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A direct correlation exists between waste disposal, disease spread and public health. This article systematically reviewed healthcare waste and its implication for public health. This review identified and described the associations and impact of waste disposal on public health.

This paper systematically reviewed the literature on waste disposal and its implications for public health by searching Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA), PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. Of a total of 1,583 studies, 59 articles were selected and reviewed.

The review revealed the spread of infectious diseases and environmental degradation as the most typical implications of improper waste disposal to public health. The impact of waste includes infectious diseases such as cholera, Hepatitis B, respiratory problems, food and metal poisoning, skin infections, and bacteremia, and environmental degradation such as land, water, and air pollution, flooding, drainage obstruction, climate change, and harm to marine and wildlife.

Infectious diseases such as cholera, hepatitis B, respiratory problems, food and metal poisoning, skin infections, bacteremia and environmental degradation such as land, water, and air pollution, flooding, drainage obstruction, climate change, and harm to marine and wildlife are some of the public impacts of improper waste disposal.

Healthcare industry waste is a significant waste that can harm the environment and public health if not properly collected, stored, treated, managed and disposed of. There is a need for knowledge and skills applicable to proper healthcare waste disposal and management. Policies must be developed to implement appropriate waste management to prevent public health threats.

Despite differing strategies towards environmental sustainability in developed and developing nations, the manufacturing sector in these regional domains faces substantial environmental issues. The purpose of this study is to examine the green-lean-six sigma (GLSS) enablers and outcomes for enhancing environmental sustainability of manufacturing firms in both, a developed and developing country context by using an environment-centric natural resource-based view (NRBV).

First, a framework of GLSS enablers and outcomes aligned with the NRBV strategic capabilities is proposed through a systematic literature review. Second, this framework is used to empirically investigate the GLSS enablers and outcomes of manufacturing firms through in-depth interviews with lean six sigma and environmental consultants from New Zealand (NZ) and Pakistan (PK) (developed and developing nations).

Analysis from both regional domains highlights the use of GLSS enablers and outcomes under different NRBV capabilities of pollution prevention, product stewardship and sustainable development. A comparison reveals that NZ firms practice GLSS to comply with environmental regulatory requirements, avoid penalties and maintain their clean-green image. Conversely, Pakistani firms execute GLSS to reduce energy use, satisfy international customers and create a green image.

This paper provides new insights on GLSS for environmental sustainability which can assist industrial experts and academia for future strategies and research.

This is one of the early comparative studies that has used the NRBV to investigate GLSS enablers and outcomes in manufacturing firms for enhancing environmental performance comparing developed and developing nations

The chemical plant (CP) maintenance industry has been under increasing pressure by process designers to demonstrate its evaluation and information management of model checking (MC) on the durability’s performance and design of plant control instrument. This main problem has been termed as imperfect maintenance actions (IMAs) level. Although IMAs have been explored in interdisciplinary maintenance environments, less is known about what imperfect maintenance problems currently exist and what their causes are, such as the recent explosion in the Beirut city (4 August 2020, about 181 fatalities). The aim of this paper is to identify how CP maintenance environments could integrate MC within their processes.

To achieve this aim, a comprehensive literature review of the existing conceptualisation of MC practices is reviewed and the main features of information and communication technology tools and techniques currently being employed on such IMA projects are carried out and synthesised into a conceptual framework for integrating MC in the automation system process.

The literature reveals that various CP designers conceptualise MC in different ways. MC is commonly shaped by long-term compliance to fulfil the requirement for maintaining a comfortable durability risk on imperfect maintenance schemes of CP projects. Also, there is a lack of common approaches for integrating the delivery process of MC. The conceptual framework demonstrates the importance of early integration of MC in the design phase to identify alternative methods to cogenerate, monitor and optimise MC.

Thus far, this study advances the knowledge about how CP maintenance environments can ensure MC delivery. This paper highlights the need for further research to integrate MC in CP maintenance environments. A future study could validate the framework across the design phase with different CP project designers.

Circular construction offers sustainable solutions and opportunities to disentangle a project’s life cycle, including demolition, deconstruction and repurposing of architectural, civil engineering and infrastructure projects from the extraction of natural resources and their wasteful usage. However, it introduces additional layers of novel risks and uncertainties in the delivery of projects. The purpose of this study is to review the relevant literature to discover, classify and theorize the critical risk factors for circular construction projects.

The paper conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the risks of circular construction projects. It deployed a multistage approach, including literature search and assessment, metadata extraction, citation frequency analysis, Pareto analysis and total interpretive structural modeling.

Sixty-eight critical risk factors were identified and categorized into nine broad taxonomies: material risks, organizational risks, supply chain risks, technological risks, financial risks, design risks, health and safety risks, regulatory risks and stakeholder risks. Using the Pareto analysis, a conceptual map of 47 key critical risk factors was generated for circular construction projects. A hierarchical model was further developed to hypothesize the multiple possible connections and interdependencies of the taxonomies, leading to chain reactions and push effects of the key risks impacting circular construction projects.

This study constitutes the first systematic review of the literature, consolidating and theorizing the chain reactions of the critical risk factors for circular construction projects. Thus, it provides a better understanding of risks in circular construction projects.

The emerging industrial revolution referred to as Industry 5.0 is focusing on leveraging human creativity with intelligent and autonomous systems to derive user-friendly work environment for the businesses. Industry 5.0 stresses on people centric work ecosystem, zero accident policy and the well-being of labour within the production processes. This approach of Industry 5.0 to obtain human-centric safety solutions through the deployment of digital technologies deduces workplace accidents and costs leading to the development of Safety 4.0. This chapter aims to investigate the opportunities and challenges of Safety 4.0 and its enabling technologies aspiring towards the greater impact on safety management. Further, we have proposed a framework for the role of human centric digital transformations concerning safety in the manufacturing industry propelling Safety 4.0. Concluding, we discuss the implications for managers and practitioners. We found that Safety 4.0 will strengthen industrial safety, and instead of reacting to accidents, the concept evolved towards a preventive and proactive approach for a healthy industrial ecosystem.

The extant literature underlines the inadequacies of legal and policy frameworks addressing the safety and health concerns of sandstone mineworkers in India. Notably, Rajasthan, a state renowned for its extractive industries, mirrors these concerns. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to critically evaluate the relevant legal and policy landscape, with an emphasis on the recent central statute: the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020 (OSHWCC). Given that the Code subsumes the key legislation pertaining to the safety and health of mineworkers, an in-depth critical analysis is essential to forge suitable policy interventions to address continued gross violations of human rights.

The critical analysis of legal and policy frameworks on silicosis in sandstone mineworkers is based on a comprehensive reading of existing literature. The literature includes relevant laws, case law, reports of the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission and National Human Rights Commission, publicly available data and key scholarly contributions in the field.

Although the OSHWCC has made some changes to the existing regulatory architecture of mines in India, it has failed to safeguard the safety and health of mineworkers. Notably, the vast majority of mines in India – constituting approximately 90%, which are informal, seasonal and small-scale – remain beyond the jurisdiction of this Code. In Rajasthan, there are specific policies on silicosis, but these policies are poorly implemented. There is a serious shortage of doctors to diagnose silicosis cases, leading to under-diagnosis. The compensation for silicosis victims is insufficient; the distribution mechanism is complex and often delayed.

The central and many state governments have not established the regulatory institutions envisaged under the OSHWCC 2020; therefore, the working of the regulatory institutions could not be critically examined.

The paper critically evaluates laws and policies pertaining to silicosis in sandstone mineworkers, with a special emphasis on the state of Rajasthan. It offers a comprehensive critique of the OSHWCC of 2020, which has not received much attention from previous studies.

The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous industries worldwide, with a higher number of fatalities and injuries each year. The safety and well-being of workers at a job site are paramount as they face both immediate and long-term risks such as falls and musculoskeletal disorders. To mitigate these dangers, sensor-based technologies have emerged as a crucial tool to promote the safety and well-being of workers on site. The implementation of real-time sensor data-driven monitoring tools can greatly benefit the construction industry by enabling the early identification and prevention of potential construction accidents. This study aims to explore the innovative method of prototype development regarding a safety monitoring system in the form of smart personal protective equipment (PPE) by taking advantage of the recent advances in wearable technology and cloud computing.

The proposed smart construction safety system has been meticulously crafted to seamlessly integrate with conventional safety gear, such as gloves and vests, to continuously monitor construction sites for potential hazards. This state-of-the-art system is primarily geared towards mitigating musculoskeletal disorders and preventing workers from inadvertently entering high-risk zones where falls or exposure to extreme temperatures could occur. The wearables were introduced through the proposed system in a non-intrusive manner where the safety vest and gloves were chosen as the base for the PPE as almost every construction worker would be required to wear them on site. Sensors were integrated into the PPE, and a smartphone application which is called SOTER was developed to view and interact with collected data. This study discusses the method and process of smart PPE system design and development process in software and hardware aspects.

This research study posits a smart system for PPE that utilises real-time sensor data collection to improve worksite safety and promote worker well-being. The study outlines the development process of a prototype that records crucial real-time data such as worker location, altitude, temperature and hand pressure while handling various construction objects. The collected data are automatically uploaded to a cloud service, allowing supervisors to monitor it through a user-friendly smartphone application. The worker tracking ability with the smart PPE can help to alleviate the identified issues by functioning as an active warning system to the construction safety management team. It is steadily evident that the proposed smart PPE system can be utilised by the respective industry practitioners to ensure the workers' safety and well-being at construction sites through monitoring of the workers with real-time sensor data.

The proposed smart PPE system assists in reducing the safety risks posed by hazardous environments as well as preventing a certain degree of musculoskeletal problems for workers. Ultimately, the current study unveils that the construction industry can utilise cloud computing services in conjunction with smart PPE to take advantage of the recent advances in novel technological avenues and bring construction safety management to a new level. The study significantly contributes to the prevailing knowledge of construction safety management in terms of applying sensor-based technologies in upskilling construction workers' safety in terms of real-time safety monitoring and safety knowledge sharing.

This study aims to improve the reliability of emergency safety barriers by using the subjective safety analysis based on evidential reasoning theory in order to develop on a framework for optimizing the reliability of emergency safety barriers.

The emergency event tree analysis is combined with an interval type-2 fuzzy-set and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. In order to the quantitative data is not available, this study based on interval type2 fuzzy set theory, trapezoidal fuzzy numbers describe the expert's imprecise uncertainty about the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers related to the liquefied petroleum gas storage prevent. Fuzzy fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered weighted average aggregation are used to address uncertainties in emergency safety barrier reliability assessment. In addition, a critical analysis and some corrective actions are suggested to identify weak points in emergency safety barriers. Therefore, a framework decisions are proposed to optimize and improve safety barrier reliability. Decision-making in this framework uses evidential reasoning theory to identify corrective actions that can optimize reliability based on subjective safety analysis.

A real case study of a liquefied petroleum gas storage in Algeria is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results show that the proposed methodology provides the possibility to evaluate the values of the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the fuzzy failure probabilities using the fuzzy type-2 AHP method are the most reliable and accurate. As a result, the improved fault tree analysis can estimate uncertain expert opinion weights, identify and evaluate failure probability values for critical basic event. Therefore, suggestions for corrective measures to reduce the failure probability of the fire-fighting system are provided. The obtained results show that of the ten proposed corrective actions, the corrective action “use of periodic maintenance tests” prioritizes reliability, optimization and improvement of safety procedures.

This study helps to determine the safest and most reliable corrective measures to improve the reliability of safety barriers. In addition, it also helps to protect people inside and outside the company from all kinds of major industrial accidents. Among the limitations of this study is that the cost of corrective actions is not taken into account.

Our contribution is to propose an integrated approach that uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets and AHP method and emergency event tree analysis to handle uncertainty in the failure probability assessment of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the integration of fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered averaging aggregation helps to improve the reliability of the fire-fighting system and optimize the corrective actions that can improve the safety practices in liquefied petroleum gas storage tanks.

Everyone is extremely concerned about environmental protection and health safety due to the rise in living standards. Plant-derived natural dyes have garnered much industrial attention in food, pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics, etc. owing to their health and environmental benefits. The present study aims to focus on the elimination of the use of synthetic dyes and provides brief information about natural dyes, their sources, extraction procedures with characterization and various advantages and disadvantages.

In producing natural colors, extraction and purification are essential steps. Various conventional methods used till date have a low yield, as these consume a lot of solvent volume, time, labor and energy or may destroy the coloring behavior of the actual molecules. The establishment of proper characterization and certification protocols for natural dyes would improve the yielding of natural dyes and benefit both producers and users.

However, scientists have found modern extraction methods to obtain maximum color yield. They are also modifying the fabric surface to appraise its uptake behavior of color. Various extraction techniques such as solvent, aqueous, enzymatic and fermentation and extraction with microwave or ultrasonic energy, supercritical fluid extraction and alkaline or acid extraction are currently available for these natural dyes and are summarized in the present review article.

If natural dye availability can be increased by the different extraction measures and the cost of purified dyes can be brought down with a proper certification mechanism, there is a wide scope for the adoption of these dyes by small-scale dyeing units.

Food safety is among the most important topics in the world. According to WHO guidelines, aflatoxins are one of the most hazardous food toxins. Therefore, their detection in food products seems crucial due to health problems. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the different types of biosensors in aflatoxin determination.

Traditional detection methods are time consuming and expensive. As fast and accurate detection is important in monitoring food contaminants, alternative analytical methods would be essential. Biosensors are the intelligent design of sensitive sensors for precise detection of toxins in a short time. Various biosensors are being applied for aflatoxins detection in food products with many advantages over the traditional methods.

Biosensors are cost-effective, stable and have possessed high selectivity, specificity and accuracy in aflatoxins detection. Applying biosensors has been increased recently, so biosensing methods (optical, electrochemical, piezoelectrical, immunosensors, surface plasmon resonance and calorimetric) are discussed along with their advantages in this article.

More efforts should be occurred to detect and decrease the aflatoxins by biosensors, and some traits like accuracy and selectivity would be the purpose of future projects. The combination of various techniques would also help in toxin detection issue in food products, so high efforts in this regard are also required for the upcoming years.

This article also reviews different types of biosensors simultaneously and explains their specificity for aflatoxin determination in different food products and also the future trends and requirements.