25
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Sinks as limited resources? A new indicator for evaluating anthropogenic material flows

      research-article

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Graphical abstract

          Highlights

          • Sinks are required to accommodate wastes and emissions.

          • Anthropogenic sinks are provided where capacities of geogenic sinks are lacking.

          • A new indicator discriminates between acceptable and unacceptable flows to sinks.

          • The indicator is applied in three case studies on urban and national scales.

          • Implications for resource, waste and environmental management are discussed.

          Abstract

          Besides recyclables, the use of materials inevitably yields non-recyclable materials such as emissions and wastes for disposal. These flows must be directed to sinks in a way that no adverse effects arise for humans and the environment. The objective of this paper is to present a new indicator for the assessment of substance flows to sinks on a regional scale. The indicator quantifies the environmentally acceptable mass share of a substance in actual waste and emission flows, ranging from 0% as worst case to 100% as best case. This paper consists of three parts: first, the indicator is defined. Second, a methodology to determine the indicator score is presented, including (i) substance flows analysis and (ii) a distant-to-target approach based on an adaptation of the Ecological Scarcity Method 2006. Third, the metric developed is applied in three case studies including copper (Cu) and lead (Pb) in the city of Vienna, and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in Switzerland. The following results were obtained: in Vienna, 99% of Cu flows to geogenic and anthropogenic sinks are acceptable when evaluated by the distant-to-target approach. However, the 0.7% of Cu entering urban soils and the 0.3% entering receiving waters are beyond the acceptable level. In the case of Pb, 92% of all flows into sinks prove to be acceptable, and 8% are disposed of in local landfills with limited capacity. For PFOS, 96% of all flows into sinks are acceptable. 4% cannot be evaluated due to a lack of normative criteria, despite posing a risk for human health and the environment. The examples demonstrate the need (i) for appropriate data of good quality to calculate the sink indicator and (ii) for standards, needed for the assessment of substance flows to urban soils and receiving waters. This study corroborates that the new indicator is well suited as a base for decisions regarding the control of hazardous substances in waste and environmental management.

          Related collections

          Most cited references33

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Global perspectives on e-waste

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Handling e-waste in developed and developing countries: Initiatives, practices, and consequences

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Distinguishing between natural and anthropogenic sources for elements in the environment: regional geochemical surveys versus enrichment factors.

              High element enrichment factors (EFs) are commonly used in the literature to support the hypothesis that a particular suite of elements is of anthropogenic origin. Real-world examples of regional geochemical surveys demonstrate that EFs can be high or low due to a multitude of reasons, of which contamination is but one. This applies to EFs calculated relative to either the crust or some local background (e.g., a deeper soil layer). Results from local studies near industrial centres showing high (and pollution-related) EFs cannot be generalised over large areas or for sample sites far removed (i.e., more than some tens of kilometers) from a likely pollution source. Regional-scale geochemical mapping, on the other hand, facilitates the reliable estimation of the influence of contamination on the measured element concentrations. EFs are strongly influenced by, among other factors, biogeochemical processes that redistribute chemical elements between environmental compartments at the Earth's surface. Using EFs to detect or 'prove' human influence on element cycles in remote areas should be avoided because, in most cases, high EFs cannot conclusively demonstrate, nor even suggest, such influence.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Ecol Indic
                Ecol Indic
                Ecological Indicators
                Elsevier Science
                1470-160X
                1872-7034
                1 November 2014
                November 2014
                : 46
                : 596-609
                Affiliations
                [a ]Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Water Quality, Resource and Waste Management, Karlsplatz 13/226, A-1040 Vienna, Austria 1
                [b ]National Taiwan University, Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, 71 Chou-Shan Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. Tel.: +43 1 58801 22655. ulrich.kral@ 123456tuwien.ac.at
                Article
                S1470-160X(14)00280-5
                10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.06.027
                4183748
                015abce0-04d9-4801-a79e-546e13ed8fd4
                © 2014 The Authors
                History
                : 19 January 2014
                : 15 May 2014
                : 18 June 2014
                Categories
                Article

                sink,substance flow analysis,resource management,environmental management,pfos,copper,lead

                Comments

                Comment on this article