Las epidemias en La Pampa (Argentina), en perspectiva histórica* / The epidemics in La Pampa (Argentina), from a historical perspective

Resumen Este artículo describe el inicio de las preocupaciones sanitarias vinculadas a las epidemias ocurridas durante el siglo XX en La Pampa, provincia argentina. Las epidemias, como las de la viruela, fueron un estímulo para estas políticas que frecuentemente tuvieron origen en Buenos Aires, la capital del país. El contagio de muchas epidemias dependía de carencias de infraestructura: agua, desagüe y desecho adecuado de basuras, de la ausencia de un número suficiente de trabajadores de salud, de la presencia de vectores transmisores de enfermedades como los mosquitos y, en última instancia, de la pobreza. La experiencia histórica descrita en este texto resalta la importancia de analizar el impacto del SARS-CoV-2 más allá de las grandes ciudades.

Abstract This article describes the emergence of health concerns relating to the epidemics that occurred during the twentieth century in La Pampa, a province in Argentina. Epidemics such as smallpox drove such policies, which frequently originated in Buenos Aires, the country's capital. The spread of many epidemics was due to shortages: water, sewage and adequate refuse disposal, an insufficient number of health care workers, the presence of disease transmission vectors such as mosquitos, and, ultimately, poverty. The historical experience described in this text highlights the importance of analyzing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 beyond the big cities.

[The epidemics in La Pampa (Argentina), from a historical perspective]. / Las epidemias en La Pampa (Argentina), en perspectiva histórica.

This article describes the emergence of health concerns relating to the epidemics that occurred during the twentieth century in La Pampa, a province in Argentina. Epidemics such as smallpox drove such policies, which frequently originated in Buenos Aires, the country's capital. The spread of many epidemics was due to shortages: water, sewage and adequate refuse disposal, an insufficient number of health care workers, the presence of disease transmission vectors such as mosquitos, and, ultimately, poverty. The historical experience described in this text highlights the importance of analyzing the impact of SARS-CoV-2 beyond the big cities.

Este artículo describe el inicio de las preocupaciones sanitarias vinculadas a las epidemias ocurridas durante el siglo XX en La Pampa, provincia argentina. Las epidemias, como las de la viruela, fueron un estímulo para estas políticas que frecuentemente tuvieron origen en Buenos Aires, la capital del país. El contagio de muchas epidemias dependía de carencias de infraestructura: agua, desagüe y desecho adecuado de basuras, de la ausencia de un número suficiente de trabajadores de salud, de la presencia de vectores transmisores de enfermedades como los mosquitos y, en última instancia, de la pobreza. La experiencia histórica descrita en este texto resalta la importancia de analizar el impacto del SARS-CoV-2 más allá de las grandes ciudades.

Temporal assessment of municipal solid waste management in Nigeria: prospects for circular economy adoption.

This work reviewed the past and current status of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Nigeria towards offering a direction for the future. The past status shows that poor policy regimes, inadequate financing mechanisms, absence of waste data, and abysmal institutional arrangement negatively impacted the MSW management outcomes in the country. At present, few improvements recorded like an increase in the number of landfills, and public-private partnerships have been largely undermined by the continuous upsurge in the urban population and lack of corresponding growth in critical capacities in terms of economic resources, technological advancement, and state-of-the-art urban infrastructures. The current waste generated in cities in Nigeria is calculated as 66,828 tonnes per day (TPD) at the total urban population of 106 million, while the projected value for 2040 will be 125,473 TPD at the urban population of 199 million. The current work further discusses prospects and implications for circular economy adoption in solid waste valorization in Nigeria.

From the lost radium files: misadventures in the absence of training, regulation, and accountability.

PURPOSE: Radium was the foundation of brachytherapy in the early decades of the 20th century. Despite being a most precious and perilous substance, it was mislaid with surprising frequency. This essay explores how it was lost, the efforts taken to recover it, and measures instituted to prevent mishandling. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Review of contemporary literature, government publications, archives, and lay press. RESULTS: Radium is a particularly dangerous substance because of its long half-life, its gaseous daughter (radon), and the high-energy emissions of its decay products. Despite the hazard, it was unregulated for most of the century. Any physician could obtain and administer it, and protocols for safe handling were generally lacking. Change came with appreciation of the danger, regulation, mandated training, and the institution of a culture of accountability. Unfortunately, careless management of medical radionuclides remains a global hazard. CONCLUSION: Responsible stewardship of radioactive material was not a high priority, for practitioners or the federal government, for much of the 20th century. As a result, large quantities of radium had gone astray, possibly subjecting the general public to continued radiation exposure. Lessons from the radium era remain relevant, as medical radionuclides are still mishandled.

GHGs emissions from waste disposal in Lombardia (Italy): inventory 1975-2008 and projections 2009-2020.

A survey has been conducted across all MSW landfills with gas extraction system in the Lombardia Region (Italy) in order to collect data for an emission inventory assessment of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the timeframe 1975-2008. The survey results identified a large number of landfills opened over the last 35 years and characterized by different kinds and amounts of waste disposed. Using the IPCC methodology, GHG emissions in the year 2008 were quantified to be 1.81 Mt CO(2)-eq, which corresponds to 1.9% of overall GHG emissions in Lombardia. A dependency between collection efficiency and age of the collecting network has been established and used for the projection of GHG emission in the period 2009-2020, and for two scenarios: a business as usual (BAU) and an alternative one that implies policies to reduce biodegradable carbon content in the residual waste. The latter allows for a 45% reduction of the GHG emissions in 2020 compared to the year 2008, whereas in the BAU scenario the expected reduction is 32%. The sensitivity analysis shows that a variation of parameters that represent the carbon content of the waste category and degradation rate constant, within the range reported in the literature, could affect GHG emission level by about ±18%, whereas the uncertainty due to landfill gas (LFG) composition is less relevant.

Similar problems, different solutions: comparing refuse collection in the Netherlands and Spain.

Because of differences in institutional arrangements, public service markets, and national traditions regarding government intervention, local public service provision can vary greatly. In this paper we compare the procedures adopted by the local governments of The Netherlands and Spain in arranging for the provision of solid waste collection. We find that Spain faces a problem of consolidation, opting more frequently to implement policies of privatization and cooperation, at the expense of competition. By contrast, The Netherlands, which has larger municipalities on average, resorts somewhat less to privatization and cooperation, and more to competition. Both options-cooperation and competition-have their merits when striving to strike a balance between transaction costs and scale economies. The choices made in organizational reform seem to be related to several factors, among which the nature of the political system and the size of municipalities appear to be relevant.

Mineralised organic remains from cesspits at the Roman town of Silchester: processes and preservation.

Mineralised organic remains (including apple pips and cereal grains) collected during the ongoing excavations of Insula IX at the Roman town of Silchester, Hampshire have been analysed by a combination of SEM-EDX, powder XRD and IR spectroscopy. The experiments included mapping experiments using spatially resolved versions of each technique. IR and powder XRD mapping have been carried out utilising the synchrotron source at The Daresbury Laboratory on stations 11.1 and 9.6. It is concluded that these samples are preserved by rapid mineralisation in the carbonate-substituted calcium phosphate mineral, dahllite. The rapid mineralisation leads to excellent preservation of the samples and a small crystal size. The value of IR spectroscopy in studying materials like this where the crystal size is small is demonstrated. A comparison is made between the excellent preservation seen in this context and the much poorer preservation of mineralised remains seen in Context 5276 or Cesspit 5251. Comments on the possible mechanism of mineralisation of these samples are made.

Science, policy and the management of sewage materials. The New York City experience.

Development of national policy on sewage sludge management is a classic example of incremental policy formulation [Fiorino, D.J. 1995. Making Environmental Policy. University of California Press. Berkeley, CA. p. 269]. Consequently, policy has developed piecemeal, and results are, in some ways, different than intended. Land application of sewage sludge has not been a panacea. Many of the same types of policy are now being raised about it. We demonstrate this by examining the management of sewage materials by New York City from near the turn of the 20th century, when ocean dumping was viewed as a means to alleviate some of the gross pollution in New York Harbor, to when ocean dumping was banned, and thence to the present when sludge is applied to land as "biosolids." Lessons learned during this long, sometimes contentious history can be applied to present situations--specifically not understanding the long-term consequences of land-based reuse and disposal technologies.

A historical context of municipal solid waste management in the United States.

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in the United States is a system comprised of regulatory, administrative, market, technology, and social subcomponents, and can only be understood in the context of its historical evolution. American cities lacked organized public works for street cleaning, refuse collection, water treatment, and human waste removal until the early 1800s. Recurrent epidemics forced efforts to improve public health and the environment. The belief in anticontagionism led to the construction of water treatment and sewerage works during the nineteenth century, by sanitary engineers working for regional public health authorities. This infrastructure was capital intensive and required regional institutions to finance and administer it. By the time attention turned to solid waste management in the 1880s, funding was not available for a regional infrastructure. Thus, solid waste management was established as a local responsibility, centred on nearby municipal dumps. George Waring of New York City organized solid waste management around engineering unit operations; including street sweeping, refuse collection, transportation, resource recovery and disposal. This approach was adopted nationwide, and was managed by City Departments of Sanitation. Innovations such as the introduction of trucks, motorized street sweepers, incineration, and sanitary landfill were developed in the following decades. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), is the defining legislation for MSWM practice in America today. It forced the closure of open dumps nationwide, and required regional planning for MSWM. The closure of municipal dumps caused a 'garbage crisis' in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Private companies assumed an expanded role in MSWM through regional facilities that required the transportation of MSW across state lines. These transboundary movements of MSW created the issue of flow control, in which the US Supreme Court affirmed the protection of garbage under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Thus MSWM in America today is largely managed by municipalities, and operated by a relatively small number of private companies. It consists of a mixture of landfill, incineration, recycling, and composting, and is regulated under RCRA, the Clean Air Act and other related federal and state laws.

Palaeoparasitology in Japan--discovery of toilet features.

The development of palaeoparasitology in Japan has occurred in recent decades. Despite the fact that archaeology in Japan has been slow to develop techniques for excavating ancient toilets, important information about the development of sanitation has been derived from the analysis of a few sites. This shows that the earliest people had very simple methods of sanitation. As populations increased, sanitation became more complex. Ditches surrounding early towns were used for excrement disposal. Eventually distinct toilets were developed followed by cesspit type toilets and flushing toilets. The parasites recovered from these toilets include many species that infect humans today. These parasite spectra reflect local use of aquatic, marine, and land animals. Fecal borne disease was an increasing problem as represented by whipworm and ascarid roundworm eggs. Interestingly, ascarid roundworms were absent in the earliest cultures and only became common with rice agriculture. Finds of pollen and seeds in toilet sediments reveal the use of medicinal plants to control the emerging problem of parasites.

Japanese experiences of environmental management.

Japan experienced a very rapid industrialization and economic growth in the era of income doubling in 1960s and at the same time Japan experienced very severe damage from various types of environmental pollution. In this paper, historical development of population, GNP, energy consumption with classification of petroleum, coal and electric power, and CO2 emission are introduced as basic background data on Japanese development. The tragic experience of Minamata disease and Itai-itai disease caused by methyl mercury and cadmium, respectively, are introduced. In two tables, historical development of water pollution and air pollution are summarized. Regarding solid wastes management, the total mass balance in Japan and recent development in legislation framework for enhancement of recycling of wastes are introduced briefly.