Sustainable treatment systems for removal of pharmaceutical residues and other priority persistent substances.

Pharmaceutical residues and other emerging substances commonly summarised as micropollutants pass through wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and end up in the receiving waters and sludge. Many studies have investigated the removal efficiency of various techniques but a holistic evaluation of various relevant treatment alternatives regarding both the removal efficiency for various micropollutants, investment and operating costs, environmental impacts and future comprehensiveness is still lacking. This paper provides the results from a large 3-year project about the evaluation of sustainable treatment systems for removal of various micropollutants or disruptive effects at Swedish WWTPs and their environmental, economic and future sustainability. The presented results are based on our own pilot tests and related assessment and modelling efforts and provide a holistic view on advanced treatment of wastewater for removal of micropollutants.

[Is it already '5 past 12'?--Development of a scale for "ecological hopelessness"]. / Ist es schon 'fünf nach zwölf'?--Entwicklung einer Skala zu "Okologischer Hoffnungslosigkeit".

The article reports results from a second follow-up survey (N = 541) on existential anxieties with a sample from the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992 who had first been questionned in 1985 when their ages were between 8 and 20 years. The report focuses on data gathered with a new scale on 'ecological hopelessness'. The new scale is comprised of 10 items and shows high reliability. The results reveal that every third youth in the sample articulates ecological hopelessness. Analyses of variance show that there is a strong gender difference: Girls/women express more hopelessness than boys/men, correlations and regression analyses show a negative relation between hopelessness and mental health and a positive relation between hopelessness and attempted coping. It is probable that hopelessness will expand if environmental destruction becomes more intensive. Thus, psychology as a part of humanities is obliged to not only point to the dangerous consequences of hopeless per se, but also to engage in the prevention of ecological hopelessness.