Pollution Across Chinese Provinces

We revisit the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis using 1987-1995 data for Chinese provinces. A comparison of off-sample (1996-2004) predictions to actual emissions indicates that more stringent rules are still needed to fight industrial (waste water and dust) pollution. Auxiliary regressions show that conditional on income, northern provinces have lower industrial waste water pollution; non-coastal and provinces with smaller secondary industry shares have lower industrial (waste water, COD, and dust) pollution; provinces with smaller state-owned enterprises share have lower industrial COD pollution; and, commitment to control industrial dust pollution is correlated with local governments budget balance.environmental Kuznets curves, Chinese provinces, pollution

An extension and application of the Leontief pollution model for waste generation and disposal in Scotland

Solid waste generation, treatment and disposal are important policy concerns for the Scottish Parliament. As a result of the Environment Act 1995, a National Waste Strategy for Scotland was introduced with the general aim of reducing the amount of waste produced and dealing with what is produced in more sustainable ways. This implies the need for an empirical framework to inform policymakers regarding the relationship between economic activity and waste generation, treatment and disposal and the likely impacts of any policy actions or other disturbances on all types of sustainability indicators. In this paper we report on a study to develop an extended input-output (IO) system of the type originally proposed in the seminal paper by Leontief (1970). This involves extending the standard IOaccounts to take account of pollution or waste generation as an additional output accompanying production and consumption activities in the economy and of the activity required to clean up (or prevent) these unwanted outputs. The extension of IO tables to take account of pollution/waste generation is relatively widespread in the literature. It is usually achieved through the introduction of physical pollution/waste-output coefficients, and has been previously applied to Scotland for the case ofair pollution (see McNicoll & Blackmore, 1993, McGregor et al, 2001). Such an approach allows us to examine the impact of the economy on the environment, in terms of the amount of pollution/waste emitted as a result of economic activity. However, it does not allow us to track the feedback from the environment to the economy in terms of the resources used in environmental cleaning. If we areinterested in this aspect, we need to identify the input structure of any pollution abatement or waste disposal activities and identify columns in the IO tables representing cleaning activities

Pollution Prevention and Business Management. Curricula for Schools of Business and Public Health. Volume 1: Modules 1-3

These instructional modules are based on the premise that sustained economic development is dependent upon sustained protection ofthe environment. They also reflect the fact that preventing waste is far more cost effective than managing the waste once it is generated. Pollution prevention not only offers businesses a competitive opportunity, it is a natural extension of sound management practices. Incorporating pollution prevention into business management and government regulation will enhance longterm economic prosperity.published or submitted for publicatio

Optimal Nuclear Waste Burial Policy under Uncertainty

The aim of this paper is to study the optimal nuclear waste burial policy under an uncertainty : the possibility that an accident might occur in the future. The framework is an optimal growth model with pollution disutility. We show, under some conditions on the waste burial policy, that nuclear power may be a long-term solution for the world energy demand. Under uncertainty on the future safety of the buried waste, the social planner will decide to decrease the rate of waste burying, but the evolution of consumption and hence the evolution of the level of buried waste, are ambiguous. Depending on some simple conditions on the balanced growth rate of the economy and on the preference parameters of the households, the optimal amount of buried waste may increase, even if there is a risk of accident in the future.Nuclear waste; pollution; growth; uncertainty

BIOEDAGRADATION OF THERMOPLASTIC POLYURETHANES

Pollution of the environment by the waste of polymers – the planetary problem. Decomposition of waste takes place in the environment during decades and centuries. It is prospectively sustainable to use of plastic biomaterials, which can easily be destroyed in the soil. Starch is one of the cheapest raw materials for the organization of industrial production of biopolymers. Due to its polysaccharide nature, starch is easily digested by microorganisms of the soi

BIOEDAGRADATION OF THERMOPLASTIC POLYURETHANES

Pollution of the environment by the waste of polymers – the planetary problem. Decomposition of waste takes place in the environment during decades and centuries. It is prospectively sustainable to use of plastic biomaterials, which can easily be destroyed in the soil. Starch is one of the cheapest raw materials for the organization of industrial production of biopolymers. Due to its polysaccharide nature, starch is easily digested by microorganisms of the soi

Combined air and water pollution control system

A bioaquatic air pollution control system for controlling both water and atmospheric pollution is disclosed. The pollution control system includes an exhaust for directing polluted gases out of a furnace and a fluid circulating system which circulates fluid, such as waste water, from a source, past the furnace where the fluid flow entrains the pollutants from the furnace. The combined fluid and pollutants are then directed through a rock/plant/microbial filtering system. A suction pump pumps the treated waste water from the filter system past the exhaust to again entrain more pollutants from the furnace where they are combined with the fluid (waste water) and directed to the filter system

Employee Participation in Pollution Reduction: Preliminary Analysis of the Toxics Release Inventory

Can the amount of toxic waste released into the environment by manufacturing facilities be reduced by formally involving employees in pollution prevention? Pursuant to the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began requiring that manufacturers report human resource management strategies related to source reduction (reduction of waste at the source), as part of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). These strategies often involve employee participation in some form. Here we report the preliminary findings of an ongoing study of the effect of employee participation on source reduction, based on the 1991-1992 TRI database. We find, for example, that manufacturers using a certain combination of three formal employee participation practices had triple the reduction in emissions of manufacturers using none of these practices. We also discuss competing predictors of source reduction, and future research directions

Optimal Control of Nutrient Pollution in a Coastal Ecosystem: Agricultural Abatement versus Investment in Wastewater Treatment Capacity

We examine in a dynamic framework how public resources should be allocated to small-scale water protection efforts in agriculture or alternatively to investments in large-scale waste water treatment plants to control point source loads. The building of waste water treatment capacity is characterized by high set-up costs as compared to the operating costs. We determine the optimal timing of investment, the rate of nutrient load reduction from point versus non-point sources, and the optimal switching policies from control of non-point pollution only to control of both non-point and point sources. The results of the analytical model are illustrated with simulation of optimal abatement policies for the Finnish coastal waters in the Gulf of Finland.non-point source pollution, point-source pollution, timing of investment, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Industrial Growth and Environmental Protection in Metro Cebu: Some Challenges and Recommendations

Associated with industrialization is the aggravation of environmental problems. This issue looks into Metro Cebu manufacturing data to investigate industrial pollution and environmental protection. Findings in this issue can provide useful information for the development of recommendations pertinent to other industrialized areas.metropolitan structure, metropolitan planning and development, industrial growth, industrial pollution, environmental management, wastewater treatment facility, industrial waste, EIS system