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The sludge resulted from the urban wastewater treatment plants, can be used, from a circular economy, as a fertilizer for agricultural and degraded lands, for horticulture and forestry. This paper aims to propose an alternative for the use of this type of sludge in a sustainable way, with a low impact on the environment. The study consisted of experiments done to recover the stabilized sludge from the urban wastewater treatment plants in the process of degraded land rehabilitation, using the energetic willow, Salix sp. The experimental results showed that the use of stabilized sludge as fertilizer for naturally and anthropogenic degraded lands determined the improvement of nutritional characteristics of the lands cultivated with Salix sp., and allowed the growth, development, and maintenance of this plant. Taking into consideration the characteristics of the cultures and the quantities of metals accumulated by Salix sp., it can be concluded that these plants were adapted to the environmental conditions and the substrate toxically composition. The results obtained on two degraded lands indicate that Salix sp. can be used for its introduction in the economic circuit, both for salty soils and ash dumps.

The paper focused on the possible links among pollution, pollution management efficiency including waste management and the propensity of a variety of emerging diseases in our society by answering the question: “How pollution can affect human health?” Environmental pollution is a reality and our planet ecosystem possibilities to face the challenges due to the constant exceeding its resilience are becoming smaller and smaller. The evolution of the climate change indicators like global temperature, global CO2 emissions, oceans acidification and species extinction point out that in a not very long period of time, the planet will not be able to sustain any more the present society’s life style set by the current economic development. Therefore, many warning signals have been issued to change the present behavior in order to reduce significant damages done to the environment and on human health with serious implications on the dysregulation of our immunity and the onset of a plethora of diseases. In this respect, the present paper reviewed relevant aspects linked to the environmental pollution issues that become part of scientific and public debates presented in specialty literature in recent years emphasizing why the implementation of “One Health” concept is necessary.

Both nationally and globally, waste generation increases with increasing product consumption. Thus, addressing the issue of waste is an ongoing challenge for researchers around the world. This challenge derives from the fact that in many European countries, including Romania, the amount of waste generated is very high compared to current technologies for treatment, recycle or recovery. Therefore, the most convenient management methods remain storage and incineration. These methods generate significant amounts of hazardous pollutants with a significant impact on the environment and human health. The paper presents a series of results related to waste management obtained within National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology – ECOIND Bucharest in the last 10 years. The paper is focused on four topics: analytical detection and monitoring of waste pollutants; environmental impact and risk assessments; harmonized waste classification and management; waste treatment and recovery technologies. The results obtained within these topics refer to optimal methods for detection and characterization of complex waste matrices, methods for assessing the impact on the environment generated by non-compliant landfills and risk prediction and reliable solutions and technologies for waste treatment and recovery. The topics approached represent a challenge for starting the implementation of circular economy concept promoted by EU and adopted by countries and governments all over the world.

A newly developed direct injection HPLC-DAD method for the simultaneous detection of Brilliant Blue (BB), Sunset Yellow (SY) and Tartrazine (TA) synthetic dyes was validated and applied to surface and wastewater samples. Chromatographic separation was achieved using an Acclaim Surfactant Plus column (150 x 3.0 mm, 3 um) in isocratic elution mode with a mobile phase consisting of 100 mM CH3COONH4 and ACN in the ratio 50/50 (v/v). Linear calibration curves were plotted in the range of 2-100 μg/L (BB) and 6-300 μg/L (SY, TA) respectively with correlation coefficients (R2) higher than 0.99. Low quantitation limit values (LOQ) were obtained for the direct injection HPLC-DAD method, namely: 1.0 �g/L (BB), 5.5 �g/L (SY) and 5.8 �g/L (TA), respectively. The entire sample preparation procedure consisted only in simple filtration using PTFE syringe filters (0.45 �m) without sample extraction or concentration, which improved method accuracy and precision. HPLC-DAD developed method proved to be fast (6 minutes run-time), sensitive and accurate and was succesfully applied for the analysis of the synthetic dyes in surface and wastewater samples. Considering all analyzed samples (8 surface water and 11 wastewater samples), Brilliant Blue was found in influent samples with values between 4.49 � 14.17 �g/L and effluent samples with values between 1.07 � 9.54 �g/L, whereas Sunset Yellow and Tartrazine were not detected in any of the analyzed samples.

The paper presents the test results regarding the evaluation of the accuracy of the PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter concentration measurement performed with the uRADMonitor A3 fixed air quality monitoring station produced by SC MAGNASCI SRL. The procedure involves the calculation of the accuracy elements: trueness and precision, based on the experimental data obtained by measuring the concentration of particulate matter using the tested analysers in parallel with the reference method, SR EN 12341: 2014, and analysis of data series by Pearson correlation and linear regression.

Two spectrometric methods have been developed for quantitative simultaneous determination of procaine hydrochloride (PH·HCl), procainamide hydrochloride (PHA·HCl) and lidocaine (Lid) from synthetic mixture. The methods employed are first derivative spectrometry, using zero crossing method and multicomponent analysis which is based on the additivity law. Using first derivative spectrometry, the wavelength selected for the quantitative determination of PH·HCl was 237 nm for Lid was 242 nm and for PHA·HCl was 290 nm in mixture. The method is linear when the concentration ranged between 6.62-9.93 μg/mL for PH·HCl, 6.43-9.64 for PHA·HCl and 5.56-8.35 for Lid. The multicomponent analysis is a direct method and involves the absorbance measurements of at three different wavelengths. The molar absorption coefficients values were calculated at each wavelength and the concentration of PH·HCl, PHA·HCl and Lid from mixture was determined by solving matrix using Cramer's rule. The recovery of each compound in mixture was calculated and it is 101.4 % for PH·HCl, 100.4 % for PHA·HCl and 98.4 % for Lid.

The odours in the ambient air, through the discomfort that they induce, represent an actual problem for the communities located nearby companies with technological processes that emit in the air different strong and unpleasant odorous substances. The standard method for odour assessment involves measuring the concentration through dynamic olfactometry according with SR EN 13725:2003, a very complex method that requires specialized working staff and expensive equipment. The paper presents an indirect method for odour assessment in the ambient air, based on monitoring the process and meteorological data - Predictive Emission Monitoring Systems (PEMS) and it is applied to a livestock farm. Using the multiple regression analysis of the monitoring data for the most important specific technological and meteorological parameters it can be developed a mathematical model that could be used for the calculation of odour concentration in air, without the necessity of direct measurement, after the initial step. For the case study presented in the paper, the distance between the slurry lagoon was identified as a significant statistical parameter that can determine in a proportion of 72% the concentration of odour in the ambient air nearby the farm; the margin of error for odour concentration assessment, according to the model validation tests, is ± 8%, acceptable value for an estimation method by mathematical modelling.

The assessment of the storage capacity of heavy metals (Zn, Cu, Ni) in Lemna minor L., was carried out on wastewater from galvanizing plants. Purification yield decreases with increasing metal concentration in water. The rate of bioaccumulation is high in the first three days, then decreases over the next four days.

The study aims to assess the identification of the specific species of plants for selection of certain plant species and utilization of selected one�s in experimental biomonitoring studies.The purpose of the proposed study was to develop and apply new techniques, methods and methodologies for air quality assessing in the context of climate change and updating of international environmental studys. The novelty of the active biomonitoring method using plants is an innovative research area for the National Research and Development Institute for Industrial Ecology in terms of the use of sentinel species. The first stage research activity was aimed to identify plant species with specific response to certain environmental pollutants, in our case, ozone. By exposing higher plants (from the Solanaceae family) to various environmental conditions, a direct impact measurement of ground-level ozone was considered - as an indicator of environmental pollution (air) - there was a significant difference relationship between soil level ozone variation and foliar necrosis.

International Symposium "The Environment and the Industry", 20-21 September, 2018, Bucharest, Romania, pp. 78-79

This paper presents a new way to assess the environmental impact on historical artifacts using binary logistic regression. The prediction of the impact on the exhibits during certain pollution scenarios (environmental impact) was calculated by a mathematical model based on the binary logistic regression; it allows the identification of those environmental parameters from a multitude of possible parameters with a significant impact on exhibitions and ranks them according to their severity effect. Air quality (NO2, SO2, O3 and PM2.5) and microclimate parameters (temperature, humidity) monitoring data from a case study conducted within exhibition and storage spaces of the Romanian National Aviation Museum Bucharest have been used for developing and validating the binary logistic regression method and the mathematical model. The logistic regression analysis was used on 794 data combinations (715 to develop of the model and 79 to validate it) by a Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20.0). Th...

Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) represents an integrated approach that aims to reduce urban water demand from centralised urban water sewerage system through implementation of water consumption reduction management, use of alternative water sources, water recycling and reuse. IUWM is not a scope but rather a tool used to integrate water resources, economic sectors that are using water, water supply – sewerage systems and water management authorities. Based on the three pillars of sustainable development a strategic model for implementation of IUWM within urban areas was developed. For the implementation of proposed IUWM strategic model the following main steps are needed to be undertaken: real diagnosis of the current water management status, setting up the vision, mission and fundamental values, establishment of strategic objectives structured on four perspectives (financial, partners, internal processes, learning/growth) and development of key performance indicators set. An example of proposed IUWM strategic model applied on an urban area is also presented.