throughout the lifecycle of offshore wind energy infrastructure, resulting in eighteen strategies: design for circular economy, data and information, recertification, dematerialisation, waste prevention, modularisation, maintenance and repair, reuse and repurpose, refurbish and remanufacturing, lifetime extension, repowering, decommissioning, site recovery, disassembly, recycling, energy recovery, landfill and re-mining. An initial baseline review for each strategy is included. The application and transferability of the framework to other energy sectors, such as oil and gas and onshore wind, are discussed. This article concludes with an agenda for research and innovation and actions to take by industry and government

Principles for a Sustainable Circular Economy

The pressure that the human species exerts on the natural environment through the extraction of materials and generation of wastes is widely recognised. Circular economy has emerged as a potential solution to make better use of resources. Positioned as a technology-focused concept that can generate economic gains while alleviating pressure on the environment, circular economy enjoys a positive reception by organisations in public, private and civic sectors and, increasingly, academia alike. However, concerns have been raised regarding some purported circular economy practices being promoted as ‘sustainable’ yet resulting in detrimental impacts on environment and society. We briefly revisit the systems ecology literature that construed the context for both circular economy and sustainable development. Values and principles in core sustainable development literature are analysed to offer a foundation against which circular economy can be discussed. We then analyse and critically reflect upon the strengths, shortcomings and theoretical flaws within the values and principles that emerged from the evolving circular economy literature. We propose a value framework and set of ten principles for the design, implementation and evaluation of a sustainable circular economy. We finish with a call for action for both practitioners and a research agenda for academia

The organic waste gold rush: optimising resource recovery in the UK bioeconomy

The use of organic waste in the bioeconomy has the potential to contribute towards the UK’s strategic goals of clean growth, resource security and reducing use of fossil fuels. While the reduction of avoidable organic waste remains a priority, a number of waste streams are likely to persist and could provide a significant feedstock for the UK bioeconomy. The greatest environmental, social and economic benefits of resource recovery from organic wastes are associated with the displacement of fossil fuel derived chemicals and materials, and the combined products of nutrients and energy from anaerobic digestion. Organic wastes offer multiple resources that can be exploited most efficiently by technologies working in synergy with each other. Investments into different options for using organic wastes are driven by government policy and resource demand, in addition to technology readiness. Policy and regulations should encourage industrial synergies and an increase in the diversity of resources recovered from organic waste in order to be able to respond to future resource demands