Category: Science

How waste has invaded all environments

August 25, 2024

managing increasing waste
While it did not exist until the end of the 19th century, waste has colonized the living. Beyond the technical challenges it raises, it has become a field of investigation for the human sciences, which seek to shed light on the systems and myths at the source of its production.

It has become the familiar companions of our modern destinies. Abandoned on beaches, trapped in glaciers or concentrated in gigantic vortices in the oceans, waste has invaded all environments, colonizing even the living. Microscopic or cumbersome, in solid, liquid or gaseous state, it traces new globalized paths on the seas, saturates the air and the soil, and now invests space. Sometimes described as ultimate or eternal pollutants, it imposes itself on our plates, our drinking water, and even the tips of our hair.

The figures are staggering. Annual production of solid waste has exceeded 2 billion tons worldwide and is expected to reach 3.4 billion in 2050, warns the World Bank. The production of plastics has doubled in twenty years, estimates the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), two-thirds of which are landfilled, incinerated or released into the environment.

While this omnipresence directly affects human health and that of ecosystems, it also leaves an indelible mark on human activities on Earth. Since the first piles left at the entrance to caves, witnesses to its sedentarisation, detritus tells the story of Homo sapiens, including construction waste.

Waste is everywhere

Microparticles of various plastics have been found in all the livers of people with cirrhosis. Conversely, they were undetectable in people without liver disease. Could they be the cause or consequence of the pathology? The authors of this study published in eBioMedicine are working on it, but note in any case that these substances can accumulate in human peripheral organs. Until now they had been found in blood, stools and the placenta.

They have landed in our trash, carried by advertising and its mirages of cleanliness and individuality. However, paradoxically, the more beautiful and white they are, the more polluting they are. These are the disposable objects, cups, handkerchiefs, telephones, deodorant sticks, whose history philosophers trace in her consumerism through its objects.

Indispensable telephones

Without being immediately disposable, but at least as polluting, smartphones have been the subject of a rapid and massive diffusion, at a unique point in the history of technology. Thanks to the systemic network effect, the object becomes in itself a means of integration, or exclusion.

In some countries, such as China, you need a smartphone to take public transportation. An expert in planned obsolescence warns the reader against the many ways to avoid overconsumption. Do we really prevent overconsumption, for example, by marketing a vegetarian steak? Do we really help the environment by replacing polystyrene with cardboard, as McDonald’s did in the 1990s? Why not reduce the use of plastic altogether rather than relying on recycling it? Should laws on planned obsolescence, such as the one in force in Virginia, be more widely applied?

How the state of Virginia is developing policies to reduce waste

The state of Virginia is actively developing and implementing policies aimed at reducing waste and promoting environmental sustainability. One of the central efforts is the Virginia Environmental Excellence Program (VEEP), which encourages businesses and local governments to adopt proactive environmental management practices, including waste reduction and recycling initiatives. Participants in the VEEP like Same Day Dumpster Rental Norfolk are recognized for their commitment to sustainability and can benefit from regulatory flexibility and other incentives.

The state of Virginia has also been working on enhancing its solid waste management regulations. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) oversees these regulations, focusing on comprehensive waste management strategies that include recycling, composting and waste-to-energy programs. The DEQ provides guidance and support to local governments and businesses to improve their waste reduction efforts and compliance with state and federal laws.

Another significant policy initiative is the Virginia Plastic Waste Prevention Advisory Council, established to address the growing issue of plastic waste. The council is tasked with developing strategies to reduce plastic pollution, promoting the use of alternative materials and increasing public awareness about the environmental impacts of plastic waste.

Virginia is also investing in public education campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of waste reduction and recycling. These campaigns aim to inform residents about best practices for reducing household waste, proper recycling techniques, and the benefits of composting organic materials.

Through these combined efforts, the state of Virginia is making strides in reducing waste generation, enhancing recycling rates, and fostering a culture of sustainability among its residents and businesses.

The Relevance of Semantics

December 19, 2015

Applications directly using semantics are not lacking. We can mention research on automatic summarization or machine translation. Semantics is also involved in robotics, in particular the reasoning in natural languages, the man-machine dialogue. Semantics is, in the language sciences, as opposed to syntax.

The syntax is concerned with formal rules, whereas semantics concerns itself with meaning. The goal of the Semantic Web is to allow machines to exchange information using the meaning of words as in natural languages. This ambitious goal requires a lot of work on languages, systems and ontologies. As part of this objective, Topic Maps need to hold an important place.

For example, traditional search engines operate syntactically: a query on the keyword “sun” will fetch in a database pages containing the string [sun] regardless of the meaning of this word which depends of course on context. We found both the Auberge du Soleil, the Théâtre du Soleil, a catalog of sunglasses … plus pages about the Sun Star. In a Topic Map, we would create a Topic Sun, which will be defined according to the context. Ties with the Topic, via associations and occurrences are semantic links.

Language and symbolic capacity are at the heart of research in cognitive science (brain science). Scientists have discovered the biological basis of conscious experience. In addition to the exceptional concentration of nerve cells in the human brain, there is a vast network of connections between different cortical areas, which have various functions.

“The areas that coordinate language must be connected to all other sensory modalities, because we can recognize and identify an object by touch as well as vision, hearing or smell. All this information must find its way to the generator of the word.

However, intermodal connections between different cortical areas are far fewer in animals whose sensory systems remain more isolated, researchers recently found out. If the animal detects a stimulus by the visual system, it is not certain that it knows to generalize it in another modality, such as touch, for example.

Animals generalize much less than humans because they have less intermodal connections. The capacity for abstraction, generalization, is more advanced in humans (for better or for worse) and the intermodal capacity for abstraction is made possible by combining concept-word (or signified-signifier).

The symbolic capacity, is the fact that the symbols “milk”, “juice” … return home not only to a physical reality but also other symbols such as “liquid”, “fruit extract” etc.. It is this ability that allows us to invent imaginary animals, imaginary worlds from properties that have symbolic animals and real situations, or to imagine a life after death …

One wonders what is the semantics of programming. In fact, we find the term in mathematics since the 30s. Mathematical logic is a very precise language derived from natural language and designed to avoid ambiguity. Mathematical logic includes a formal syntax that says for example that the following sentence is correct: for any natural number x, there is a successor of the number x.

But there is also a formal semantics giving meaning to the symbols invariable and accurate, in terms of values or truths of set theory. Theorists have extended these computer methods to the analysis of programming languages. We thus find the term semantics in linguistics, mathematical logic and computer science.

For their part, linguists working in formal semantics extend these methods to the analysis of conjunctions (and, hence, so …), determinants (all, some, each, several …), the negation of verb tenses etc. Any linguistic semantics, even more intuitive, can be reformulated logically.

It is obviously possible to make the semantics intuitively. But reading semantics, we always ask: what is the link between semantics and intuitive logic? The challenge is to make the link between the two. (ie a bit of logic and set theory), taking into account the fact that your knowledge of logic are limited.