Palaeoecological evaluation of the recent acidification of Loch Laidon, Rannoch Moor, Scotland

Palaeoecological techniques have been utilised to examine the recent acidification status of Loch Laidon, a large freshwater loch on Rannoch Moor, Scotland

Life cycle assessment of municipal solid waste management in Nottingham, England: Past and future perspectives

Since the enforcement of the EU Landfill Directive, EU waste directives were successively enforced in EU member states to facilitate the establishment of sustainable MSW management. Various changes have been made in England to reduce the global impact of its MSW management, but the effectiveness of these changes on mitigating the global warming potential (GWP) from MSW management has never been investigated in detail. This study assessed the historical GWP of MSW management in Nottingham throughout the period from April 2001 to March 2017 through life cycle assessment (LCA). The LCA results indicate continuous reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSW management during the study period due to improvements in waste collection, treatment and material recycling, as well as waste prevention. These improvements resulted in a net reduction of GHG emission from 1076.0 kg CO2–eq./t of MSW (or 498.2 kg CO2–eq./Ca) in 2001/02 to 211.3 kg CO2–eq./t of MSW (or 76.3 kg CO2–eq./Ca) in 2016/17. A further reduction to −142.3 kg CO2–eq./t of MSW (or −40.2 kg CO2–eq./Ca) could be achieved by separating food waste from incinerated waste, treating organic waste via anaerobic digestion and by pretreating incinerated waste in a material recovery facility

Non-destructive characterisation of iron gall ink drawings: not such a galling problem

Iron gall inks are of extraordinary historical significance considering their widespread use for over a millennium. Due to their corrosiveness, which is a consequence of their acidity and content of transition metals, iron gall inks accelerate the degradation of the writing or drawing support, which in this study is rag paper. Characterisation of acidity (pH) and degree of polymerisation (DP) of cellulose in paper is thus of high interest as it enables the estimation of material stability and assessment of risks associated with its handling. Based on a well-characterised set of samples with iron gall ink from the 18th and 19th centuries, we developed a near infrared spectroscopic method with partial least squares calibration for non-destructive determination of pH and DP of both inked areas and paper. Using this method, 27 18th and 19th century iron gall ink drawings from the British Museum collection were analysed and in all cases, inked areas turned out to be more acidic and degraded than the surrounding paper. Based on the obtained DP data, we were able to estimate the time needed for the inked areas to degrade to the point when they become at risk of damage due to handling. Using the average uncertainty of the calculated lifetime, we propose a quantitative stability classification method which could contribute to the curatorial and conservation decision-making process