The objective of this research was to evaluate the major factors contributing to environmental awareness among people in a third world country such as Jordan. Two thousand individuals from different locations in the southern part of Jordan participated in the survey and completed the questionnaire in the fall of 2004. The questionnaire consisted of 30 questions grouped into the following categories of major environmental issues: general environmental problems, air pollution, water resources, solid waste, noise pollution, and desertification. The target population encompassed people with different backgrounds including gender, age, education levels, location of residency, and social status. The questionnaire was distributed according to the population density throughout five major cities and 59 villages. Analysis of Variance was conducted on the means of the sample populations determined by gender, age, education, and geographic distribution to verify that the apparent differences of the means were statistically significant. The environmental awareness of females in this study as quantified by an overall index exceeded that of males in each of the individual cities and villages surveyed and therefore throughout the region. For the entire study, the overall index was 65.3-62.8, respectively. The statistical results of the survey revealed that the city of Aqaba in the southern region of Jordan had greater environmental awareness than the other cities surveyed. Environmental awareness among university students increased linearly as they proceeded from the first year to the fifth year. The education level of the survey respondents played a significant role in the degree of environmental awareness in all cities and villages surveyed. Environmental awareness was also affected by the difference in age range, with the older groups having more consistent responses and higher overall index of environmental awareness.Keywords Third world country Á Environmental awareness Á Jordan Á Questionnaire Á Aqaba Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

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Ninety‐one sediment oxygen demand (SOD) samples from six designated sites along the stretch of Lower Rapid Creek, South Dakota, were conducted using an in‐situ SOD chamber. Inside the chamber, readings of dissolved oxygen (DO), water temperature, pH, and specific conductance were recorded every minute for more than one hour using the Datasonde 3 Hydrolab. Initial readings of such parameters were recorded for the overlaying water before the deployment of the SOD chamber. Characteristics of the stream conditions, air temperature, barometric pressure, average flow velocity of the stream, depth of the stream, and the flow velocity by the chamber were recorded. Single and multiple linear regression analyses on all parameters indicated that the velocity of the stream is the least critical parameter for SOD in shallow streams.

Purpose -The commercial and residential refuse generated by Ellsworth Air Force Base, USA was characterized and analyzed for collection procedures, and the opportunities for increasing the amount of solid waste that could be recycled were evaluated. Design/methodology/approach -Random loads of hauled solid waste (an average 3.0 US tons/load) from different waste streams of Ellsworth Air Force Base were sorted. The weight fraction of each category of recyclable material derived from the hand sorting operations was applied to the three years of mixed waste tonnage in order to estimate the tonnage of each recyclable category disposed of as refuse during each year. The assessment of the data obtained from three full calendar years focused on the mixed solid waste generated from commercial and residential areas such as offices, childcare, lodging, supermarkets, food service facilities, and others. Findings -Over 2,500 tones of recycling opportunities were missed during the 1999-2001 calendar years. The characterizations of the total weight produced from commercial and residential waste streams showed that recyclable material constituted 35.95 percent and 23.27 percent of refuse from the commercial and the residential areas, respectively. The amounts of total recyclable material as missed opportunities for recycling were found to be 1,728 tons and 715 tons from the commercial and residential areas. Practical implications -In response to the findings, Ellsworth Air Force Base has implemented a number of strategies for increased recovery of recyclables from its solid waste streams. Originality/value -Quantifying missed opportunities for recycling is a useful action in planning future recycling operations aimed at best solid waste management practices.

Dry deposition samples were collected from 28 residential rooftops in Fuhais, Jordan, during the dry seasons of the year 2004. The samples were analyzed for trace and heavy metal concentrations to investigate the impact of total suspended particles emitted from the cement industry in the city of Fuhais. The cement factory has been operational for the past 50 years, and the management was evaluating the use of petcoke blending to reduce fuel costs. No baseline data on heavy metals due to the current operations existed prior to this study. The present study showed that lead (Pb) and copper (Cu) concentrations were statistically significant in the northwest sector of the city compared with the other quadrants. This significance was attributed to the heavy traffic of trucks carrying raw materials and cement in and out of the cement factory as the main route of transportation to the factory runs through this quadrant of the city. Cadmium (Cd), aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), molybdenum (Mo), and chromium (Cr) concentrations were high in all sampled areas. The overall average concentrations of all elements except Mo were found to be higher on the rooftops of the residential areas in Fuhais City in comparison with a remote reference site near Amman where no anthropogenic activity exists. The trace and heavy metal concentrations and the mineralogical composition of dry deposition samples collected from residential rooftops are representative of the current cement industry operations, which dominate the air quality of Fuhais City.