Industrial Symbiosis Track (ISDR Conference Hong Kong)- Abstract Submission deadline 31st March

Dear All

We have now received very good quality abstracts in good number and we are sure that the meeting at the ISDR conference in Hong Kong would be a great forum for an engaging discussion on the topic.

Due to huge interest, the online abstract submission system is kept open until March 31st 2010. So if anyone still wishes to submit an abstract, you could do so using the online system via http://papersubmission.hku.hk/sdconf10/ and by sending a copy of the abstract to me via a.agarwal@rgu.ac.uk

I very much look forward to meeting many of you in Hong Kong.

Kind regards

Abhi

The Journal of Industrial Ecology announces a special issue on Material Flow Analysis (MFA) - Free Download

Material flow analysis (MFA), the tracking and analysis of materials through the environment and the economy at various scales, holds out the promise of a unique lens through which to examine environmental challenges, providing a valuable addition to the toolkit available to analysts and decision makers.

The Journal of Industrial Ecology announces a special issue on
applications of MFA. This special issue describes a variety of ways
in which MFA has addressed real world situations around the globe,
particularly relating to problems of resource scarcity, pollution
abatement and waste management.

Articles in the special issue are available for free download at
http://www.wiley.com/go/appsmfa for
a limited time. A modest number of free print copies are available
for students, researchers from developing countries and journalists
(contact: indecol@yale.edu).

Prof. Ester van der
Voet, of the Institute of
Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University, the
Netherlands, Prof. Claudia Binder
of the Institute of Systems Sciences,
Innovation and Sustainability Research (ISIS) at the University of
Graz, Austria, and Dr. Kirsten Rosselot of
Process Profiles, Calabasas,
California, served as co-editors of the special issue.

The Journal of Industrial Ecology, a peer-reviewed international
scientific journal, is owned by Yale University, headquartered at the
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental
Studies and published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is the official journal
of the International Society for Industrial Ecology.

Support for this special issue was provided by the U.S. National
Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

====================
Reid J. Lifset, Assoc.
Dir. School of
Forestry & Env. Studies
Industrial Environmental Mgmt. Program Yale University
Editor, Journal of Industrial
Ecology 195 Prospect Street
203-432-6949 (tel) -5912 (fax) New Haven, CT 06511 USA
reid.lifset@yale.edu

PhD in Industrial Ecology in United States

Dear all,

I am a master student in Sweden in Environmental Management field and want to continue my education (Phd) in the field of Industrial Ecology in the United States. I have yet another year to finish my master, but I have to think from now about my thesis work.

United States is so huge and among thousands of web pages and college and university links I am a bit lost. I want to know where are the focal points of research in this field in the US and try to know the main trends so that I can choose my master thesis topic in such a way that increase my chances to continue my Phd in a very credible academic environment.

I am generally interested in Industrial Ecology, however I like to focus more in topics like Industrial Symbiosis, Crade-to-Cradle, Eco-Effectiveness and so on.

Can you please advise me about this. What schools in the United States are the leaders of research in this field?

If they are several (which surely they are) what are their focus areas (their strong fields) related to the mentioned topics?

I really appreciate your hints and advices.

(master student in Linkoping University, Sweden)

PhD Scholarships; resource recovery and environmental impacts assessments, LCA etc.; Deadline 15th March 2010

Please find below details of four PhD scholarships in the areas of resource recovery and environmental impacts assessments, LCA etc. Deadline 15th March 2010

3R Scholarships available (check www.3R.env.dtu.dk for more details)

PhD 16: Resource and environmental impacts assessment of recycling of construction and demolition waste (C&D waste).
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is one of the largest waste types in Denmark and the one showing the highest rate of recycling (>95%). However, the current recycling practice may be threatened by new regulation and lack of a holistic assessment of the overall benefits of recycling of C&D waste. Examples are: restrictive leaching test criteria cause testing of granulated concrete often to exceed limit values in particular for Cr; the extended producer responsibility applies also to reused concrete and may lead to excessive caution and thus with time may reduce recycling. A main aspect is that a careful mapping of C&D waste may show that only a very small part of the C&D waste stream may constitute a real risk while the remaining part is safely recyclable.

PhD 17: LCA model for sewage sludge - an EASEWASTE extension.
The project addresses resources and environmental impacts associated with management of sewage sludge by developing a special version of the waste-LCA-model EASEWASTE (Kirkeby et al,. 2006) that can assess the management of various types of sewage sludge as they are generated at sewage works. The sludge may undergo dewatering, transportation, digestion, composting, incineration, nutrient-recovery, landfilling or be use on land. The various management options provide different possibilities with respect to resource and energy recovery and cause different environmental impacts.

PhD 18: Inclusion in LCIA of human health impacts from occupational indoor or outdoor exposure to chemicals, pathogens and dust in waste management systems.
The project addresses human health impacts following from occupational exposure to chemicals, dust or pathogens for operators involved in the centralized sorting of waste or in the different treatments of the resulting waste fractions. It is expected that these human health impacts for some waste treatment technologies may be at least as important as the human health impacts caused by emissions to the environment, but it is not supported by any of the existing methods for life cycle assessment (LCA) and hence also not addressed by the EASEWASTE tool for LCA of waste management systems.

PhD 19: Innovations in design for recycling, collection and automated central recognition and sorting
The project shall identify and test upcoming methods for ‘waste design & material tagging’ paired with technologies for recognition/identification for centralized automated sorting/separation of waste streams with the aim of enhanced material recovery. A set of scenarios for future waste design and sorting and collection systems will be developed, and the efficiency of automated sorting of the waste streams deriving from these systems into recyclable waste fractions in lab scale will be documented. Finally, the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of the developed waste system designs will be analyzed by a system analysis approach.

Regards

Abhi