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Although Beijing has carried out municipal solid waste （MSW） source separation since 1996, it has largely been ineffective. In 2012, a ＂Green House＂ program was established as a new attempt for central sorting. In this study, the authors used material flow analysis （MFA） and cost benefit analysis （CBA） methods to investigate Green House＇s environment and economic feasibility. Results showed that the program did have significant environmental benefits on waste reduction, which reduced the amount of waste by 34%. If the Green House program is implemented in a residential community with wet waste ratio of 66%, the proportion of waste reduction can reach 37%. However, the Green House is now running with a monthly loss of 1982 CNY. This is mainly because most of its benefits come from waste reduction （i.e., 5878 CNY per month）, which does not turn a monetary benefit, but is instead distributed to the whole of society as positive environmental externalities. Lack of government involvement, small program scale, and technical/managerial deficiency are three main barriers of the Green House. We, thus, make three recommendations： involve government authority and financial support, expand the program scale to separate 91.4 tons of waste every month, and use more professional equipment/technologies. If the Green House program can successfully adopt these suggestions, 33.8 tons of waste can be reduced monthly, and it would be able to flip the loss into a profit worth 35034 CNY.

Dear Editor,The increased demand for economic and environmental benefits with the application of controlled release fertilizers（CRFs）has prompted the need for simple and viable prediction of controlled nitrogen release（CNR）.Sigmoid pattern CRFs（SCRFs）has different release mechanisms and coating processes from parabolic pattern CRFs（PCRFs）.The CNR rate of an SCRF can be very slow at low temperatures;much more time is needed to release the same quantity of nutrients as conventional fertilizers.

This paper examines the energy and environmental benefits within the whole life cycle shifting from traditional gasoline vehicles to electrified advanced vehicles under regional real-world driving behaviors. The advance vehicles focus on family passenger cars and include battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). The GREET (greenhouse gases, regulated emissions, and energy use in transportation) model is adopted with regional circumstances modifications, especially the UF (utility factors) of PHEVs. The results show that the electrified vehicles offer great benefits concerning energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as urban Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) emissions. Compared to conventional gasoline vehicles, the life-cycle total energy reduction for advance vehicles is 51% to 57%. There is little difference on energy reduction among the HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs, with the energy mix shifting from petroleum to coal for the stronger electrification. The reductions of GHG emissions are 57% for HEV, 54% to 48% for PHEVs with 10 miles to 40 miles CD range, and 40% for BEV. The life-cycle and local PM2.5 emissions are discussed separately. The life-cycle PM2.5 emissions increase with vehicle electrification and reach a maximum for the BEV which are 5% higher than the conventional vehicle (CV). However, electric vehicles can shift PM2.5 emissions from vehicle operation to upstream operations and help mitigate PM2.5 emissions in urban areas. The local emissions of PHEVs and BEVs can be reduced by 37% to 81% and 100% compared with CVs.

Constrained by the dual mission of supporting industrial growth and reducing emissions, China＇s traditional emission reduction-oriented environmental policies unavoidably face a dilemma. Taking environmental efficiency as the exclusive indicator for the relationship between environmental performance and industrial development, the author calculated the environmental efficiency of China＇s industries under different pollutant disposability assumptions, while also considering environmental pollution. In addition, based on the assumption of industry heterogeneity, the author examined the non-linear relationship between China＇s environmental regulation and environmental efficiency and calculated the optimal regulation environment for industries. According to this study, when impact of undesirable outputs （pollutant emissions） is considered, environmental regulation and environmental efficiency are positively correlated, which to some degree validates the Porter Hypothesis. At present, environmental regulation has significant positive effects on clean production industries but shows a lag effect on pollution-intensive industries. The degree of environmental regulation and environmental efficiency show an ＂inverted U＂shaped relation and display three thresholds. It should be noted, however, that the relationship between regulation and efficiency may vary across industries. These findings have clear policy implications： China should adjust its traditional emission reduction-oriented environmental polices by targeting environmental efficiency. At the same time, rather than continually increasing the level of environmental regulation, the government should establish standards for individual industries that emphasize flexibility.