y colleagues and I are often asked: “What about the Technology in ESbT?” Do we accept papers that describe technological developments, or is the journal just for pure science? Why don’t we publish more on treatment processes, especially of waste waters, soils, and hazardous wastes? How about pilot or full scale demonstrations of treatment a n d remediation processes, including in situ or field-scale studies? Are these acceptable studies for ESbT or should they go to more ‘applied journals’?” The Editorial Advisory Board of ESbT discussed these issues at its meeting last April, and undoubtedly the discussion will continue at future meetings. My purpose here is to ask for the advice of our readers, because you are ultimately the ones who must decide what is appropriate policy for the journal. I think it is fair to say that ESbT has established a premier position in the field of environmental publishing because of its high standards. Our research articles are subjected to the most stringent peer review and our goal is that those published will represent the very best papers in the field. To ensure this, we have increased the number of editors in order to cover the major fields within our sphere of interest; each of the editors is an established scientist or engineer and there is a clear consensus among us that we must always strive to publish only the best of what is submitted to us. Our reject ratio is among the highest for ACS journals, which lead the world in quality. All of this may beg the question, however. Indeed, one may ask: do the standards the editors apply to research articles bias against the publication of papers that relate to technological developments? Are the standards of pure science appropriate for articles that describe the application of a treatment process, or do they allow the publication only of highly controlled laboratory-scale studies that fit the pure science paradigm but fall short of addressing the complexities of the real world? Are the editors unconsciously biased in favor of fundamental studies and prone to reject applied papers? Are these standards appropriate at all for studies in waste reduction and life cycle analysis? These are good questions, and worthy of further discussion. My own view is that there is a lot of common ground between the standards of pure and applied science, and that we should seek this
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common ground. The “T” is in ESbT for a very good reason, and we should find ways to attract and publish the very best technology papers as well as those in environmental science. As a basis for discussion, I might propose the following. First, ESbT is not interested in printing papers that describe uncontrolled and undocumented studies whose principal purpose is to promote a commercial product. Second, the work must be described in sufficient detail so that it is clear what was done and, if possible, so that the work could be repeated. In cases in which a unique experimental site is used (a particular field site or process stream, for example), the site must be described in detail. All procedures used must also be described in detail and must follow the generally accepted rules for quality control. Particular attention should be given to the measurement methods employed, and if their validity is not established in the literature this should be included in the article. Unduplicated experiments should be rare, and, if possible, enough data should be obtained to allow the use of statistical treatments. Most importantly, the conclusions should be supported by the data. Unsupported claims and conclusions should be avoided. If possible, the results should be expressed in the form of models that allow one to extrapolate from the particular to the more general case. An examination of the research pages of ESbT over the past five years will show that we have already published many articles that fulfill these requirements, by and large. Should we be publishing more papers in technology? I think so, but I am not sure how we should change our procedures in order to do so, if at all. We are open to your views on the matter, however, and I invite readers to provide feedback to me, to the other editors, and to our Advisory Board.
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