The sustainability of communicative packaging concepts in the food supply chain. A case study: part 1. Life cycle assessment

Purpose In recent years, a new perspective for food packaging has emerged as a result of several issues like quality, safety, competitive prices or providing of useful information to consumers. This new perspective is called communicative packaging. Communicative packaging may influence consumers/companies on purchasing decisions. Since the environmental evaluation of such systems has not yet been performed, this paper is focused on the environmental evaluation of a flexible best-before-date (FBBD) communicative device on a packaging consumer unit and its implications on reducing environmental impacts related to fresh products. This consumer unit consists of a nanoclay-based polylactic acid tray filled with pork chops. Methods The environmental assessment of the consumer unit was made through life cycle assessment (LCA) using a cradle-to-gate approach. Environmental impacts were assessed according to the Eco-Indicator 99 v 2.1 methodology in Individualist (I) perspective. Results and discussion Several results were obtained from the LCA. With regard to environmental impacts of the FBBD, most of them were due to the paper substrate used for the manufacture of this communicative packaging concept as well as to the transports for delivering the components of the FBBD communicative device. On the other hand, when environmental impacts of packaging system with and without FBBD were compared, a large environmental load was detected for the system that has the communicative device affixed as a result of the higher weight of the package. However, the environmental load caused by the use of the FBBD was minimal in comparison with the total environmental load of the whole packaging system. On the contrary, the consumer unit that has the communicative device affixed showed less environmental burden than the consumer unit that has not affixed the device. This was due to the environmental benefits that the communicative device provides by reducing the amount of out-of-date packaged products at retailer outlets. Conclusions The use of a FBBD contributes to minimize environmental burdens related to the production, packaging and delivery of pork chops since it facilitates a dynamic control of out-of-date products even though the consumer unit with FBBD weighs 1 g more than the consumer unit that does not use the communicative device. Recommendations The results presented in this paper are estimated results of a specific case study for a prototype of communicative packaging device. Consequently, these results must be considered as a first approach according to future developments on communicative packaging

Dystooppiset yhteiskunnat ja rakenteellinen väkivalta Piia Leinon teoksissa Taivas ja Yliaika

Tiivistelmä. Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastelen lähiluvun keinoin Piia Leinon teoksia Taivas (2017) ja Yliaika (2020). Tutkimuskysymyksenäni on selvittää, millaisia teosten dystooppiset yhteiskunnat ovat ja millainen rooli rakenteellisella väkivallalla on niissä. Lisäksi tarkastelen, millaisin kaunokirjallisin keinoin dystooppisia yhteiskuntia ja rakenteellista väkivaltaa teoksissa kuvataan. Teoreettisena taustanani toimii utopia- ja dystopiakirjallisuuden tutkimus, jonka pohjalta esitän kriittisen eutopian käsitettä uudeksi tarkentavaksi lajikategoriaksi. Hyödynnän myös Darko Suvinin kognitiivista vieraannuttamista ja novumia käsittelevää tuotantoa sekä venäläisten formalistien esittelemää vieraannuttamisen käsitettä. Väkivallan käsitteistön osalta tuon tarkasteluuni Terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin laitoksen väkivaltasanastoa sekä Johan Galtungin rakenteellisen väkivallan käsitteen. Taivaan novumeita ovat virtuaalimaailma Taivas sekä masennuksen kaltainen lamaannus. Teoksen dystooppista yhteiskuntaa leimaavat yksinäisyys, kasvottomuus ja tulevaisuudettomuus. Kognitiivinen vieraannuttaminen tuo kriittisesti esille oudolta vaikuttavan yhteiskunnan, ja esimerkiksi henkilöhahmojen kautta huomio kääntyy takaisin oman aikamme ilmiöihin. Dystooppisuus välittyy teoksessa erilaisten henkilöhahmojen, heidän taustojensa sekä diskurssien vastakkainasettelujen kautta. Taivas hyödyntää myös intertekstuaalisia yhteyksiä dystopiakirjallisuuden klassikoihin. Yliajan yhteiskunnan keskeisin dystooppinen piirre ja novum on Lex 75, kansalaisuutta iän perusteella rajaava laki. Dystooppisina voidaan nähdä myös spektaakkelimainen media, kuolinpäivän tuotteistuminen ja ihmissuhteiden heikentyminen. Kaunokirjallisiin keinoihin, joilla kuva Yliajan yhteiskunnasta rakentuu, lukeutuvat esimerkiksi keskenään ristiriitaista tietoa antavat tekstilajit, diskurssien ja kielenkäytön tapojen yhdistely sekä intertekstuaaliset viittaukset esimerkiksi kotimaiseen runouteen, laululyriikoihin ja Aleksis Kiven teksteihin. Rakenteellista väkivaltaa on Taivaassa nähtävissä riippuvuutta aiheuttavan virtuaalimaailman, kerjäläisjärjestelyn, rasistisen kansalaisuuden rajauksen sekä epäoikeudenmukaisen resurssien ja vallan jakautumisen muodossa. Rakenteellista väkivaltaa kuvataan Taivaassa esimerkiksi passiivirakenteilla ja metonyymisillä ilmauksilla, jotka häivyttävät väkivallan alkulähdettä. Rakenteellista väkivaltaa Yliajassa edustaa keskeisimmin Lex 75, jonka kuvailemisessa käytetään vaikuttamaan pyrkivää kieltä ja eufemistisia ilmauksia. Leinon teoksista voi tunnistaa sekä rakenteellista että kollektiivista väkivaltaa, ja nämä kaksi väkivallan muotoa näyttävät olevan teoksissa yhteydessä

SOSA – a new model to simulate the concentrations of organic vapours and sulphuric acid inside the ABL – Part 1: Model description and initial evaluation

Chemistry in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) is controlled by complex processes of surface fluxes, flow, turbulent transport, and chemical reactions. We present a new model SOSA (model to simulate the concentration of organic vapours and sulphuric acid) and attempt to reconstruct the emissions, transport and chemistry in the ABL in and above a vegetation canopy using tower measurements from the SMEAR II at Hyytiälä, Finland and available soundings data from neighbouring meteorological stations. Using the sounding data for upper boundary condition and nudging the model to tower measurements in the surface layer we were able to get a reasonable description of turbulence and other quantities through the ABL. As a first application of the model, we present vertical profiles of organic compounds and discuss their relation to newly formed particles

Particle concentration and flux dynamics in the atmospheric boundary layer as the indicator of formation mechanism

We carried out column model simulations to study particle fluxes and deposition and to evaluate different particle formation mechanisms at a boreal forest site in Finland. We show that kinetic nucleation of sulphuric acid cannot be responsible for new particle formation alone as the simulated vertical profile of particle number concentration does not correspond to observations. Instead organic induced nucleation leads to good agreement confirming the relevance of the aerosol formation mechanism including organic compounds emitted by the biosphere. <br><br> The simulation of aerosol concentration within the atmospheric boundary layer during nucleation event days shows a highly dynamical picture, where particle formation is coupled with chemistry and turbulent transport. We have demonstrated the suitability of our turbulent mixing scheme in reproducing the most important characteristics of particle dynamics within the boundary layer. Deposition and particle flux simulations show that deposition affects noticeably only the smallest particles in the lowest part of the atmospheric boundary layer

HIMMELI v1.0: HelsinkI Model of MEthane buiLd-up and emIssion for peatlands

Wetlands are one of the most significant natural sources of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. They emit CH4 because decomposition of soil organic matter in waterlogged anoxic conditions produces CH4, in addition to carbon dioxide (CO2). Production of CH4 and how much of it escapes to the atmosphere depend on a multitude of environmental drivers. Models simulating the processes leading to CH4 emissions are thus needed for upscaling observations to estimate present CH4 emissions and for producing scenarios of future atmospheric CH4 concentrations. Aiming at a CH4 model that can be added to models describing peatland carbon cycling, we developed a model called HIMMELI that describes CH4 build-up in and emissions from peatland soils. It is not a full peatland carbon cycle model but it requires the rate of anoxic soil respiration as input. Driven by soil temperature, leaf area index (LAI) of aerenchymatous peatland vegetation and water table depth (WTD), it simulates the concentrations and transport of CH4, CO2 and oxygen (O2) in a layered one-dimensional peat column. Here, we present the HIMMELI model structure, results of tests on the model sensitivity to the input data and to the description of the peat column (peat depth and layer thickness), and an intercomparison of the modelled and measured CH4 fluxes at Siikaneva, a peatland flux measurement site in Southern Finland. As HIMMELI describes only the CH4-related processes, not the full carbon cycle, our analysis revealed mechanisms and dependencies that may remain hidden when testing CH4 models connected to complete peatland carbon models, which is usually the case. Our results indicated that 1) the model is flexible and robust and thus suitable for different environments; 2) the simulated CH4 emissions largely depend on the prescribed rate of anoxic respiration; 3) the sensitivity of the total CH4 emission to other input variables, LAI and WTD, is mainly mediated via the O2 concentrations that affect the CH4 production and oxidation rates; 4) with given input respiration, the peat column description does not affect significantly the simulated CH4 emissions

Global emissions of terpenoid VOCs from terrestrial vegetation in the last millennium

Peer reviewe

Large methane releases lead to strong aerosol forcing and reduced cloudiness

The release of vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere as a result of clathrate destabilization is a potential mechanism for rapid amplification of global warming. Previous studies have calculated the enhanced warming based mainly on the radiative effect of the methane itself, with smaller contributions from the associated carbon dioxide or ozone increases. Here, we study the effect of strongly elevated methane (CH4) levels on oxidant and aerosol particle concentrations using a combination of chemistry-transport and general circulation models. A 10-fold increase in methane concentrations is predicted to significantly decrease hydroxyl radical (OH) concentrations, while moderately increasing ozone (O3). These changes lead to a 70 % increase in the atmospheric lifetime of methane, and an 18 % decrease in global mean cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNC). The CDNC change causes a radiative forcing that is comparable in magnitude to the longwave radiative forcing ("enhanced greenhouse effect") of the added methane. Together, the indirect CH4-O3 and CH4-OH-aerosol forcings could more than double the warming effect of large methane increases. Our findings may help explain the anomalously large temperature changes associated with historic methane releases