Complex Risks from Old Urban Waste Landfills: Sustainability Perspective from Iasi, Romania

Landfills continue to represent the most frequent managerial practice for municipal solid wastes and an increasing and complex problem globally. In certain countries, a transition to an open society and free market is superimposed on the transition to sustainability, resulting in even higher complexity of management. This paper proposes an approach for problem-structuring of landfills in complex transitions: sustainability or unsustainability of a management approach is determined by a set of sustainability filters that are defined by sets of indicators and prioritized according the systemic concept of sustainability, which says that economy is embedded in society, which is embedded in nature. The writers exercise this approach with an old landfill in Iasi, Romania, and conclude for unsustainability, because the ecological sustainability filter is not successfully passed. Social and economic sustainability filters are also discussed in relation with the ecological sustainability indicators. The described approach allows a coherent, transdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge scattered across various disciplines, a pervasive problem in landfill management. The case study helps distinguish between generally true and context-dependent aspects.Peer reviewe

SARS-CoV-2 Breakthrough Infections: Incidence and Risk Factors in a Large European Multicentric Cohort of Health Workers.

Background: The research aimed to investigate the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections and their determinants in a large European cohort of more than 60,000 health workers. Methods: A multicentric retrospective cohort study, involving 12 European centers, was carried out within the ORCHESTRA project, collecting data up to 18 November 2021 on fully vaccinated health workers. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections was investigated with its association with occupational and social-demographic characteristics (age, sex, job title, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, antibody titer levels, and time from the vaccination course completion). Results: Among 64,172 health workers from 12 European health centers, 797 breakthrough infections were observed (cumulative incidence of 1.2%). The primary analysis using individual data on 8 out of 12 centers showed that age and previous infection significantly modified breakthrough infection rates. In the meta-analysis of aggregated data from all centers, previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and the standardized antibody titer were inversely related to the risk of breakthrough infection (p = 0.008 and p = 0.007, respectively). Conclusion: The inverse correlation of antibody titer with the risk of breakthrough infection supports the evidence that vaccination plays a primary role in infection prevention, especially in health workers. Cellular immunity, previous clinical conditions, and vaccination timing should be further investigated