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Plastic pollution is a global problem and many countries are strengthening their regulations to mitigate the related environmental degradation and health risks and to support the development and deployment of circular economy for various types of plastics. As Canada also develops its strategy for regulating single-use plastic as one element of the plastic pollution, aligned federal and provincial policies are essential. This study presents an analysis of existing and emerging policies to provide guidance on Canada's future regulations. Qualitative and quantitative data regarding plastic regulations were gathered from similar countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and relevant scientific articles. Analysis was also conducted of current Canadian regulations that both impact and guide the path for plastic regulation, international examples provided guidance for future Canadian regulations. The analysis found that there is a need for public education on the gravity of plastic pollution to gain their support; for establishing pioneering provinces or cities in plastic regulations to learn from and provide other cities with support; and to start with banning items with available alternatives, to be followed by phasing out other items that are more difficult to replace. The study also showed potential areas of improvement in impact data. The need for reliable regulatory performance data against a baseline scenario; consistency in methodology; and proper scoping to reduce the risk of displacement or exclusivity in policy were identified., 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.

This study compares the delivered cost of forest biomass and its associated GHG emissions for three sizes of biorefinery including 50,000 m 3 (small scale), 250,000 m 3 (medium scale), and 700,000 m 3 (large scale). The proposed methodology in this study includes harvest intensity which is often overlooked. The Pontiac region located in the Province of Quebec (Southeastern Canada) is used as a case study due to the availability of data in this forestry biomass rich region. Furthermore, there are significant similarities with other forestry regions to enable generalisation of the proposed case study. Harvest intensities of 423 harvest zones (cutblocks) are considered in cost and GHG emissions analysis of delivered biomass from each cutblock to the biorefinery. The results show that harvest intensities of cutblocks must be prioritized over conventional parameters such as transportation distance. The selection and prioritisation of cutblocks according to transportation distance without considering harvest intensities would result in an increase of about 12.5% in delivered costs of biomass for small and medium scale biorefineries. Results also reveal that the transportation distance would be a more significant parameter when using the same harvest intensity for all the selected cutblocks. Required logistics and harvesting equipment for three biorefinery sizes were also quantified. Sensitivity analysis shows that reduced productivity of harvest equipment by 20% could increase the delivered costs of biomass and GHG emissions by 10% for medium and large scale biorefineries and by 13% for a small scale biorefinery., (Crown Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The fly ash from the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper (CBPP) mill was used in this study as the raw material for the preparation of a low-cost adsorbent for arsenic removal from the well water of Bell Island. The CBPP fly ash was physically activated in two different ways: (a) activation with pure CO 2 (CAC) with the iodine number and methylene value of 704.53 mg/g and 292.32 mg/g, respectively; and (b) activation with a mixture of CO 2 and steam (CSAC) with the iodine number and methylene value of 1119.98 mg/g and 358.95 mg/g, respectively, at the optimized temperature of 850 °C and the time of 2 h for both activations. The BET surface areas of the CAC and CSAC at the optimized conditions were 847.26 m 2 /g and 1146.25 m 2 /g, respectively. The optimized CSAC was used for impregnation with iron (III) chloride (FeCl 3 ) with different concentrations (0.01 M to 1 M). The study shows that the adsorbent impregnated with 0.1 M FeCl 3 is the most efficient adsorbent for arsenic removal. Isotherm analysis shows that the Langmuir model better describes the equilibrium behavior of the arsenic adsorption from both local well water and synthesized water compared to the other models. The maximum arsenic adsorption capacity was 35.6 μg/g of carbon for local well water and 1428.6 μg/g of carbon for synthesized water. Furthermore, the kinetic behavior of arsenic adsorption from synthesized and local well water was well depicted by the pseudo-second order kinetic model., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Pretreatment as a crucial step in the process of ethanol production has significant influences on the process efficiency and on the environmental performance of the bioethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass. In present life cycle analysis (LCA) study, two cases for pretreatment of woodchips were considered as the focal point of the ethanol plant. One was assumed as base scenario whereas the second is the proposed alternative by implementation of modifications on the base design. In the first stage, LCA results of pretreatment unit showed lower environmental impacts in respiratory inorganics and land use than in new scenario, while the base scenario revealed better performance in fossil fuels. The results of the second stage of LCA study demonstrated improvement in proposed design in most categories of environmental impacts such as 18.5 % in land use as well as 17 % improvement in ecosystem quality.