Clean-up Campaign Research Articles

Mediating and Moderating Factors Affecting Pro-environmental Decision-Making: A Spanish Study

Abstract Because it is relevant to analyse the variables that may influence pro-environmental decision-making, the aim of this study was to analyse (a) the mediating role of perceived responsibility towards climate change (CC) in the relationship between scepticism towards CC and pro-environmental decision-making; and (b) the moderating role of implicit theories about CC (ITCC) in the relationship between responsibility and pro-environmental decision-making. For this purpose, 209 Spanish students (48.8% female, 43.1% male,and 8.1% preferring not to report their gender; mean age = 17.48, sd = 3.78) completed a questionnaire twice (two months apart) and subsequently (again, two months apart) indicated how many days they wanted to participate in a beach cleanup campaign. The results corroborate that (a) responsibility mediates the relationship between scepticism and pro-environmental decision-making, and (b) ITCC moderates the relationship between responsibility and pro-environmental decision-making. The study highlights the need to foster beliefs about the mitigation of CC and to promote reliable information in order to reduce scepticism towards CC, as well as feelings of responsibility towards CC in the field of Environmental Education.

Causal Effect of Small Businesses on Street Theft: Evidence from a Natural Experiment of the Beijing Cleanup Campaign

Causal Effect of Small Businesses on Street Theft: Evidence from a Natural Experiment of the Beijing Cleanup Campaign

Microbiome in a ground-based analog cabin of China Space Station during a 50-day human occupation.

Dead-corner areas in space station that untouched by the clean-up campaign often experience microorganisms outbreaks, but the microbiome of these areas has never been studied. In this study, the microbiome in a ground-based analog ``Tianhe'' core module of China Space Station was first investigated during a 50-day three-crew occupation. Dead-corner areas were receiving attention by adopting a new sampling method. Results indicate that the astronauts occupation did not affect the dominant bacteria community, but affected a small proportion. Due to the frequent activity of astronauts in the work and sleep areas, the biomarkers in these two areas are common human skin surface and gut microorganisms, respectively. For areas that astronaut rarely visits, the biomarkers in which are common environmental microbial groups. Fluorescence counting showed that 70.12-84.78% of bacteria were alive, with a quantity of 104-105 cells/100cm2. With the occupation time extension, the number of microorganisms increased. At the same sampling time, there was no significant bioburden difference in various locations. The cultivable bioburden ranged from 101 to 104 colony forming unit (CFU)/100cm2, which are the following eight genera Penicillium, Microsphaeropsis, Stachybotrys, Humicola, Cladosporium, Bacillus, Planomicrobium, and Acinetobacter. Chryseomicrobium genus may be a key focus for future microbial prevention and control work.

Anthropogenic activities and COVID-19 effects on natural water bodies: Arroyo Seco’s case

Concerns about pollution in Arroyo Seco, an important natural water body in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, have been reported due to possible wastewater discharges and solid waste mismanagement, turning the river into a potential public health hazard in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, a volunteer clean-up campaign denominated “Arroyo Vivo” has been promoted by Distrito Tec and the Campana-Altamira initiative. To aid in the efforts, ammonium, nitrates, nitrites, and sulfate concentrations, total solids, and total organic matter were measured in parallel with SARS-CoV-2 detection and quantification in river water samples. Compared with applicable regulations (NOM-001-SEMARNAT-2021, NOM-127-SSA1-2021), total suspended solid levels (55-365 mg/L) were found above the maximum limit (84 mg/L), while ammonium (0.0175-0.198 mg/L), nitrite (0.0585-0.169 mg/L), nitrate (1.065-3.285 mg/L), sulfate (91.2-111 mg/L), and chemical oxygen demand (16.95-43.1 mg/L) were consistently below the maximum limits (0.50, 0.90, 11.00, 84.00, 400.00, and 100.00 mg/L, respectively), showing that no large-scale wastewater discharges had taken place in Arroyo Seco. However, SARS-CoV-2 genetic material was detected at three sampling sites, indicating some degree of sewage leakage and inadequate management of solid waste containing respiratory fluids of infected patients. While reports indicate that water bodies are not sources of SARS-CoV-2 infection in surrounding populations, it proves that waste disposal policies must be enforced more strictly to ensure water quality and environmental protection towards sustainable development. Nonetheless, continued efforts to screen concerning contaminants are still needed to fully assess the environmental status of the stream and propose relevant public policy.

Conversion of Marine Plastic Litter into Chemicals and Fuels through Catalytic Pyrolysis Using Commercial and Coal Fly Ash-Synthesized Zeolites

A marine plastic litter (MPL) sample, collected during a beach cleanup campaign, underwent thermal and catalytic pyrolyses to demonstrate that valuable hydrocarbon oil and gas can be produced from heterogeneous plastic waste, partly aged and not mechanically recyclable. A low-cost H-X zeolite lab synthesized from coal fly ash (CFA) was tested and compared with two commercial zeolites (H-USY and H-ZSM-5) commonly used in the industrial cracking field. MPL characterization revealed it is mainly composed of polyethylene and polypropylene (52 and 45 wt %, respectively), and it has ideal physicochemical properties as feed for pyrolysis processes. Thermogravimetric analyses demonstrated that catalysts can reduce the degradation temperature of MPL from 472 to 425 °C and from 450 to 421, 342, and 380 °C for H-ZSM-5, H-X/CFA, and H-USY, respectively. These results were confirmed by thermal and catalytic pyrolyses tests performed in a bench-scale reactor. All the catalytic tests were carried out at 450 °C with a liquid phase contact mode. In particular, H-X/CFA, avoiding tar and wax formation, produced up to 87 wt % of light oil with a high content of short chain aliphatic hydrocarbons, obtaining results very similar to those gained with the expensive commercial H-USY. For all the catalytic pyrolysis tests, the produced gases proved to be more than sufficient to sustain the process heat requirement.

Deportable and Disposable: Public Rhetoric and the Making of “Illegal” Immigrant

Deportable and Disposable: Public Rhetoric and the Making of “Illegal” Immigrant

The Characteristic of Measles Epidemic Process in Kyrgyz Republic

The Characteristic of Measles Epidemic Process in Kyrgyz Republic

Diasporic Condition: Jane Jin Kaisen’s Strange Meetings And Its Tracing Of Ambiguous Colonial Vestiges

ABSTRACT Jane Jin Kaisen’s 2017 video work, Strange Meetings, documents the inside and surroundings of a former STD (sexually transmittable disease) treatment center for prohibiting the spread of STD among the U.S. GIs as part of the “Clean-Up Campaign” during the 1970s, located near Soyo Mountain in Dongducheon-si, South Korea. This essay questions how the figure of diaspora expressed through art helps trace the contemporary vestiges of colonial violence, and raises a fundamental question to the notion of national community. I argue that Strange Meetings critically revisits South Korea’s nationalist historiography by foregrounding a metaphor of diaspora that, according to Stuart Hall, while signaling its “permanent instability” as a historical marker, exceeds binary structures of representation: such as, literal/figurative, past/present, and them/us. In Strange Meetings, diasporic identities are kaksŏri, a cross-dressed wandering performer, a “vocal” survivor of the camp town prostitution, and the art work itself that is multidimensional, alterable, and globetrotting installation – all of which, I conceptualize borrowing Ann L. Stoler’s terms, constitute “ambiguous colonial vestiges.” The attempts to find fault of the nationalist and misogynous hegemony from within, especially through subaltern voices, have been greatly constrained in South Korea since the Korean War (1950–3). Strange Meetings, however, shows that when they are set in motion, they lend one of the most powerful impetuses for the feminist critique against the intimate tie between the U.S.’s neocolonial occupation of South Korea and Korean patriarchal nationalism.

Assessment of Household Solid Waste Management Practice and Associated Factors in Debre Berhan Town, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Background: All over the world, countries are battling with waste management and governments are investing huge sums of money to tackle waste issues. Household solid wastes in Debre Berhan town are observed on the road, burning inside the village, and disposed of in sewerage. Objective: This study was aimed to assess the status of household solid waste management practice and associated factors in Debre Berhan town from March 1- March 30, 2020. Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study design was conducted in the household of Debre Berhan. Data was collected from 722 households, which were selected through multi-stage sampling from three kebeles. The Obtained data were entered using Epidata and finally analyzed using SPSS Version 21. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were done to identify the independent predictors of good solid waste management practice. Odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals and p-value <0.05 were used to assess the level of significance between determinant factors and the practice of solid waste management. Result: The majority of the households, 473(67.4%) solid waste management practice were poor. Age of the respondent (AOR = 4.9, 95% CI = 2.6-9.3 ), Educational level of the household heads (AOR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.32-0.92), Attitude of Household head on Solid waste management (AOR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.06-0.15), cleanup campaign participation (AOR = 0.61, 95% CI = 0.39-0.95) and house ownership (AOR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.29-0.70) were significantly associated with household solid waste management practice in the study area. Conclusion and Recommendation: The current study revealed that solid waste management practice was poor. Educational level, homeownership, attitude, cleanup campaign participation, and attitude on solid waste management were found to be associated with solid waste management practice. The municipality should increase door-to-door solid waste collection service coverage, promote households on solid waste segregation, reuse, and proper disposal through continuous awareness creation campaigns and community-based programs.

Recovery of an urbanised estuary: Clean-up, de-industrialisation and restoration of redundant dock-basins in the Mersey

For much of the 20th century, the Mersey in North West England was one of the worst polluted estuaries in Europe. Water from a range of polluting industries plus domestic sewage was discharged into the Mersey Catchment and Estuary. Recovery came through a concerted clean-up campaign and tightening environmental regulations, partly driven by European Commission Directives, coupled with de-industrialisation from the 1970s onward. Recovery of oxygen levels in the Estuary led to the return of a productive ecosystem. This led to conservation designations, but also concerns about transfer of pollutants to higher trophic levels in fish, birds and humans. As part of urban renewal, ecosystems in disused dock basins were restored using mussel biofiltration and artificial de-stratification, facilitating commercial redevelopment and creation of a tourist destination. The degradation and recovery of the Mersey from peak-pollution in the mid-20th century is put in the context of wider environmental change and briefly compared to other systems to develop a hysteresis model of degradation and recovery, often to novel ecosystems.

Another Kind of R &amp; R: An Historical Analysis of the Camptown Clean-Up Campaign and the Reinforcement &amp; Regulation of Camptown Prostitution in South Korea, 1971-1976

Another Kind of R &amp; R: An Historical Analysis of the Camptown Clean-Up Campaign and the Reinforcement &amp; Regulation of Camptown Prostitution in South Korea, 1971-1976

Collection of Anthropogenic Litter from the Shores of Lake Malawi: Characterization of Plastic Debris and the Implications of Public Involvement in the African Great Lakes.

Anthropogenic debris is an environmental problem that affects beaches and coastlines worldwide. The abundance of beach debris is often documented with the use of public volunteers. To date, such community participations have been largely confined to the marine environment, but the presence and impact of anthropogenic debris on freshwater shorelines has been increasingly recognized. Our study presents the first such information from the African Great Lakes, specifically Lake Malawi. A total of 490,064 items of anthropogenic litter were collected by over 2000 volunteers in a clean-up campaign that took place annually between 2015 and 2018. Approximately 80% of the anthropogenic debris was comprised of plastic litter, with plastic carrier bags being the most common item. The dominance of plastic litter, and in particular the presence of plastic bags, which have subjected to bans in some African countries, is discussed. The broader implications of citizen science in the African Great Lakes area is also discussed.

Testing the Influence of Purity-Based Interventions on Pro-environmental Behavior

Environmental issues are often discussed in purity-related terms. For instance, pollution, contamination, toxicity, and degradation are all concepts that can evoke notions of (im)purity in an environmental context. In this paper, we assess the efficacy of purity-based norms as drivers of environmentally sustainable behavior. First, using a social media-based environmental cleanup campaign as a test case, we find that purity-based norms increase participation in the campaign. We then replicate and extend these findings in three behavioral experiments, finding that purity-based interventions do increase environmental behavior (Study 1), but that these effects are strongest for people who are more deeply connected with an in-group (Studies 2 and 3). Using an integrative approach to combine computational linguistics with behavioral experiments, we find that purity-based norms can be powerful motivators of environmental behavior, particularly if they emphasize the relation to one’s in-group.

Use of Oil Palm Bunch and Plantain Peel Extracts as Alternative Stimulants in Crude Oil Bioutilization by Species of &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Bacillus&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; and &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Pseudomonas&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt;

The potentials of oil palm bunch and plantain peels extracts in the enhancement of crude oil utilization by Bacillus and Pseudomonas species were evaluated. The average concentration of nutrients obtained from the extracts was: Mg = 20.4mg, N2 = 20.7mg, K =63.5mg, Ca = 480.5mg, P =276.5mg and Na = 106.5mg, at pH 6.6 to 8.1 oil palm bunch extract was a better stimulant than plantain peel in the order; MSM > OPB > PP at a correlation of r = 0.55. After 24 hours of incubation, bacillus-LSI utilized the crude oil for carbon and energy better in MSM (91.4%), OPB (52.9%) and PP (50.5%) than Pseudomonas-LSI with 82.6%, 49.4% and 41.5% respectively. The difference in utilization between these test organisms is significantly positive at p > 0.05. Generally, the result imply that organic extract of oil palm bunch and plantain peel are excellent stimulants to crude oil hydrocarbon degrades relative to MSM as control and can be deployed in a cleanup campaign of oil involving less than 10% pollution level in soil and aquatic ecosystems.

Using paired serology and surveillance data to quantify dengue transmission and control during a large outbreak in Fiji.

Dengue is a major health burden, but it can be challenging to examine transmission and evaluate control measures because outbreaks depend on multiple factors, including human population structure, prior immunity and climate. We combined population-representative paired sera collected before and after the 2013/14 dengue-3 outbreak in Fiji with surveillance data to determine how such factors influence transmission and control in island settings. Our results suggested the 10-19 year-old age group had the highest risk of infection, but we did not find strong evidence that other demographic or environmental risk factors were linked to seroconversion. A mathematical model jointly fitted to surveillance and serological data suggested that herd immunity and seasonally varying transmission could not explain observed dynamics. However, the model showed evidence of an additional reduction in transmission coinciding with a vector clean-up campaign, which may have contributed to the decline in cases in the later stages of the outbreak.

State Control as a Substitute for Environmental Regulation? Evidence from Chinese Cities

We investigate the role of state control of industry following an increase in the stringency of an environmental policy in a large developing country. Focusing on a national sulfur dioxide (SO2) cleanup campaign in China, we find that the pre-existing extent of state control over the primary targeted industry, coal-fired power and heat generation, predicts superior cleanup performance in cities. We find this effect is specific to state capital controlled by higher (central and provincial) levels of government, while the state capital share controlled by lower (prefectural cities and below) levels of government is negatively correlated with cleanup performance. Our results suggest that in China’s incomplete contractual environment, central state control partly substitutes for regulatory enforcement, providing an important societal benefit but ultimately implying limits to the impact of environmental campaigns.

Interfaith dialogue in the new religious America

In the decades since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationalities Act, the United States has become significantly more religiously diverse. Thus, interreligious relations and interfaith dialogue have gained attention as part of our American reality. Beginning with my own experience, I outline five kinds of interfaith dialogue. First, the dialogue of life is the ordinary give and take of relationships in the neighborhood, workplace, hospital, or town council. Second, there is the dialogue of learning—the intentional study of another culture and faith, involving the intellectual energy required to understand someone else, in this case someone of another faith. In many situations today, this is a mutual process of learning and understanding. Third, dialogue in community refers to the ways in which people engage with one another in shaping their community and society—a Habitat for Humanity project, a blood drive, or a city clean-up campaign. Fourth, there is philosophical and theological dialogue, in which people engage one another on the deepest and foundational issues of their faith. Finally, there is the dialogue within—reflection on what all this means for one’s own faith, recognizing that the diversity of spiritual voices and perspectives is not only “out there” in society, but in here, within ourselves.

Optimising the strategic management of wide-area environmental cleanup campaigns

This paper presents a fundamental analysis of a wide-area environmental cleanup campaign's net-present value or net-utility gain. It is designed to support the site-specific optimisation strategies of US Department of Homeland Security. The analysis is subject to the highly imperfect market condition of 'full competition'. This is where the executive managers can control: 1) the production rate and cleanliness performance of the cleanup process; 2) the supply-side investments in the cleanup-production system to lower (or shift to the right) the variable cleanup-cost function; 3) the demand-side investments in knowledge creation and dissemination or public communication that increase (or shift to the right) the contaminated property's value or cleanup-benefit function for society. The net-utility gain function that is derived under these conditions is then analysed quantitatively to determine optimum values of production rate and cleanliness level, as well as the optimum levels of investments in containment or decontamination, cleanup-production system, and public communication. The net-utility gain function also used to analyse qualitatively six widely contrasting historical case studies. It therefore represents a basic strategic theory for guiding the management of environmental cleanup campaigns.

Optimising the strategic management of wide-area environmental cleanup campaigns

This paper presents a fundamental analysis of a wide-area environmental cleanup campaign's net-present value or net-utility gain. It is designed to support the site-specific optimisation strategies of US Department of Homeland Security. The analysis is subject to the highly imperfect market condition of 'full competition'. This is where the executive managers can control: 1) the production rate and cleanliness performance of the cleanup process; 2) the supply-side investments in the cleanup-production system to lower (or shift to the right) the variable cleanup-cost function; 3) the demand-side investments in knowledge creation and dissemination or public communication that increase (or shift to the right) the contaminated property's value or cleanup-benefit function for society. The net-utility gain function that is derived under these conditions is then analysed quantitatively to determine optimum values of production rate and cleanliness level, as well as the optimum levels of investments in containment or decontamination, cleanup-production system, and public communication. The net-utility gain function also used to analyse qualitatively six widely contrasting historical case studies. It therefore represents a basic strategic theory for guiding the management of environmental cleanup campaigns.

Wenn Mülleimer sprechen können. Eine sprach- undmedienwissenschaftliche Analyse derWerbekampagne der Stadtreinigung Hamburg

Abstract This paper analyses the clean-up campaign organised by Hamburg’s citycleaning service, SRH. Starting in May 2005, the SRH changed the colourof the city’s litter bins from mousey grey to signal red; they also used thelitter bins to advertise their own services using a variety of speech bubbleswhich were not immediately comprehensible, such as for example “Ihr Müllsieht rot.” (“Your rubbish sees red.”) oder “Ich steh’ frei.” (“I am free.”)These speech bubbles can be referred to as cryptic (litter-bin) utterances.The aim of this paper is to analyse the embedding of these cryptic utterancesin a specific space which is characterised by the presence of the redlitter bin. The analysis is intended to show that the two co-present elementsthat are communicatively relevant in this setting – the red litter bin on theone hand and the adhesive label bearing the cryptic utterance on theother – form a single entity in terms of their spatial-visual arrangement,but not in terms of their semiosis. On the contrary, the cryptic nature ofthese utterances – their ‘wittiness’ – is based on their linguistic “doublemeaning” (Freud 1905), which it is up to the recipient to decipher.