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Arsenic pollution in paddy fields has become a public concern by seriously threatening rice growth, food security and human health. In this review, we delve into the biogeochemical behaviors of arsenic in paddy soil-rice system, systemically revealing the complexity of its migration and transformation processes, including the release of arsenic from soil to porewater, uptake and translocation of arsenic by rice plants, as well as transformation of arsenic species mediated by microorganism. Especially, microbial processes like reduction, oxidation and methylation of arsenic, and the coupling of arsenic with carbon, iron, sulfur, nitrogen cycling through microbes and related mechanisms were highlighted. Environmental factors like pH, redox potential, organic matter, minerals, nutrient elements, microorganisms and periphyton significantly influence these processes through different pathways, which are discussed in this review. Furthermore, the current progress in remediation strategies, including agricultural interventions, passivation, phytoremediation and microbial remediation is explored, and their potential and limitations are analyzed to address the gaps. This review offers comprehensive perspectives on the complicated behaviors of arsenic and influence factors in paddy soil-rice system, and provides a scientific basis for developing effective arsenic pollution control strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Plastics offer versatility, durability and low production costs, but they also pose environmental and health risks due to improper disposal, accumulation in water bodies, low recycling rates and temporal action that causes physicochemical changes in plastics and the release of toxic products to animal health and nature. Some microorganisms may play crucial roles in improving plastic waste management in the future. Cunningamella echinulata has been identified as a promising candidate that remains viable for long periods and produces a cutinase that is capable of degrading plastic. Other recent approaches involving the use of microorganisms are discussed in this review. However, there does not seem to be a single science that is efficient or most appropriate for solving the problem of plastic pollution on the planet at present. Regulations, especially the implementation of different laws that address the entire plastic cycle in different countries, such as Brazil, the USA, China and the European Union, play important roles in the management of this waste and can contribute to reducing this problem. In the context of the transversality of the information compiled here, the current limitations are discussed, and an effective plan is proposed to reduce plastic pollution. Although it is challenging, it involves implementing legislation, promoting sustainable alternatives, improving collection and recycling systems, encouraging reuse, supporting research and technological innovation, promoting corporate responsibility, collaborating globally, raising public awareness, optimizing waste management and, above all, continuously monitoring the progress of actions based on measurable metrics., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

As a key export-oriented economy, China faces significant challenges to its green economic development due to industrial pollution. While digital trade is crucial for sustainable development, its impact on industrial pollution has not been studied. This paper addresses this gap by adopting prefecture-level data from 2005 to 2021 and using a staggered difference-in-differences model to assess the impact of comprehensive pilot zones policy of cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) on industrial sulfur dioxide pollution. The findings indicate that CBEC significantly reduces industrial sulfur dioxide emission intensity, with the effect growing stronger over time. The effect is particularly notable in eastern and western regions, large cities, cities with underdeveloped digital infrastructure, and cities with lower pollution. Mechanism analysis reveals that CBEC lowers industrial emission intensity by driving structure upgrading, fostering green innovation, and advancing digital transformation. This paper emphasizes that the government can expedite the green transformation of the economy by integrating digital trade with industry., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Countries worldwide have adopted environmental taxes to reduce pollution, making it essential for policymakers and researchers to understand their impact on corporate environmental investment. This study investigates the impact of China's environmental tax law on the environmental investment behavior of high-emission enterprises, using a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach based on a quasi-natural experiment. The findings reveal that environmental taxes significantly incentivize these enterprises to increase their environmental investments, with the proportion of investment relative to total assets rising by approximately 82% compared to low-emission firms. This effect remains robust after controlling for various tests, including parallel trends, placebo tests, and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) tests, as well as excluding firms that never disclosed pollutant discharge tax payments or expected effects. Motivation analysis shows that high-emission enterprises are driven primarily by the goal of reducing pollution costs to engage in environmental governance. Mechanism analysis indicates that the implementation of environmental taxes strengthens corporate governance, further encouraging environmental governance activities. Cross-sectional analysis reveals that these effects are most pronounced in firms with high financing constraints, elevated operating costs, or low profitability. Additionally, environmental investment is found to enhance corporate productivity, net sales margins, and social evaluations. This study enhances the understanding of how environmental regulation influences corporate behavior, offering empirical evidence that environmental taxes foster sustainable practices and enhance corporate performance., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing interest The author claims that there is no conflict of interest in this work., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study investigates the relationship between openness and pollutant emission intensity across 286 Chinese cities from 1990 to 2019, aiming to evaluate the potential environmental benefits of open economy strategies. The findings indicate that enhanced urban openness significantly lowers pollutant emission intensity. To ensure the robustness of our findings, we make an innovative attempt to employ high-speed rail connection and motorway density as instrumental variables to address potential endogeneity issues, corroborating the reliability of the results through various robustness tests. Moreover, we also find the heterogeneous effects of urban openness on pollution emissions, highlighting the moderating influences of trade complexity, urbanization level, and environmental regulatory intensity. Lastly, the study elucidates the mechanisms through which urban openness diminishes pollution emissions, namely fostering green innovation capacity and enhancing public environmental awareness. This research makes theoretical contributions on understanding the nexus between open economies and environmental protection while offering practical insights to inform governmental environmental policy formulation., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Plastic waste has become a major contributor to global environmental pollution. Some of the environmental impacts of plastic waste include littering, the formation of plastic debris in oceans and the contamination of freshwater and terrestrial habitats. Policymakers face great challenges in mitigating plastic waste. Indonesia is considered the second largest contributor of plastic waste in the world. However, existing policies have not addressed this issue. Policies, such as bans on single-use plastic bags and fees on plastic bags, have recently been implemented in some pilot cities, but the results remain unclear. Thus, this study proposes feasible policies to mitigate plastic waste in Indonesia using system dynamics. Specifically, this study seeks to develop a dynamic model of plastic waste mitigation and to propose a policy scenario for plastic waste mitigation. The proposed policies consist of a plastic bag ban, a plastic bag fee, a recycling centre and extended producer responsibility (EPR). The analysis demonstrates that an effective mixed policy instrument for reducing plastic waste depends on the plastic waste type. Regarding plastic bottles, the effective mixed policy is a combination of a recycling centre and EPR. For plastic bags, the effective mixed policies include the following combinations: a plastic bag fee and plastic bag ban, a plastic bag fee and recycling centre and a plastic bag ban and recycling centre., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The urgency of protecting ecosystems and their recovery from contamination has been highlighted in several recent European strategies because Europe's biodiversity and landscapes are declining rapidly due to different human pressures. Despite the existence of EU and national laws addressing environmental contamination, practical procedures are often missing. For example, competent authorities must deal promptly and effectively with environmental accidents, noncompliance, and criminal offenses but relevant tools that facilitate these processes are often lacking. For example, thorough planning is crucial for effective investigation and assessment to improve environmental damage assessments in line with the European Environmental Liability Directive (ELD, 2004/35/EC). With regard to soils, a specific European legislation for their protection, the European Soil Monitoring Law, is currently being developed. However, it is crucial that this law bridges the gaps between existing chemical regulations and that it aligns with current European strategies for environmental protection and sustainability. Continuous feedback of soil monitoring results to regulatory frameworks will be essential. This feedback loop ensures that chemical regulations are relevant and effective in protecting soil health. In this context, development and sharing of effective and practical procedures for recovering ecosystems from contamination are crucial. This was the case at the RemTech Europe meeting, which was held online and onsite in Ferrara, Italy, in September 2022. The discussion covered all aspects of environmental contaminants. It ranged from the basic understanding of these contaminants to the various types that pose a threat to organisms, studies of their environmental fate, detection methods, and sustainable practices for contaminant management. The special series dedicated to RemTech Europe 2022 is particularly relevant to these purposes and resulted in six articles that were selected from oral presentations. The articles emphasize the need for integrated approaches to risk management and remediation to address the problems of soil, sediment, and groundwater contamination. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:1982-1986. © 2024 The Author(s). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)., (© 2024 The Author(s). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).)

Emerging evidence reveals that low doses of stress stimulate, and high doses suppress, organism responses - a phenomenon known as hormesis. Here, we propose a framework for harnessing hormesis principles to optimize agrochemical use and mitigate pollution. We discuss how hormesis can be applied in agrochemical context and highlight challenges and needs beyond scientific research, offering a perspective for sustainable environmental solutions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Reactive oxygen species (ROS), substances with strong activity generated by oxygen during electron transfer, play a significant role in the decomposition of organic matter in various environmental settings, including soil, water and atmosphere. Although ROS has a short lifespan (ranging from a few nanoseconds to a few days), it continuously generated during the interaction between microorganisms and their environment, especially in environments characterized by strong ultraviolet radiation, fluctuating oxygen concentration or redox conditions, and the abundance of metal minerals. A comprehensive understanding of the fate of ROS in nature can provide new ideas for pollutant degradation and is of great significance for the development of green degradation technologies for organic pollutants. At present, the review of ROS generally revolves around various advanced oxidation processes, but lacks a description and summary of the fate of ROS in nature, this article starts with the definition of reactive oxidants species and reviews the production, migration, and transformation mechanisms of ROS in soil, water and atmospheric environments, focusing on recent developments. In addition, the stimulating effects of ROS on organisms were reviewed. Conclusively, the article summarizes the classic processes, possible improvements, and future directions for ROS-mediated degradation of pollutants. This review offers suggestions for future research directions in this field and provides the possible ROS technology application in pollutants treatment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The ubiquitous and global ecological footprint arising from the rapidly increasing rates of plastic production, use, and release into the environment is an important modern environmental issue. Of increasing concern are the risks associated with at least 16,000 chemicals present in plastics, some of which are known to be toxic, and which may leach out both during use and once exposed to environmental conditions, leading to environmental and human exposure. In response, the United Nations member states agreed to establish an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, the global plastics treaty. The resolution acknowledges that the treaty should prevent plastic pollution and its related impacts, that effective prevention requires consideration of the transboundary nature of plastic production, use and pollution, and that the full life cycle of plastics must be addressed. As a group of scientific experts and members of the Scientists' Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, we concur that there are six essential "pillars" necessary to truly reduce plastic pollution and allow for chemical detoxification across the full life cycle of plastics. These include a plastic chemical reduction and simplification, safe and sustainable design of plastic chemicals, incentives for change, holistic approaches for alternatives, just transition and equitable interventions, and centering human rights. There is a critical need for scientifically informed and globally harmonized information, transparency, and traceability criteria to protect the environment and public health. The right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment must be upheld, and thus it is crucial that scientists, industry, and policy makers work in concert to create a future free from hazardous plastic contamination., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Susanne M Brander reports financial support was provided by National Science Foundation. Andy Booth reports financial support was provided by The Research Council of Norway. Andy Booth reports financial support was provided by European Commission. Annika Jahnke reports financial support was provided by Heimholtz Association. Dorte Hertz reports financial support was provided by The Research Council of Norway. Amila Abeynayaka reports financial support was provided by European Union Horizon Europe Research and Innovation. Susanne Brander reports a relationship with Southern California Coastal Water Research Project that includes: consulting or advisory. Brander previously consulted for the Environmental Defense fund and is on advisory boards or groups for the Plastic Pollution Coalition, as well as the Department of Toxic Substances Control (California) and the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Martin Wagner is an unremunerated member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Food Packaging Forum Foundation and received travel support for attending annual board meetings. Marina Fernandez is a member of the Endocrine Society's delegation at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. All authors are members of the Scientists Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, and Susanne Brander, Martin Wagner, Marina Fernandez, Trisia Farrelly, Kristian Syberg, Amila Abeynayaka, and Bethanie Carney Alroth are Scientists Coalition Steering Committee Members. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Crown Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The underlying motivation behind corporate philanthropy (CP) is subject to multiple interpretations. For emerging markets, traditional interpretations based on a perspective of interest exchange often fall short. The institutional environment in China is characterized by uncertainty, particularly in the field of environmental protection, where the government's attention, a scarce institutional resource, can influence the behaviors of heavily polluting companies. The government's environmental attention (GEA) may be subject to campaign-style investment, which provides an opportunity for research. This study attempts to use institutional theory to construct a difference-in-differences model using the Central Inspection of Environmental Protection as an exogenous shock. It examines the causal impact of GEA on CP, observing that GEA has a positive effect on CP, especially for large companies, companies in less competitive industries, companies located in high-pollution areas, and companies with high environmental expenditure. The results indicate that campaign-style institutional changes provide a non-transactional political motivation for CP. In addition, we discuss the mechanism, which is the expectation change. Campaign-style institutional changes work by altering corporations' expectations of the future institutional environment. We verify this mechanism from two perspectives, namely, the intensity of changes caused by uncertainty and corporate sensitivity to changes. Our results remain robust when subject to several tests based on different identification hypotheses and alternative measures. Unlike the existing literature on the political connections driving CP in China, this study, based on the institutional theory framework, reveals that campaign-style institutional changes constitute a non-transactional, unidirectional political motivation, which is a significant driving factor for CP in a Chinese context. This study evaluates the importance of GEA and reveals the non-transactional political motivations from the institutional theory perspective. This not only enriches existing discussions on the political motivations of CP but also broadens our understanding of the relationship between institutional uncertainty and CP in emerging markets., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Cao, Nie. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This paper investigates the impact of the digital economy on urban environmental pollution by analyzing panel data from 283 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019 and using the digital technology comprehensive pilot zone of China as a natural experiment. The results demonstrate that digital technology has a significant effect in reducing pollutant emissions and empowering urban environmental governance. The findings are proven to be robust based on various tests, including parallel trend, PSM-DID, and placebo tests. Our analysis further shows that digital technology is particularly effective in controlling pollution in old industrial areas, high digital areas, and low energy efficiency areas. We also find that the national digital technology integrated pilot zone can mitigate environmental pollution in prefecture-level cities by increasing public environmental awareness and encouraging green technology innovation. Moreover, our research indicates that digital technology-enabled urban pollution control can contribute to the formation of a new urbanization pattern in China. These findings provide valuable insights for promoting the digital economy and achieving the goal of carbon reduction in China., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Collaborative management of environmental pollution and carbon emissions (CMPC) has been a major policy instrument to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in recent years. However, the relationship between the benefits and drawbacks of this environmental management practice for green growth in and around a local area remains to be clarified. Using 30 provinces in China during 2001-2019 as the object of analysis, we assessed the efficiency of local CMPC practices using the nonradial directional distance function (NDDF) model, predicted local green growth using the frontier green complexity index (GCI), and empirically examined the spatial effects, locational heterogeneity, and threshold characteristics of the relationship using the spatial Durbin model and the panel threshold model. Our study finds that although efficient CMPC does drive local green growth, the promotion effect is nonlinear with decreasing marginal effect. This effect is particularly obvious in economically developed regions with higher CMPCs, which will absorb resources from neighboring regions and create a "siphoning" effect. It was found that local financial support and foreign direct investment (FDI) can radiate green growth to neighboring regions; therefore, CMPC practice needs to pay more attention to the effect of joint governance, supplemented by financial and foreign investment policy tools, to better promote the green transformation of local economy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The escalating generation of household medical waste, a byproduct of industrialization and global population growth, has rendered its transportation and logistics management a critical societal concern. This study delves into the optimization of routes for vehicles within the household medical waste logistics network, a response to the imperative of managing this waste effectively. The potential for environmental and public health hazards due to improper waste disposal is acknowledged, prompting the incorporation of contamination risk, influenced by transport duration, waste volume, and wind velocity, into the analysis. To enhance the realism of the simulation, traffic congestion is integrated into the vehicle speed function, reflecting the urban roads' variability. Subsequently, a Bi-objective mixed-integer programming model is formulated to concurrently minimize total operational costs and environmental pollution risks. The complexity inherent in the optimization problem has motivated the development of the Adaptive Hybrid Artificial Fish Swarming Algorithm with Non-Dominated Sorting (AH-NSAFSA). This algorithm employs a sophisticated approach, amalgamating congestion distance and individual ranking to discern optimal solutions from the population. It incorporates a decay function to facilitate an adaptive iterative process, enhancing the algorithm's convergence properties. Furthermore, it leverages the concept of crossover-induced elimination to preserve the genetic diversity and overall robustness of the solution set. The empirical evaluation of AH-NSAFSA is conducted using a test set derived from the Solomon dataset, demonstrating the algorithm's capability to generate feasible non-dominated solutions for household medical waste recycling path planning. Comparative analysis with the Non-dominated Sorted Artificial Fish Swarm Algorithm (NSAFSA) and Non-dominated Sorted Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) across metrics such as MID, SM, NOS, and CT reveals that AH-NSAFSA excels in MID, SM, and NOS, and surpasses NSAFSA in CT, albeit slightly underperforming relative to NSGA-II. The study's holistic approach to waste recycling route planning, which integrates cost-effectiveness with pollution risk and traffic congestion considerations, offers substantial support for enterprises in formulating sustainable green development strategies. AH-NSAFSA offers an eco-efficient, holistic approach to medical waste recycling, advancing sustainable management practices., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Hu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This study constructs an index on synergy of corporate carbon reduction, pollution reduction, and green expansion (PCG), and uses a difference in difference model to test the impact of digital government (DGO) on PCG. Results show that DGO significantly promotes PCG, and compared to companies without DGO, DGO can lead to a 2.4% increase in PCG. And, DGO may promote PCG by increasing environmental information disclosure, environmental subsidies and environmental regulations. In the heterogeneity, DGO has a higher promoting effect on PCG in eastern enterprises, heavily polluting industries, and state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, digital financial support, media supervision, and public participation will promote the positive effect of DGO on PCG. This study aims to provide implications for promoting PCG and empirical reference for promoting DGO., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Pew Charitable Trust's 2020 report 'Breaking the Plastic Wave', indicates that existing technologies could support an 80% reduction in plastic leakage relative to business as usual by 2040. Therefore, South Africa became the first country to work with the Pew Charitable Trust and Oxford University to test and apply 'Pathways', a modelling framework and software tool which stemmed and evolved from the Pew report, at country level. The tool calculates the flows of plastics in the economy and the impact of various strategies to reduce future plastic pollution. The Scenario Builder within the Pathways tool allows the user to optimise flows in the plastics value chain to satisfy a set of defined objectives in order to achieve an optimal solution. Three major findings have emerged from the application of Pathways at country level for South Africa. Firstly, plastic pollution is set to almost double by 2040 if no interventions are implemented. Secondly, meeting the newly legislated extended producer responsibility (EPR) targets set for plastic packaging can avoid 33% of projected total pollution over the period of 2023-2040. Lastly, an optimal system change can avoid 63% of total plastic pollution over the period 2023-2040. Thus, applying Pathways at country level in South Africa has proven to be valuable by setting a baseline against which progress towards reducing plastic pollution can be measured; determining the outcome of meeting the legislated EPR targets over time, and informing policy decisions by allowing users to model different scenarios towards an optimal system change scenario., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Government-led national comprehensive demonstration cities for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy (ECERFP) are pivotal for China in addressing environmental governance. Using a panel dataset covering 278 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019, this study adopts the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach to investigate the synergistic impacts of ECERFP on pollution and carbon reduction. The findings indicate that ECERFP contributes to a 3% improvement in pollution reduction performance, a 1.5% enhancement in carbon reduction performance, and a 4% overall increase in combined pollution and carbon reduction efforts. Furthermore, the study examines the heterogeneous effects of ECERFP on environmental performance. ECERFP significantly influences the synergistic efforts in pollution and carbon reduction by fostering green innovation, enhancing energy allocation, and optimizing industrial structures. This study both theoretically and empirically outlines the specific pathways and mechanisms through which "incentive-based" green fiscal policy promotes synergistic pollution and carbon reduction, thus providing a pragmatic foundation for enhancing the role of fiscal policy in environmental governance., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The COVID-19 pandemic was caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, marking one of the most catastrophic global health crises of the 21st century. Throughout this period, widespread use and improper disposal of personal protective equipment (PPE) emerged as a pressing environmental issue, significantly impacting various life forms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a high rate of PEP disposal. An alarming 1.6 × 10 6 tons of plastic waste each day has been generated since the onset of the outbreak, predominantly from the inadequate disposal of PPE. The mismanagement and subsequent degradation of discarded PPE significantly contribute to increased non-biodegradable micro(nano)plastic (MNP) waste. This pollution has had profound adverse effects on terrestrial, marine, and aquatic ecosystems, which have been extensively of concern recently. Accumulated MNPs within aquatic organisms could serve as a potential route for human exposure when consuming seafood. This review presents a novel aspect concerning the pollution caused by MNPs, particularly remarking on their role during the pandemic and their detrimental effects on human health. These microplastic particles, through the process of fragmentation, transform into nanoparticles, persisting in the environment and posing potential hazards. The prevalence of MNP from PPE, notably masks, raises concerns about their plausible health risks, warranting global attention and comprehensive exploration. Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the long-term effects of these processes and implementing effective management strategies is essential., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Bioplastics are emerging as a promising alternative to traditional plastics, driven by the need for more sustainable options. This review article offers an in-depth analysis of the entire life cycle of bioplastics, from raw material cultivation to manufacturing and disposal, with a focus on environmental impacts at each stage. It emphasizes the significance of adopting sustainable agricultural practices and selecting appropriate feedstock to improve environmental outcomes. The review highlights the detrimental effects of unsustainable farming methods, such as pesticide use and deforestation, which can lead to soil erosion, water pollution, habitat destruction, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. To address these challenges, the article advocates for the use of efficient extraction techniques and renewable energy sources, prioritizing environmental considerations throughout the production process. Furthermore, the methods for reducing energy consumption, water usage, and chemical inputs during manufacturing by implementing eco-friendly technologies. It stresses the importance of developing robust disposal systems for biodegradable materials and supports recycling initiatives to minimize the need for new resources. The holistic approach to sustainability, including responsible feedstock cultivation, efficient production practices, and effective end-of-life management. It underscores the need to evaluate the potential of bioplastics to reduce plastic pollution, considering technological advancements, infrastructure development, and increased consumer awareness. Future research should focus on enhancing production sustainability, understanding long-term ecological impacts, and advancing bioplastics technology for better performance and environmental compatibility. This comprehensive analysis of bioplastics' ecological footprint highlights the urgent need for sustainable solutions in plastic production., Competing Interests: Ganesh Chandrakant Nikalje is an Academic Editor for PeerJ., (© 2024 Yadav and Nikalje.)

Reducing carbon emissions from highly polluting enterprises is crucial to meeting the world's overall carbon emission reduction targets. Green credit policy can be effective in guiding enterprises to reduce their carbon emissions and is essential to achieving the dual-carbon targets. This study uses micro-data from a 2017-2022 follow-up survey of industrial enterprises in China and a quasi-natural experiment to evaluate whether green credit policy aligned with the dual-carbon targets enable highly polluting enterprises to become "green" by reducing emissions. The results show that green credit policy can lead highly polluting enterprises to significantly reduce carbon emissions, and total factor productivity (TFP) growth plays an intermediary role in this transition. The different impact of green credit policy on TFP may impede the greening process for highly polluting enterprises, with this hindering effect exhibiting scale heterogeneity. This study offers empirical evidence for evaluating green credit policy aligned with China's dual-carbon target and provide insights into leveraging green credit policy to advance this process., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

As global warming and environmental degradation escalate, policymakers worldwide increasingly advocate for the development of green patents. However, there is ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of green patents in actual pollution reduction. Some studies suggest that firms may engage in green patenting activities to align with government and market expectations rather than achieving substantive breakthroughs in pollution reduction. In light of this, it is crucial to examine the impact of green patents on pollution reduction. This study employs a PSM-DID model to analyze the impact of green patents on pollution emission intensity using plant-level data from Chinese industrial firms. The results demonstrate that with an average increase of 1% in the number of green patents, the industrial waste gas emission intensity and industrial wastewater discharge intensity decreased by 4.74% and 8.68%, respectively. Furthermore, pollution treatment facilities were found to be more effective than green patents during the sample period. On average, the contribution of waste gas treatment facilities and wastewater treatment facilities in pollution reduction is 3.33% and 9.79% higher than that of green patents. These findings suggest that firms should adopt a balanced approach when making decisions on pollution reduction. Further analysis shows that the pollution reduction effect of green patents is partly at the expense of the total factor productivity of firms. This trade-off highlights the need for policy interventions to support firms in integrating green technologies without compromising productivity. This study underscores the emphasizes of transitioning from end-of-pipe pollution control to green production processes to achieve sustainable development in China., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Pesticides pose significant risks to both human health, such as cancer, neurological disorders, and endocrine disruption, and ecosystems, through the destruction of beneficial insects, contamination of soil and water, and impact on non-target species. In the face of escalating pesticide pollution, there is an urgent need for multifaceted approaches to address the issue. Bioremediation emerges as a potent tool in the environmental pollution mitigation arsenal. Ideally aiming for the complete decomposition of pesticides into harmless molecules, bioremediation encompasses diverse approaches - from bioabsorption, bioadsorption, and biotransformation using enzymes and nanoenzymes to comprehensive degradation facilitated by microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, macro- and microalgae, or phytoremediation. Exploring nature's biodiversity offers a promising avenue to find solutions to this pressing human-induced problem. The acceleration of biodegradation necessitates identifying and developing efficient organisms, achieved through bioprospection and targeted modifications. Specific strategies to enhance process efficiency and throughput include optimizing biomass production, strategic inoculation in diverse environments, and employing bioreactor systems for processing heavily contaminated waters or soils. This comprehensive review presents various bioremediation approaches, emphasizing the importance of microorganisms' exploration and new technologies development, including current innovations and patents to effectively combat pesticide pollution. Furthermore, challenges regarding the effective implementation of these technologies are also addressed., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

As Canadian policy-makers recognize the urgency for concerted actions to reduce plastics (e.g., Canada's involvement in the international plastics treaty negotiations, zero plastic waste strategy, and single-use plastics regulations), the healthcare sector must also consider a more sustainable plastics system. In this context, the potential for novel bioplastics to mitigate healthcare's substantial plastic waste problem must be carefully interrogated. Our analysis examines the complexities of bioplastics, highlighting the technical challenges of identifying legitimate sustainable alternatives, and the practical barriers for implementing bioplastics as substitutes for consumable plastics in healthcare. We focus on the Canadian healthcare sector and regulatory landscape with the insights gained being applicable to other sectors and countries. Given the limitations identified, the focus on reducing consumption should remain the priority., Competing Interests: Declaration of conflicting interestsThe author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

China has always adhered to the strategy of sustainable development. It is prevalent the public want a good living environment, which requires local governments and businesses to enhance their environmental governance capabilities. Using the panel data from Chinese cities from 2012 to 2019 and econometrics models, we examine the impact mechanisms of public environmental appeals (PEA) on efficiency of collaborative governance in pollution reduction and carbon mitigation (GPC). Results indicate that there is a positive spatial clustering of GPC across cities, with high-high clustering is notably concentrated in the southern regions of China and low-low clustering is prevalent in the northern regions. Spatial econometrics model results reveal that the stronger PEA, the higher GPC. The result of mechanism analysis shows the mediation of environmentally friendly technological innovation is crucial. Subsequent inquiry uncovers that the digital economy positively moderates the impact of PEA on GPC. The Belt and Road policy region exhibits heightened sensitivity to PEA, thereby enhancing the positive impact of PEA on GPC., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Plastic pollution in the natural environment has been overlooked, which leads to potential risks to human health and wildlife. This paper provides an overview on citizen science approach to mitigate and manage plastic pollution in natural environments. Also, this paper highlights the importance of citizen science in raising public awareness of environmental issues and promoting sustainable practices. Case studies and different projects, such as "Plastic Pirates", "Litterati", "Trash Hunter", "International Pellat Watch", and many more projects on the role of citizen scientists are summarized, which aims to monitor and collect plastic resin pellets from different ecosystems, for example, beaches, seas, and rivers and also engage various stakeholders, for example, citizen scientists, students, academic and research organizations, non-profits, government agencies, industry, and local communities. Additionally, this paper discusses different methodologies, such as surveys and sampling approaches, using mobile apps, instruments and kits to collect information on plastic pollution. Importantly, it discusses the need for global partnerships and policies to address plastic waste management and prevent conflict. Likewise, this review emphasizes the citizen sciences and impacts of plastics on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to conserve, preserve, and monitor biodiversity through citizen participation. This study also highlights the significance of community involvement, such as local, coastal, marginalized, or vulnerable communities, in environmental research and the potential benefits of citizen science programs. Overall, this paper concludes with insights into citizen science as a valuable resource tool for researchers, policymakers, and the public interested in understanding and addressing the problem of plastic pollution., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Optimal livestock production is a key contributor to the achievement of sustainable development goals. The management and disposal of livestock manure is one of the main issues facing the sector in terms of soil, water and air pollution. Proper and sustainable management of livestock manure also requires a systemic approach to the problem, considering it at different territorial levels. In order to identify existing strategies to support this issue, this review investigated the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis as a support for livestock manure management, highlighting the several GIS methodologies used to provide insight into the complexity, power, and potential offered by these approaches in study areas with different economic, social, and environmental variables, and to provide insights for future research. The study was performed on 139 papers chosen from a literature screening. Three study themes were identified by co-word analysis: Bioenergy, Environmental pollution and Landscape management/development, with a percentage division of research articles of 38 %, 47 % and 15 %, respectively. This study provides a theoretical and prospective framework for the long-term expansion of the livestock sector, which is critical to promoting a balance between sector development and environmental impact. The use of spatial analysis, along with additional tools and methods such as modelling, multivariate and spatial statistics, life cycle assessment, machine learning and multi-criteria analysis, has proven to be widely applied., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose of Review: Our escalating reliance on disposable products in the operating room has generated a large amount of waste, cost, and environmental pollution. Heath damages from the pollution caused by the US healthcare industry cause as much harm, as measured by disability-adjusted life years, as total medical errors. Our response to our own environmental impact should be proportional to that harm. Understanding the waste streams we create and the factors that contribute to our large waste generation in the operating room can help us target solutions to our most harmful practices., Recent Findings: Recent studies within the field of medical waste in ObGyn have included a systematic review analyzing most effective practices for waste reduction and environmental life cycle analyses of specific medical procedures., Summary: Operating room waste includes regulated medical waste, pathologic waste/chemotherapy, sharps, general municipal waste, recycling, linens, and anesthetic gases. The most effective way to reduce the environmental impact from medical waste is to reduce our use of disposable supplies in favor of durable reusable materials. Other important interventions include eliminating 'overage' of unused supplies, optimizing use of anesthetic gas, custom pack scale backs, and proper waste segregation. This review of operative waste is intended to aid healthcare facilities in understanding and addressing their own environmental impact., (Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Microplastic pollution has become a major global environmental issue, negatively impacting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as well as human health. Tackling this complex problem necessitates a multidisciplinary approach and collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Within this context, the Quintuple Helix framework, which highlights the involvement of academia, government, industry, civil society, and the environment, provides a comprehensive and inclusive perspective for formulating effective policies to manage atmospheric microplastics. This paper discusses each helix's roles, challenges, and opportunities and proposes strategies for collaboration and knowledge exchange among them. Furthermore, the paper highlights the importance of interdisciplinary research, innovative technologies, public awareness campaigns, regulatory frameworks, and corporate responsibility in achieving sustainable and resilient microplastic management policies. The Quintuple Helix approach can mitigate microplastics, safeguard ecosystems, and preserve planetary health by fostering collaboration and coordination among diverse stakeholders., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss are adversely affecting human health and exacerbating existing inequities, intensifying pressures on already strained health systems. Paradoxically, healthcare is a high-polluting industry, responsible for 4.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions and a similar proportion of air pollutants. Perioperative services are among the most resource-intensive healthcare services and are responsible for some unique pollutants. Opportunities exist to mitigate pollution throughout the entire continuum of perioperative care, including those that occur upstream of the operating room in the process of patient selection and optimisation, delivery of anaesthesia and surgery, and the postoperative recovery period. Within a patient-centred, holistic approach, clinicians can advocate for healthy public policies that modify the determinants of surgical illness, can engage in shared decision-making to ensure appropriate clinical decisions, and can be stewards of healthcare resources. Innovation and collaboration are required to redesign clinical care pathways and processes, optimise logistical systems, and address facility emissions. The results will extend beyond the reduction of public health damages from healthcare pollution to the provision of higher value, higher quality, patient-centred care., (Copyright © 2024 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The large-scale production of chicken eggs results in a substantial amount of eggshell (ES) residue, often considered as waste. These discarded shells naturally decompose in soil approximately within a year. Eggshells (ES), comparatively contribute lesser towards environmental pollution, contain a remarkable amount of calcium, which can be converted into various valuable products that finds applications in industries, pharmaceuticals, and medicine. Among the diverse applications of ES, most effective and promising applications are removal of heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Pb, Zn, and Cu) ∼93-99 % metal adsorption capacity and capturing of flue gases (CO 2 and SO 2 ) from the environment. With ES having a maximum CO 2 sorption capacity of 92 % as compared to other sources, and SO 2 adsorption capacity of Calcined ES∼11.68 mg/g. The abundance, low cost and easy availability of CaO from ES makes them sustainable and eco-friendly. Additionally, its versatility extends beyond environmental prospects, as it is widely used in various industries as a catalyst, sorbent, fertilizer, and calcium supplement in food for individuals, plants and animals, among other diverse fields of study. Owing to its versatile applications, current review focuses on structure, chemical composition, treatment methods, and valorization pathways for diverse applications, aiming to reduce the eggshells waste and mitigate environmental pollution., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The digital transformation of the manufacturing industry is closely linked to green credit policies, which jointly promote the development of the manufacturing industry towards a more environmentally friendly, efficient and sustainable development. Based on the research sample of China's manufacturing A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2022, this paper uses the difference-in- differences (DID) method to analyze the impact of green credit policies on the digital transformation of heavily polluting enterprises. The results show that green credit policies significantly inhibit the digital transformation of heavily polluting enterprises. In terms of the adjustment mechanism, the R&D investment of enterprises and the financial background of senior executives have weakened the inhibitory effect of green credit policies on the digital transformation of heavily polluting enterprises. When the R&D investment is low, the inhibitory effect of the policy is more significant, but with the increase of R&D investment, the inhibitory effect of the policy gradually weakens, indicating that there is a substitution relationship between the two. Enterprises with senior financial expertise have a deeper understanding of financial feasibility and benefit analysis, and are more receptive to the high-risk investment of digital transformation, while their financial network resources can help broaden financing channels, reduce financing constraints, and further reduce the financial difficulty of digital transformation. In addition, the green credit policy has a stronger inhibitory effect on the digital transformation of non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises that do not hold bank shares. The conclusions of this paper are expected to provide some policy implications for the subsequent green credit policies in promoting the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Adequate protection of the environment is one of the hot spots of concern for all sectors of society due to severe environmental pollution. The solution to this issue is friendly management of the environment. With the rapid growth of Chinese Manufacturing SMEs for economic development, environmental pollution and abuse of resources are arising. To resolve these issues, Chinese manufacturing SMEs are accelerating the implementation of green innovation in their industries. However, it is a complex task that involves enterprise, government, and social considerations. Therefore, it is essential to identify the green drivers for this implementation. With a focus on China's current situation from previous research and views from experts, this study aims to investigate how Chinese Manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are responding to resource misuse and environmental pollution by implementing green innovation, emphasising the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in improving environmental performance. This study primarily looks into the factors that influence the adoption of green innovations by analysing the growth paths of Chinese SMEs operating in highly polluting industries over a longer time frame than five years. Artificial Intelligence is a valuable tool for solving the issues of ecological degradation. A quantitative method has been implemented for the Chinese companies' samples from the deeply polluting industries for more than five years. The findings of this paper advise that the average board size, the governing board meetings, and organizational performance are positively connected with the Chinese firms' environmental process. Board independence and diversity of gender have irrelevant associations with ecological performance. A convenient threshold regression model has been used to accumulate the respondents' data. It also reveals that larger board sizes and more frequent governing board meetings are positively associated with improved environmental performance among these firms. The findings state the critical implications for the firm executives, policymakers, environmental activists, and regulators. This result supports the insight drained from the resource dependence, stakeholder, firm agency, and legitimacy theories., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Plastic pollution has become a global problem since the extensive use of plastic in industries such as packaging, electronics, manufacturing and construction, healthcare, transportation, and others. This has resulted in an environmental burden that is continually growing, which has inspired many scientists as well as environmentalists to come up with creative solutions to deal with this problem. Numerous studies have been reviewed to determine practical, affordable, and environmentally friendly solutions to regulate plastic waste by leveraging microbes' innate abilities to naturally decompose polymers. Enzymatic breakdown of plastics has been proposed to serve this goal since the discovery of enzymes from microbial sources that truly interact with plastic in its naturalistic environment and because it is a much faster and more effective method than others. The scope of diverse microbes and associated enzymes in polymer breakdown is highlighted in the current review. The use of co-cultures or microbial consortium-based techniques for the improved breakdown of plastic products and the generation of high-value end products that may be utilized as prototypes of bioenergy sources is highlighted. The review also offers a thorough overview of the developments in the microbiological and enzymatic biological degradation of plastics, as well as several elements that impact this process for the survival of our planet., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Environmental Protection Tax Law (EPTL) is a compulsory environmental regulation measure adopted by China to deal with environmental problems. However, with the advancement of implementation, the EPTL produces a dissimilation effect and damages the realization of the Porter hypothesis effect. The study examines the dissimilation effect of green technology innovation regulated by the EPTL using sample data from heavy pollution firms in China. According to the empirical test results: (1) the coordination between levies and administrations, differential tax rate setting, tax information sharing, definition of the scope of levy and administration, tax declaration counseling, and tax rate level verification produce the dissimilation effect; (2) the Porter hypothesis effect of the EPTL is the most significant in medium-sized enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises. By constructing the research model group of dissimilation effect, this study analyzes the application of environmental regulation in China's social and economic background, thus providing a reference for developing of the green economy., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Tao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

This study delves into the impact of digital inclusive finance on environmental pollution, with a specific focus on air pollution. Utilizing data from 265 Chinese cities, advanced econometric methods such as the bi-directional fixed effects model, threshold model, spatial Durbin model, and multi-period difference-in-differences model are employed, incorporating a variety of control variables. The empirical findings indicate that digital inclusive finance significantly reduces air pollution. This mechanism chiefly operates through enhancing public environmental consciousness and fostering green technological innovation. The study also uncovers the spatial spillover effect and non-linear characteristics of digital inclusive finance on air pollution, along with its interactive effects with specific policies (e.g., smart city pilot policies and the "major protection, no major development" initiative). Moreover, heterogeneity analysis reveals regional variations in the environmental effects of digital inclusive finance. These insights provide a novel perspective on the relationship between financial technology and environmental protection and offer crucial guidance for policymaking., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Sound ecological and environmental governance systems are critical for promoting green and low-carbon economic transformation and high-quality development. However, financing constraints are major obstacle to the revitalization and transformation of China's real economy. In this study, we constructed an environmental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) model that incorporates two types of environmental expenditure and financing constraints, and discussed their economic and environmental effects. Based on this, we further considered the impacts of financing constraints on policy effects. Firstly, we found that increases in carbon emission reduction subsidies in government expenditure (1) increase total economic output and (2) motivate enterprises to increase emission reduction efforts and reduce pollution intensity and emissions, thereby reducing the inventory of environmental pollutants while balancing economic benefits and emission reduction. Secondly, increasing the proportion of government special expenditure on environmental protection promote output growth and directly reduces the pollution stock in the environment. However, such policies may also reduce the emission reduction efforts of enterprises, leading to increases in their pollution emissions and intensity. Lastly, the existence of financing constraints is not conducive to the growth of total output but increases the pollution control effect of emission reduction subsidies and pollution prevention expenditure. Application of the E-DSGE model offers new theoretical insight into environmental economics and macroeconomics. Moreover, the results of this study provide a reference for optimizing the structure of fiscal expenditure., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The June 25, 2024 Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union is based on the Industrial Emissions (Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control) Directive 2010/75/EU and confirms its applicability to the Taranto steel plant, reiterating that the concept of pollution includes damage to the environment and human health; the health impact assessment of polluting industrial activities, such as the Ilva steelworks in Southern Italy, must constitute an internal act in the procedures for granting and reviewing the operating permission; all pollutants attributable to the plant that are scientifically recognized as harmful to health must be considered in the assessment procedures. In the case of serious and significant danger to the integrity of the environment and human health, the operation of the installation must be suspended. The Judgment highlights important elements on the level of principle and application, which are extraordinarily useful for environment and health personnel, for open-minded and aware local, regional, and national administrators, and above all for the citizens and communities most exposed to pollutants recognized as harmful to health. Preventive environmental health impact assessments gain renewed strength as tools for evaluative and authorized decision-making on production activities, in a sense of full integration between environment and health. The right to environmental and health protection and prevention is an integral part of the defence of human rights, especially in sacrifice zones such as Taranto and many other sites to be reclaimed, considered by the UN as "places where residents suffer devastating physical and mental health consequences and human rights violations".

The production of solid wastes in the metallurgical industry has significant implications for land resources and environmental pollution. To address this issue, it is crucial to explore the potential of recycling these solid wastes to reduce land occupation while protecting the environment and promoting resource utilization. Steel slag, red mud, copper slag and steel picking waste liquor are examples of solid wastes generated during the metallurgical process that possess high iron content and Fe species, making them excellent catalysts for persulfate-based advanced oxidation processes (PS-AOPs). This review elucidates the catalytic mechanisms and pathways of Fe 2+ and Fe 0 in the activation PS. Additionally, it underscores the potential of metallurgical iron-containing solid waste (MISW) as a catalyst for PS activation, offering a viable strategy for its high-value utilization. Lastly, the article provides an outlook towards future challenges and prospects for MISW in PS activation for the degradation of organic pollutants., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In this commentary, we argue that health professionals can play a pivotal role in accelerating the adoption of public policies that will help communities, nations, and the world end fossil fuel pollution and rise to the challenges of climate change. We briefly describe our previously published research showing that communicating about fossil fuel pollution and the health relevance of climate change has many benefits in building public support for climate action. Most importantly, we make the case that because health professionals, especially medical doctors and other clinicians, are highly trusted, we collectively have a unique opportunity to bring people together across the political continuum to have constructive dialogues about the intertwined problems of fossil fuel pollution and climate change and what to do about them - even in the current hyper-partisan environment.

Exploring whether informal environmental regulations (INER) can achieve carbon reduction in the context of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, as well as how to achieve carbon reduction, can help solve the dual failures of the market and government in environmental protection. Based on the polycentric governance theory and considering the characteristics of social subject environmental participation, the Stackelberg game is used to demonstrate the impact mechanism of INER on CO 2 . In addition, using the panel data of China's 30 provinces from 2003 to 2018, this paper validates the effectiveness of INER by Pooled Ordinary Least Square (POLS) and threshold panel model. Then, the mediating effect model is used to test the mechanism of INER's effect on carbon reduction. The results show that corruption is not conducive to CO 2 reduction. The reduction effect of INER on CO 2 exhibits heterogeneity with changes in other non-greenhouse gas pollutants. While INER effectively reduces local corruption, its more substantial indirect impact on CO 2 reduction is prominent when levels of other pollutants are lower. Comparative analysis reveals that there are still biased governance behaviors to cope with INER's pressure in some regions nowadays. The findings show that for countries facing the dual task of pollution control and carbon reduction, the key to leveraging the supervisory role of INER should be focused on mitigating information asymmetry caused by the characteristics of CO 2 . Therefore, in the process of environmental protection, the public environmental participation system should be improved, and the process of disclosing polluters' carbon information should be accelerated., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Climate change and global warming are an omnipresent topic in our daily lives. Planetary health and oncology represent two critical domains within the broader spectrum of healthcare, each addressing distinct yet interconnected aspects of human well-being. We are encouraged to do our part in saving our planet. This should include the decisions we make in our professional life, especially in uro-oncology, as the healthcare sector significantly contributes to environmental pollution., Areas Covered: There are many aspects that can be addressed in the healthcare sector in general, as there are structural problems in terms of energy consumption, water waste, therapeutic techniques, transportation and drug manufacturing, as well as in uro-oncology specific areas. For example, the use of different surgical techniques, forms of anesthesia and the use of disposable or reusable instruments, each has a different impact on our environment. The literature search was carried out using PubMed, a medical database., Expert Opinion: We are used to making decisions based on the best outcome for patients without considering the impact that each decision can have on the environment. In the present article, we outline options and choices for a more climate-friendly approach in urologic oncology.

The digital economy is a crucial focus for realizing the transformation of old and new kinetic energy in China. It is widely integrated with various fields of the economy and society, constantly providing a new dynamic mechanism with synergetic control of environmental pollution and carbon emissions (SCEPCE). Based on panel data from 292 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2021, this study discusses the spatial effects and mechanisms of the digital economy on the coordinated control of pollutants and carbon emissions. The study found that: (1) The digital economy has direct and indirect influences on the coordinated control of pollutants and carbon emissions. The digital economy can drive reductions in pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions by upgrading industrial structures and transforming energy structures. (2) Green innovation plays an active regulatory role in the digital economy and structural optimization, particularly in the context of SCEPCE. This interference helps mitigate the impact of the digital economy on pollution and carbon emissions. (3) The digital economy has a significant spatial spillover effect on the coordinated control of pollutants and carbon emissions. (4) The influence mechanism of the digital economy on pollution reduction and carbon reduction synergy exhibits geographical heterogeneity, resource endowment heterogeneity. To enhance the synergy of pollution reduction and carbon reduction, it is essential to bolster support and optimise the digital economy at various levels. This includes reinforcing regional balance, considering spatial spillover effects, and enhancing the leading role of developed cities in the region., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To quantify the environmental impact of standard direct laryngoscopy surgery and model the environmental benefit of three feasible alternative scenarios that meet safe decontamination reprocessing requirements., Study Design: This is a life cycle assessment (LCA) modeling study., Setting: Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), a 1541-bed tertiary medical center in New Haven, Connecticut, USA., Methods: We performed cradle-to-grave LCA of DLS at Yale New Haven Hospital in 2022, including global warming potential (GWP), water consumption, and fine particulate matter formation. Three alternative scenarios were modeled: disinfecting surgical tools using high-level disinfection rather than steam sterilization, substituting non-sterile for sterile gloves and gowns; and reducing surgical towel and drape sizes by 30%., Results: Changes in disinfection practices would decrease procedure GWP by 11% in each environmental impact category. Substituting non-sterile gowns and gloves reduced GWP by 15%, with nominal changes to water consumption. Linen size reduction resulted in 28% less procedure-related water consumption. Together, a nearly 30% reduction across all environmental impact categories could be achieved., Conclusions: Not exceeding minimum Center for Disease Control (CDC) decontamination standards for reusable devices and optimizing non-sterile consumable materials could dramatically reduce healthcare-associated emissions without compromising safety, thereby minimizing the negative consequences of hospital operations to environmental and human health. Findings extend to other non-sterile surgical procedures., Level of Evidence: NA Laryngoscope, 134:3206-3214, 2024., (© 2024 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.)

Agricultural non-point source pollution control (ANSPC) is a complex, long-term and dynamic environmental protection process. In order to motivate multiple subjects to participate in ANSPC, this paper constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model of local government, village collectives and farmers, which explores the strategic choices and influencing factors of different subjects through simulation analysis. The results indicate that: There are five stable strategy points in the ANSPC game system, which can be divided into four stages based on subject interactions. Village collectives should play an intermediary role in ANSPC and try to coordinate the behaviour of different subjects. The ideal and stable evolution state is "weak supervise, positive response, and active participate", but it cannot be realized at present. The strategy selection of subjects is determined by relative net income. Providing penalties requires considering the heterogeneity of subjects, but incentives are beneficial for achieving tripartite governance. This study provides new evidence for understanding the role of multi-agency participation in agricultural non-point source pollution control, and provides theoretical guidance for the government to formulate differentiated intervention mechanisms, which is an important reference for achieving sustainable development goals., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Shang. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Nanomaterials hold immense potential for numerous applications in energy, health care, and environmental sectors, playing an important role in our daily lives. Their utilization spans from improving energy efficiency to enhancing medical diagnostics, and mitigating environmental pollution, thus presenting a multifaceted approach towards achieving sustainability goals. To ensure the sustainable and safe utilization of nanomaterials, a thorough evaluation of potential hazards and risks is essential throughout their lifecycle-from resource extraction and production to use and disposal. In this review, we focus on understanding and addressing potential environmental and health risks associated with nanomaterial utilization. We advocate for a balanced approach with early hazard identification, safe-by-design principles, and life cycle assessments, while emphasizing safe handling and disposal practices, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Our goal is to ensure responsible nanotechnology development, fostering innovation alongside environmental and community well-being, through a holistic approach integrating science, ethics, and proactive risk assessment., (Copyright 2024 Sandeep Keshavan, Alke Petri-Fink, Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser. License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)

Frontier studies have neglected the impact of digital transformation (DT) on the synergy for pollution and carbon reduction (SPCR) from the perspective of micro enterprises. This paper explores the SPCR effect of DT, as well as its mechanism at micro-firm level. The study found that: (1) DT significantly facilitates corporate SPCR. For every 10% increase in the level of DT, the ranking of SPCR will rise by about 2.3 places. This effect is more obvious in high-tech firms and non-heavy polluters, firms in the eastern region in China, and non-SOE. (2) DT creates innovation-driven and structure-optimizing effects, which enhance the corporate green innovation ability, optimize the business structure and capital allocation structure of enterprises, and then drive the SPCR. (3) External public environmental concerns (PEC) and internal corporate ESG governance act as "accelerators" promoting the SPCR effect of DT. Based on these, policy implications are made to accelerate the pace of corporate DT, give full play to the first-mover advantage, and break the "pollution (carbon) lock-in" with a view to providing theoretical references for the listed enterprises' digitalized governance of SPCR, as well as the governmental departments' formulation of relevant guiding policies, and striving to achieve the high-quality development goal., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The use of surfactants is crucial for the prevention and control of coal dust pollution in coal mining operation areas, yet there still exist many challenges in the control of coal dust pollution. In this paper, the green biomass-based amino acid surfactant sodium myristoyl glutamate (SMG) and the anionic surfactant sodium α-alkenyl sulfonate (AOS) were selected to investigate the improvement of coal dust wettability by single and binary solutions from the macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. Molecular simulations were used to reveal the microscopic mechanism of the wettability of coal dust by the different solutions. Experimental measurements showed that the contact angle of the AOS + SMG aqueous solution was as low as 13.8° on a coal surface. Coating the coal dust with the AOS + SMG solution reduced the surface tension by 12.02% compared to coating the coal with a single component solution. Additionally, the use of the binary AOS + SMG solution increased the hydrophilic group content in the coating by 11.77% compared to a single component solution, and the linkage between hydrophilic groups was enhanced, which pulls the water molecules to wet the coal dust. These research results should provide a new way to promote more environmentally friendly coal dust pollution control technology., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)