Educating for urban sustainability: A transdisciplinary approach

An understanding of sustainability issues should be a key component of degree programmes. It is widely regarded as being a central attribute to professional practice and responsible global citizenship, arguably more so for the training of teachers since they potentially influence their students. This issue was brought to the fore when responsibility for delivering the 'design and the environment' course was transferred to the building discipline at the University of Newcastle in Australia as a result of restructuring. The attractiveness of the subject as an elective, the need to make it accessible to distance learning students and the desirability of applying transdisciplinary approaches to solving environmental problems presented the course designers with both challenges and opportunities, particularly in devising an assessment context within which students from multiple disciplines could be exposed to, and learn from each other's professional environmental evaluation norms. This paper describes an innovative holistic, multi-criteria problem-solving course design that allows a diverse mix of undergraduates to develop a transdisciplinary understanding of sustainability issues through the use of learning contracts. It reports the experiences of staff and students involved with the course, highlighting the beneficial outcomes

“Control-Alt-Delete”: Rebooting Solutions for the E-Waste Problem

A number of efforts have been launched to solve the global electronic waste (e-waste) problem. The efficiency of e-waste recycling is subject to variable national legislation, technical capacity, consumer participation, and even detoxification. E-waste management activities result in procedural irregularities and risk disparities across national boundaries. We review these variables to reveal opportunities for research and policy to reduce the risks from accumulating e-waste and ineffective recycling. Full regulation and consumer participation should be controlled and reinforced to improve local e-waste system. Aiming at standardizing best practice, we alter and identify modular recycling process and infrastructure in eco-industrial parks that will be expectantly effective in countries and regions to handle the similar e-waste stream. Toxicity can be deleted through material substitution and detoxification during the life cycle of electronics. Based on the idea of "Control-Alt-Delete", four patterns of the way forward for global e-waste recycling are proposed to meet a variety of local situations

Insertion Chemistry of Cp*2Y(2-pyridyl) and Molecular Structure of the Unexpected CO Insertion Product (Cp*2Y)2(μ-η2:η2-OC(NC5H4)2)

Pyridine is metalated selectively at the 2-position by (Cp*2YH)2 to yield Cp*2Y(2-pyridyl) (1). Compound 1 reacts with H2 to give the hydride addition product Cp*2Y(NC5H6) (2). With THF and pyridine the adducts Cp*2Y(η2-2-pyridyl)(THF) (3) and Cp*2Y(η1-2-pyridyl)(py) (4) are formed. The pyridine complex 4 is not stable at higher temperatures, and after organic work up a stoichiometric amount of the C-C coupling product 2,2'-bipyridine is obtained. Ethylene and propylene react with 1 to give the monoinsertion products Cp*2YCH2CH2(2-NC5H4) (5) and Cp*2YCH2CHMe(2-NC5H4) (6). With alkynes HCCR, C-H activation to form the acetylides Cp*2Y(CCR)(py) (7, R = H; 8, R = Me) is the dominant reaction. Also with 2-butyne C-H activation is observed yielding the propargylic metalation product Cp*2YCH2CCMe (9). 2-Pentyne gives a mixture of insertion products Cp*2Y(CEtCMe(2-NC5H4)) (10) and Cp*2Y(CMeCEt(2-NC5H4)) (11). A surprising reaction with CO to form (Cp*2Y)2(μ-η2:η2-OC(2-NC5H4)2) (12) was observed. The molecular structure of 12 was determined by X-ray diffraction: Space group P21/c with unit cell parameters a = 14.194(4) Å, b = 17.559(4) Å, c = 18.717(5) Å, β = 109.61(2)°, and Z = 4. Least-squares refinement based on 6867 reflections converged to R1 = 0.09. Compound 5 gives σ-bond metathesis with pyridine to form 1 and 2-ethylpyridine. By using 1 as a catalyst, alkylation of pyridine to 2-ethylpyridine is possible. Also minor amounts of 2-n-butylpyridine, 2-n-hexylpyridine, and polyethylene were formed in this catalytic process. Compound 5 is not thermally stable and decomposes to the isomers Cp*2Y(2-NC5H3(6-Et)) (13) and Cp*2YCHMe(2-NC5H4) (14) at 80 °C (60:40). Attempts to convert 5 to 1 and 2-ethylpyridine by hydrogenolysis of the Y-C bond also resulted in the formation of a mixture of 13 and 14 (55:45). In this reaction the formation of an intermediate hydride complex seems likely because (Cp*2YH)2 and 2-ethylpyridine also give products 13 and 14.