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Specialists from both the environmental protection and environmental law areas have different perceptions on the environmental legislation, due to the particularities of the regulatory and legislative acts, on one hand, and the particularities of the technical approach to the environmental quality evaluation, on the other. This study is presenting the flow of the environmental legislative process and the relationship between the environmental norms, standards and monitoring with the national, European Union (EU) and international environmental legislation. The environmental legislative flow is further completed by the contribution of legislative monitoring and legislative assessment processes, also integrating the environmental monitoring mechanisms and their particular results, turning the flow into an environmental legislative cycle. It was concluded that the environmental monitoring mechanism, used for the development of environmental legislation, is necessary to verify both its legislative effects and its intervention on further regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the lack of European Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the field of the Toxicology and the major differences in the styles of teaching and learning of this important subject in amongst various European life science-oriented institutions, the European Erasmus+ project "Learning Toxicology through Open Educational Resources (TOX-OER)" was developed and implemented. Considering the complexity and heterogeneity of the toxicology field, the TOX-OER project main objective was to develop and share toxicology-related knowledge and skills among students/ earners from seven countries, which promote the internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in Europe but also in countries from other continents. The project was coordinated by Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), and the partners were: Space Research and Technology Institute (Bulgaria), Univerzita Karlova V Praze (Czech Republic), South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Università di Bologna (Italy), Universidade do Porto (Portugal) and Universitatea Transilvania din Brasov (Romania). One of the goals/ objectives of the project is the dissemination, popularizing the information and reaching potentially interested people who can benefit from the offered courses. The aim of this paper is to present and analyze part of the TOX-OER's outcomes developed by the project's partnership, especially the modules/ topics related to the drugs, gaseous and persistent organic pollutants, as the principal groups of xenobiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to present the sorption properties of two sorbent substrates (composts) prepared by aerobic fermentation from vegetables waste composted with beech sawdust (BR2) and beech ash (BC1) to be used for Cu2+ removal from wastewaters. The composts structures and surface properties were characterised in terms of active groups (FTIR), crystallinity (XRD), morphology (SEM), topography (AFM) and specific surface and pores analysis (BET), and the changes in properties after Cu2+ sorption were outlined. Kinetic studies of the copper sorption were performed and the equilibrium time was determined, kinetic models have been applied to describe the sorption process. The pseudo second order kinetic model proved to be valid for both composts. The sorption parameters (pH, substrate dose, initial concentration) were optimized at the equilibrium time and the isotherms were plotted. The sorption capacities and removal efficiencies were discussed in direct relation with the structure, morphology, surface properties (specific surface, surface charge) of the composts. Langmuir and Freundlich models were used to fit the experimental data and sorption mechanisms were proposed. The Langmuir model is not able to describe the copper ions sorption on the two composts; better correlation coefficients are obtained when the Freundlich model is applied, specific for heterogeneous substrates. BR2 substrate is most likely able to support unspecific physical interactions, while parallel mechanisms also involving chemisorption are more probable for BC1. The results prove the sorption of copper ions onto compost type substrates can be used as an efficient step in the advanced wastewaters treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]