The bioconversion of environmental wastes into energy is gaining much interest in most developing and developed countries. The current study is concerned with the proper exploitation of some industrial wastes. Cellulosic fiber waste was selected as a raw material for producing bioethanol as an alternative energy source. A combination of physical, chemical, and enzymatic hydrolysis treatments was applied to maximize the concentration of glucose that could be fermented with yeast into bioethanol. The results showed that the maximum production of 13.9 mg/mL of glucose was achieved when 5% cellulosic fiber waste was treated with 40% HCl, autoclaved, and followed with enzymatic hydrolysis. Using SEM and FTIR analysis, the instrumental characterization of the waste fiber treatment confirmed the effectiveness of the degradation by turning the long threads of the fibers into small pieces, in addition to the appearance of new functional groups and peak shifting. A potent yeast strain isolated from rotten grapes was identified as Starmerella bacillaris STDF-G4 (accession number OP872748), which was used to ferment the obtained glucose units into bioethanol under optimized conditions. The maximum production of 3.16 mg/mL of bioethanol was recorded when 7% of the yeast strain was anaerobically incubated at 30 °C in a broth culture with the pH adjusted to 5. The optimized conditions were scaled up from flasks to a fermentation bioreactor to maximize the bioethanol concentration. The obtained data showed the ability of the yeast strain to produce 4.13 mg/mL of bioethanol after the first 6 h of incubation and double the amount after 36 h of incubation to reach 8.6 mg/mL, indicating the efficiency of the bioreactor in reducing the time and significantly increasing the product.

Despite the presence of a national policy restricting the easy access to antibiotics, irrational use of antibiotics continues to be widespread both in human use and livestock production in Lebanon. This study targets the general population in the rural region of Bekaa to assess their knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) towards antibiotic use. A cross sectional questionnaire was completed by 1151 participants, through face-to-face interviews. Study population was randomly selected. Descriptive statistics and correlation tests were applied in data analysis. 69.2% of participants had a very poor knowledge about antibiotics. More than 70% believed that viral infections may be treated by antibiotics; interrupting therapy when conditions improve and sharing antibiotics were considered appropriate by 79.4% and 80.3%, respectively. Only 14.1% were aware of the concept of “antibiotic resistance” and 58.3% didn’t know that antibiotics were used in animals. Despite their poor knowledge, more than half of participants (55.2%) expressed good attitude in terms of need for prescriptions (79.1%) when needed only (89.5%) and on the minimal use in agriculture (74%). Such positive attitude was generally reflected by their overall moderate practice among participants (65.8%). Nevertheless, only 10.9% of the participants obtained their antibiotics through a prescription, 62.7% kept leftover antibiotic for future use and 83.2% interrupted their antibiotic treatment. Moreover, participants’ attitudes and practices were significantly associated with gender, age and educational level. However, knowledge was associated only with gender and education. Knowledge showed significant positive correlation with attitude and practice. Findings suggest that intervention awareness programs specifically targeting specific segments in rural regions can be effective in directing the public to the rational use of antibiotics. Further research is recommended by conducting nationwide KAP studies covering communities of both urban and rural regions.