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The Western Mosquitofish as an Environmental Sentinel: Parasites and Histological Lesions
Published in Mark R. Servos, Kelly R. Munkittrick, John H. Carey, Glen J. Van Der Kraak, and PAPER MILL EFFLUENTS, 2020
Robin M. Overstreet, William E. Hawkins, Thomas L. Deardorff
Of paramount concern is whether effluents from pulp and paper mills or other sources induce neoplastic lesions, or cancers, in exposed organisms. Numerous types of neoplastic lesions have been reported to occur in wild fishes; however, only liver neoplasms have been shown convincingly to have a chemical etiology (Harshbarger et al. 1993). In addition to noting a strong epizootic association of liver cancer with environmental pollutants, those authors listed nine other lines of evidence dealing with experimental studies, biochemistry, molecular biology, lack of virus, and risk assessment that support such an etiology. To our knowledge, no studies have associated effluents from pulp and paper mills with histologically confirmed neoplasms in exposure fish although unusual tissue masses were seen in kidneys of 6 of 15 winter flounder exposed to effluent from a pulp and paper mill at Port Harmon, Newfoundland (Khan et al. 1992). The lack of neoplasms in mosquitofish and other fishes suggests that if carcinogens were present in the effluent, they were not present in high enough concentration to induce cancer.
Short-use products: packaging, consumables and disposables
Published in Jane Penty, Product Design and Sustainability, 2019
While the most commonly used fibre for paper pulp is tree cellulose, consider specifying fibres from bamboo and high-volume agricultural by-products such as bagasse and different types of straw that have much lower footprints. Appropriate uses of these fibres are moulded biodegradable take-out food containers and other disposable dishes, especially for events and festivals where bio-composting can be controlled. Wasara’s disposable tableware is an excellent example of how design can transform low-value, low-impact materials, such as bagasse and bamboo fibres, into high-value products that embody classic and timeless Japanese aesthetic values (fig 5.28).
The supply-chain water footprint of paper
Published in Arjen Y. Hoekstra, The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society, 2019
Probably more important than the consumptive use of water in pulp and paper mills is the pollution that comes from those mills. Chemical pulps are made by cooking the raw materials and adding chemicals. The mixture of chemicals added depends on the process applied; we should distinguish between the kraft (sulfate) process, the sulfite process and the sodium process. Although mechanical pulping is applied as well, chemical pulping is the most commonly used pulping process, whereby the sulfate process is the most common technique applied. After pulping, the pulp is generally bleached to make it whiter. Different sorts of chemicals are used in this process, including, for example, chlorine, sodium hypochlorite and chlorine dioxide. Particularly the use of elemental chlorine or chlorine compounds result in high concentrations of undesired compounds in effluents. Water pollution from pulp and paper mills mostly stems from the organic matter contained in the effluents, which generally include a lot of chlorinated organic compounds like dioxins and other adsorbable organic halides (which go under the abbreviation AOX). The organic matter content in effluents from pulp and paper mills is measured by the ‘biochemical oxygen demand’ (BOD) in the effluent; a large BOD in effluents can lead to oxygen depletion and fish kills in rivers. High concentrations of AOX can also lead to toxicity and fish kills.
Evaluation of life cycle assessment in a paper manufacture by analytical hierarchy process
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Engineering, 2021
Mohammad Moosavi, Payam Ghorbannezhad, Majid Azizi, Hamid Zarea Hosseinabadi
The environmental impact and production process were obtained as the highest priority. The kraft and sulphite processes are two favourable pulp and paper processes because of high-quality products. These processes impose many environmental hazards such as enormous energy consumption, wastewater, chemical usage, etc. led to damage to natural resources. The development of recycled paper makes a lot of advantages in pulp and paper manufacture include reduction of GHG emissions, less energy consumption, lower hazard material in the wastewater, and protect natural resources. However, the lower quality of the paper is one of the main challenges in a recycled paper mill which adds virgin pulp like kraft pulp to compensate for this problem. In this regard, using fibre classification, changing the process, and modifying the equipment enables to achieve higher paper quality compared with virgin kraft pulp (Akhundzadeh and Shirazi 2017). Table 4 showed the result of the sub-criteria evaluation of the LCA boundary in a recycled paper mill in Iran. Change in the production line, waste management, reusing of water, reduction of total suspended solids, and process design was respectively ranked as first to fifth among 52 sub-criterions.
Characterization of kraft pulp delignification using sodium dithionite as bleaching agent
Published in Chemical Engineering Communications, 2020
Jishnu Krishnan, Susmith Sunil Kumar, R. Krishna Prasad
Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material produced by chemical and mechanical isolation of cellulose fibers from wood chips, waste paper and other sources of biomass. The pulp has three major constituents namely cellulose fibers (essential for paper manufacturing), lignin (a three dimensional polymer that binds the cellulose matrix) and hemicelluloses (shorter branched carbohydrate polymers). Cellulose is a linear polysaccharide with degree of polymerization of 10,000. Cellulose are bundled together to form a structure called fibrils. Fibrils are basic cluster or aggregate that makes up the cell wall of the wood. Hemicellulose is a component associated with lignin and cellulose which is found in fibril matrix of the cell wall of wood. Xylan (a group of hemicelluloses) has degree of polymerization of 100–123 units (Jakob et al., 1994; Sharma et al., 2018).
A comparison of hourly with annual air pollutant emissions: Implications for estimating acute exposure and public health risk
Published in Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2019
Michael J. Stewart, James Hirtz, George M. Woodall, Chelsea A. Weitekamp, Kelley Spence
The Clean Air Act (CAA) directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set health-based standards for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), criteria air pollutants (CAPs), and other designated pollutants released into the air from anthropogenic sources (CAA 1990). For example, the pulp and paper industrial sector consists of facilities that convert wood into pulp (i.e., pulp mills) and facilities that convert pulp into paper (i.e., paper mills). There are currently 107 chemical pulp mills in operation in the United States (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] 2017a). Of these, 97 utilize the kraft pulping process. In this process, wood chips are treated under pressure and high temperature with a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. Pulp is washed prior to paper making, and spent cooking chemicals are recovered for reuse in the process and to generate steam. These processes result in emissions of HAPs, CAPs, and designated pollutants that can result in human health effects. Studies of pulp mill workers have shown that chemicals from operations at these facilities can increase the risk for dermatitis, airway inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and/or cancer following occupational exposures (Andersson et al. 2007; Jungbauer et al. 2005; Rylander, Thorn, and Attefors 1999; Toren, Hagberg, and Westberg 1996; Toren, Persson, and Wingren 1996). An epidemiologic study reported a possible association between proximity to pulp mills and wheezing symptoms in adolescents who reported using cigarettes or experienced secondhand smoke exposure (Mirabelli and Wing 2006).