New Journals on Industrial Ecology and Bioremediation

New Journals on Industrial Ecology and Bioremediation

Reid Lifset, Editor-in-Chief. MIT Press Journals, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142; 617/253-2889, journals-orders@mit.edu (e-mail). Quarterly, $40/year for individuals; $30/year for students.

Robert Hinchee, Editor-in-Chief. CRC Press, 2000 Corporate Blvd. NW, Boca Raton, FL 33431; 800/272-7737. Quarterly, $195/year.

Industrial ecology is a broad field addressing the role of industry in reducing environmental burdens throughout the life-cycle of manufactured goods and materials—from raw material extraction, through manufacturing, use, and waste management. Many are calling industrial ecology the “next industrial revolution.” Clearly, it is an active area of research within the industrial community, including many of the nation’s leading companies. The brand new, peer-reviewed

Journal of Industrial Ecology will likely become the leading voice in this emerging field.

The

Journal’s first issue includes a wealth of fascinating and diverse material, including articles on barriers to eco-labeling; the industrial ecology of lead-acid batteries for electric vehicles; LCA and the constraints in shifting from inventory assessment to impact assessment; a history of the highly publicized industrial ecosystem in Kalundborg, Denmark in which different industries use each other’s wastes; two articles on chlorine as an industrial chemical (with three additional articles on chlorine planned for the second issue); converting to organic cotton at Patagonia; and recent advances at Motorola with environmental design. Seven pages of book reviews round out the 150-page issue. The

Journal is edited at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in New Haven, Connecticut, where editor Lifset is a professor.

The

Bioremediation Journal, launched in March 1997, addresses a very different issue, but one that may also be of interest to green designers and developers—especially those involved with contaminated “brown-field” sites. Bioremediation is the use of living organisms to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater. A wide range of bacteria, plants, and other organisms are being used for remediation of petroleum spills, heavy metal contamination, and various types of chemical spills. The peer-reviewed

Bioremediation Journal is an outgrowth of a series of International Symposia on In Situ and On-Site Bioremediation, which were held in 1991, 1993, and 1995. The

Journal will serve the information needs of this burgeoning field that promises far-lower-impact environmental clean-up of contaminated sites than conventional practice.

The first issue of

Bioremediation Journal includes 96 pages of articles on such topics as biodegradation of dioxin-related compounds, long-term effects on soil ecosystems of crude oil contamination and bioremediation, aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation of pentachlorophenol (a common wood preservative), and treatment of jet fuel-contaminated runoff water by subsurface infiltration. While published by CRC Press, the

Journal is the property of the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, where it is edited.

Both of these journals are more technical than many readers of

EBN will need, but they represent the leading edge of applying ecological principles to industrial processes—and industrial processes gone awry.