The Potential Win-win Strategy for Healthy Aging and Environmental Protection: Environmental Volunteering.

PURPOSE: To explore the physical activity level of community environmental volunteering (CEV) participants and the differences in physical functions and daily activity patterns between the older adults who engaged in intensive CEV (≥15 hours/week) and non-intensive CEV (<15 hours/week) groups. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Three recycling stations in Taiwan. SAMPLE: In total, 113 community-dwelling older adults who regularly participated in CEV. The response rate was 53%. MEASURES: The ActiGraph wGT3x-BT accelerometer for the percentage of sedentary, light, and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) of CEV time and awaken time; the Jamar hand dynamometer for grip strength; and the MicroFET3 muscle testing dynamometer for knee extension strength. ANALYSIS: Analysis of covariance with the baseline characteristics as covariates. RESULTS: Overall, MVPA, light, and sedentary activities accounted for 53.73%, 41.10%, and 5.23% of CEV time, respectively. The intensive group (n = 61) displayed greater dominant handgrip strength (P = .004) and higher MVPA percentage in daily life (P = .044) than the non-intensive group (n = 52). CONCLUSION: CEV provides sufficient opportunities for older adults to perform physical activity. Intensive CEV is related to greater handgrip strength but not lower limb strength. Further study is needed to establish the causal relationship between CEV and health variates.

Potential benefits of environmental volunteering programs of the health of older adults: a pilot study.

PURPOSE: To study the effects of participating in a 12-week environmental volunteering program on the physical performance of older adults across different age groups MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a pretest-posttest pilot study with a single group. The intervention consisted of twice-weekly recycling activities and once-weekly rehabilitation exercise at community-based care centers. The recycling activities of the environmental volunteering program included sorting and handling paper products, plastics, and metals; disposing electronic products; and sorting clothes. The rehabilitation exercise program comprised a 90-min course for special needs and 30 min of health education. The evaluation tools were the handgrip strength, five-times-sit-to-stand test, sit-and-reach test, Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and usual and fast gait speeds. RESULTS: In total, 45 participants completed the program. After the program, the participants showed significantly great improvements compared to baseline in all outcome measures. We further divided these participants into two age subgroups [65-75 years (n = 31) and >75 years (n = 14)]. The 65-75-year subgroup only showed significant improvements in handgrip strength, TUG and usual gait speed. However, the >75-year subgroup showed significant improvements in all outcome measures. CONCLUSIONS: This innovative environmental volunteering program conducted in a local Taiwanese community can be a sustainable and feasible model to improve physical performance in the participants, the subgroup aged >75 years in particular. It also provides a potential avenue for researchers and policymakers to address environmental and aging-related issues.

Revisiting the extended producer responsibility program for metal packaging in South Korea.

Recently, developed and emerging countries have increasingly adopted the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR) to reduce waste. In 2003, South Korea replaced the waste deposit recycling (WDR) program with the EPR program. Previous comparative analyses between the WDR and EPR programs have been qualitative evaluations and have not yet quantitatively shown whether the change has increased benefits. The aim of this paper is to explore which program brings larger net benefits. Because of limited data availability, here we focus on metal packaging exclusively. We find that the recycling rate dropped from 59% in 2000 to 40% in 2011 and recycling volume dropped accordingly. Cost-benefit incidence analysis shows that net social benefits decreased by 2.8 billion won (2.5 million US dollars), while the net benefits to producers increased by 1.9 billion won (1.7 million US dollars) under the EPR program compared with the WDR program. The government of South Korea should set an ambitious recycling target and narrow the scope of the exemption from the mandatory recycling requirement.