Recycling of electric and electronic waste products (e-waste) which amounted to more than 50 million metric tonnes per year worldwide is a massive and global operation. Unfortunately, an estimated 70-80% of this waste has not been properly managed because the waste went from developed to low-income countries to be dumped into landfills or informally recycled. Such recycling has been carried out either directly on landfill sites or in small, often family-run recycling shops without much regulations or oversights. The process traditionally involved manual dismantling, cleaning with hazardous solvents, burning and melting on open fires, etc., which would generate a variety of toxic substances and exposure/hazards to applicators, family members, proximate residents and the environment. The situation clearly calls for global responsibility to reduce the impact on human health and the environment, especially in developing countries where poor residents have been shouldering the hazardous burden. On the other hand, formal e-waste recycling has been mainly conducted in small scales in industrialised countries. Whether the latter process would impose less risk to populations and environment has not been determined yet. Therefore, the main objectives of this review are: 1. to address current trends and emerging threats of not only informal but also formal e-waste management practices, and 2. to propose adequate measures and interventions. A major recommendation is to conduct independent surveillance of compliance with e-waste trading and processing according to the Basel Ban Amendment. The recycling industry needs to be carefully evaluated by joint effort from international agencies, producing industries and other stakeholders to develop better processes. Subsequent transition to more sustainable and equitable e-waste management solutions should result in more effective use of natural resources, and in prevention of adverse effects on health and the environment.

Silicone-based polymer composites containing high atomic number additives are prioritized for the development of new materials for radiation shielding, due to their mechanical, thermal, electrical, and multifunctional properties. The X-ray attenuation properties, as well as mechanical properties, of the newly developed-lead-free multi-layered structures for radiation shielding, based on silicone composite layers containing tin, cerium oxide, tungsten oxide, and bismuth additives, are analyzed and discussed in this paper. It is shown that, by varying the additive concentrations in silicone composites, lead-free and flexible layered structures, exhibiting lead-equivalent X-ray shielding, can be fabricated.

Radiocarbon is produced in all types of nuclear reactors. Most of the ¹⁴C released into the environment is in the form of gaseous emissions. Recent data on the ¹⁴C concentration found in terrestrial samples taken in the vicinity of nuclear power plants in Romania and Lithuania are presented. We found increased ¹⁴C levels in the surroundings of both power plants. At the Romanian power plant Cernavoda, we found excess levels of ¹⁴C in grass within a distance of about 1000 m, the highest ¹⁴C specific activity being 311 Bq/kg C (approximately 28% above the contemporary ¹⁴C background) found at a distance of 200 m from the point of release (nearest sampling location). At the Lithuanian power plant Ignalina, samples of willow, pine, and spruce showed a ¹⁴C excess of similar magnitude, while significantly higher values were found in moss samples. The samples were analyzed at the accelerator mass spectrometry facility in Lund, Sweden.

There is a growing need to develop lead-free shielding materials that are safe, low weight, durable, environmentally friendly, chemically and mechanically stable and customizable for specific applications. Fused deposition modeling (FDM), an additive manufacturing technique based on the extrusion of a thermoplastic filament into a 3D printed object one layer at a time, could be employed well in applications involving ionizing radiation due to its relatively low cost, design flexibility and high manufacturing precision. This study aimed at developing 3D printing composites that contain Titanium dioxide as a filler agent for shielding in a medical radiation environment. First, the effect of low-dose ionizing radiation (up to 15 Gy) on the mechanical properties of common 3D printing polymers, ABS, ULTRAT, PLA, NYLON, ASA and PETG, was investigated. Since ABS experienced the lowest variation in its ultimate tensile strength (±5%) and Young’s modulus (−5%/+11%), it was chosen as a matrix for a new extruded 3D filament containing TiO₂ at 1 wt.%, 3 wt.%, and 5 wt.%. With the incorporation of TiO₂ at different filler contents, the UTS of the ABS composites varied between 24.1 MPa and 28.4 MPa, with the highest value recorded for 3 wt.% TiO₂. Young’s modulus values were dependent on both the TiO₂ concentration and on the irradiation dose. In addition, the ABS/TiO₂ composites with a higher filler content (3 wt.% and 5 wt.%) maintained their attenuation ability even after exposure to a radiation dose of 100 Gy as opposed to pure ABS, which exhibited a ~2.5% reduction in its mass attenuation coefficient after exposure to the same dose of radiation. The pilot investigation performed demonstrated that the newly developed ABS/TiO₂ composite containing 5 wt.% of filler can be successfully employed to shield electronic devices operating in a radiotherapy room.