Humanity is currently facing several global problems, such as global warming, air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, desertification, and land degradation, which are connected to the consequences of negative human activity. One of the possible and effective institutional tools for environmental protection is the environmental education of the general population. It is a relatively well-known and used environmental protection policy tool that governments of all developed countries have in their instrument mix. This qualitative analysis assigned itself the task of investigating whether the ability of environmental education can be affected by certain neuropsychological diseases in addition to thinking about the psychology of environmental education at large. To fulfill this main task, the authors asked themselves the following research questions: 1st—Is pedagogical psychology identical and applicable in the case of environmental education? And 2nd—What effect do some neuropsychological disorders have on the ability of environmental education? Based on the study, analysis, selection, and comparison of current professional scientific works obtained from the research activities of current researches on this topic, it is possible to accept the premise that the psychology of environmental education is basically the same as the general psychology of education and that neuropsychological diseases do indeed affect the ability of environmental education similarly to scholarly education. The main benefit of this qualitative review is the originality of the survey. There are no relevant and credible publications on the chosen topic, i.e., on the influence of selected neuropsychological diseases on the ability of environmental education of the population, to be found in the representative databases. Due to the importance of environmental education of the population, as one of the basic tools of environmental protection, the knowledge gained can gradually be incorporated into the politics, psychology, and didactics of education, to improve the technique of environmental education.

In the field of ecoethics, in addition to names such as Kohák, Vavroušek, Keller, and Librová, we are increasingly encountering the name of a Czech philosopher, Professor Josef Šmajs. In his works, Professor Šmajs presents an entirely new, original, and comprehensive view of human life on Earth and its ethics. His concept combines the humanities and natural sciences into a single organic whole. Šmajs declares: “We are the products of a magnificent natural evolution, but we are proud only of our cultural creativity. We think – and we teach it in schools – that we complete humanity with human culture and humanize it. However, the truth is different. Nature is original, self-sufficient, and perfect; we cannot complete or humanize it.” He further claims that “If we want to survive on Earth, we must wisely give way to nature wisely in time. The epoch of the symbiosis of culture and nature is still ahead of us.” His philosophy, which can be called biophilic, interprets the current form of the ecological crisis and its causes and provides a clear, realistic guide to saving humanity and life on earth in ethical manner.

This study proposed action scenarios for urban solid waste management in six municipalities in the Corumbataí River Basin. The operating scenarios were designed for organic waste treatment and for the shared disposal of urban solid waste. Six municipalities were studied, five of which had less than 30,000 inhabitants (Analândia, Charqueada, Corumbataí, Ipeúna, and Santa Gertrudes). In addition, Rio Claro had 199,000 inhabitants. Thus, the transport and transshipment stages, general infrastructure, and final disposal in landfills were analyzed. Further, the three scenarios for organic waste treatment were conducted separately. The items and the cost of implementation were estimated for decentralized composting, centralized composting, and biomethanization of waste with electricity recovery. The biomethanization scenario included the commercialization of electricity, so it generated revenues that decreased costs. This cost reduction was especially notable in the last years of the project when the goals of diversion of organic waste through selective collection were higher. The results suggested that the investigated scenarios could improve organic waste treatment and that the biomethanization scenario with electricity generation presented lower average costs per inhabitant than the centralized and decentralized composting scenarios.

Purpose: The combination of bioremediation and thermal remediation techniques, known as thermally enhanced bioremediation, aims to efficiently remove soil contaminants. However, increasing the temperature in remediation processes can have negative impacts on soil microorganisms. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the effects of soil heating and naphthalene contamination on soil quality and phytotoxicity variables. Materials and methods: To simulate thermally enhanced bioremediation, soil samples were artificially contaminated with 5 naphthalene concentrations (0, 50, 100, 250 and 500 mg of naphthalene/kg of soil) and incubated at temperatures of 28, 38, 48 and 58 °C. The effects of the factors were determined using microbiological bioindicators (microbial activity and biomass, metabolic quotient and bacterial count on petri dishes), and phytotoxicity (germination and root length of lettuce seeds), assessed immediately and after 15 and 30 days of contamination. For statistical analysis of the bioindicators, multivariate analyses: PERMANOVA (Permutational Multivariate Analysis of Variance) and Principal Component Analysis were applied using software R. Results and discussion: Based on the bioindicators applied, it was found that immediate contamination with naphthalene implied a reduction in biomass and microbial growth associated with greater environmental stress, due to increasing qCO2 values, at high concentrations (250 and 500 mg /kg). Over time (15 and 30 days), an interaction was identified between temperature and contaminant concentration, with a complex effect between these factors, the temperature range between 28 and 38 °C stimulated the growth of microbial communities, regardless of concentration. Conclusion: In this study the results indicate that temperature ranges below 40 °C are promising for application in thermally enhanced bioremediation strategies, as they benefit soil microorganisms and potentially favor contaminant degradation.