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PubMed2004

Community concepts.

Since the publication of "Sustainable Communities--building for the future", Government attention has focused largely on high-density affordable housing in the four "growth areas": Thames Gateway; Ashford; Milton Keynes--South Midlands, and London--Stansted--Cambridge. In this article, Thomas Yeung and Tony Bates suggest that a greater and more sustainable impact would be achieved if architects, planners, and developers considered the potential for community-based water and waste management and on-site energy generation and distribution right from the start of the project. In particular, they consider that the communal nature of hospitals, universities, and public/community housing provides a great opportunity for on-site renewable CHP and/or distributed heating, which could combine global environmental benefits with improved local amenities. They describe a simple model for prioritising energy management in the built environment, and draw on lessons learnt at ETRCL in Dagenham and BedZED in Surrey to offer a few recommendations for Government and developers. Tony Bates is the business development manager for Scott Wilson in the South East and is responsible for the promotion of sustainable communities through relationships with architects, developers, land owners and local authorities. Thomas Yeung leads the Energy Infrastructure Technologies group in Scott Wilson. This team offers an integrated approach to clean community-based energy generation, energy management, waste and water management, sustainable transport, and sustainable buildings/communities.

Conservation of Energy Resources↗
PubMed2003

Vermiculture as a tool for domestic wastewater management.

Organic waste management is a growing issue due to the unsustainable practices of its disposal. Sewage treatment plants are designed to treat wastewater to produce a safe effluent. However, one of the by-products, the sewage sludge which is disposed off in landfill or used as fertilizer in agricultural operation is high in pathogens. Sustainability can be achieved by Vermicomposting of organic matter which involves accelerated cycling of nutrients though a closed cycle whereby waste products are put to productive end use. Vermicomposting and vermifiltration are natural waste management processes relying on the use of worms to convert organic wastes to stable soil enriching compounds. Domestic wastewater management can be accommodated through these processes in a sustainable manner. A considerable reduction in pathogens has been noticed in the end product to a level that it can be safely applied to land. This paper provides an overview of the system characteristics of management systems utilising vermiculture, to manage wastewater. The process can be used in a small scale for household waste treatment to rural or urban waste management.

Agriculture↗
PubMed1995

[Management and storage of radioactive waste].

Management of radioactive waste is a matter of public concern. Such management, however, is today handled industrially in France, and when these techniques are well applied, it is possible to create storage centres. Waste having a short half-life is now stored in the Centre de l'Aube, which replaces the one begun in 1969 in the Department de la Manche. For waste with a long half-life, following the law passed in 1991, ANDRA is pursuing its programme of site prospection to establish two underground laboratories for studying geological storage.

Drug Storage↗
PubMed2001

An entropy based method to evaluate hazardous inorganic substance balances of waste treatment systems.

At present, methods to assess the environmental performance of waste treatment systems are based mainly on emission standards. Since waste treatment yields also products used for recycling and/or land filling, new additional instruments are needed to analyse and evaluate the partitioning of substances during waste treatment. It is shown that in order to fulfil the goals of European Waste Management, waste treatment systems have to concentrate hazardous inorganic substances. Based on substance flow analysis and the statistical entropy function, a method is presented to classify waste treatment systems in view of their power to concentrate or dilute substances. The method allows for the determination of the Substance Concentrating Efficiency (SCE) of waste treatment systems quantitatively. The SCE approach is applied in a case study comparing waste incineration and mechanical-biological waste processing. The results show that this new tool is useful to support decisions regarding the selection of waste treatment systems.

Biodegradation, Environmental↗
PubMed2006

Developments in management and technology of waste reduction and disposal.

Scandals and public dangers from the mismanagement and poor disposal of hazardous wastes during the 1960s and 1970s awakened the modern-day environmental movement. Influential publications such as "Silent Spring" and high-profile disposal failures, for example, Love Canal and Lekkerkerk, focused attention on the use of chemicals in everyday life and the potential dangers from inappropriate disposal. This attention has not abated and developments, invariably increasing expectations and tightening requirements, continue to be implemented. Waste, as a surrogate for environmental improvement, is a topic where elected representatives and administrations continually want to do more. This article will chart the recent changes in hazardous waste management emanating from the European Union legislation, now being implemented in Member States across the continent. These developments widen the range of discarded materials regarded as "hazardous," prohibit the use of specific chemicals, prohibit the use of waste management options, shift the emphasis from risk-based treatment and disposal to inclusive lists, and incorporate waste producers into more stringent regulatory regimes. The impact of the changes is also intended to provide renewed impetus for waste reduction. Under an environmental control system where only certainty is tolerated, the opportunities for innovation within the industry and the waste treatment and disposal sector will be explored. A challenging analysis will be offered on the impact of this regulation-led approach to the nature and sustainability of hazardous waste treatment and disposal in the future.

European Union↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Handling hazardous waste.

Hazardous waste management is a concern for every healthcare organization. A system for managing such waste must meet guidelines from various sources and be comprehensive enough to ensure the safety of the institution's employees and guests, and of the community. An integral part of a hazardous waste management system is employee training. "Employees must be trained to make use of the information that will be available to them. This includes knowing the hazards of the materials they use, how to use the appropriate protective clothing and equipment, what steps to take if there is an accidental release or over-exposure..." and much more. The institution's success in managing hazardous wastes and maintaining a safe environment will depend on the adequacy of its employee training.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed2002

European policy on biodegradable waste: a management perspective.

The main characteristics of the European environmental policy are reviewed. Focusing on EU policy on waste, the paper presents the principles on which EU waste management is founded, particularly the waste hierarchy. In this hierarchy, priority shall be given to prevention of the generation of wastes and of its hazardousness. Secondly, the reuse and the recovery of materials (recycling), which implies the separation of waste at source involving consumers in the scheme of waste management. Priority should be given to material recycling over energy recovery. The less desirable option is the disposal of waste. The paper reviews specific directives on organic waste management, following the scheme of the waste hierarchy, together with the general trends observed in producing common regulations for all types of organic residuals. Afterwards, key issues and measures for the implementation of a feasible strategy for organic residuals management, e.g. quality requirements and quality assurance, are discussed. Finally, there is a view from a manager's perspective on the current EU policy, public acceptance and suitable waste management operations.

Biodegradation, Environmental↗
PubMed2003

Solid waste treatment and disposal: effects on public health and environmental safety.

The safety and acceptability of many widely used solid waste management practices are of serious concern from the public health point of view. Such concern stems from both distrust of policies and solutions proposed by all tiers of government for the management of solid waste and a perception that many solid waste management facilities use poor operating procedures. Waste management practice that currently encompasses disposal, treatment, reduction, recycling, segregation and modification has developed over the past 150 years. Before that and in numerous more recent situations, all wastes produced were handled by their producers using simple disposal methods, including terrestrial dumping, dumping into both fresh and marine waters and uncontrolled burning. In spite of ever-increasing industrialisation and urbanisation, the dumping of solid waste, particularly in landfills, remains a prominent means of disposal and implied treatment. Major developments have occurred with respect to landfill technology and in the legislative control of the categories of wastes that can be subject to disposal by landfilling. Even so, many landfills remain primitive in their operation. Alternative treatment technologies for solid waste management include incineration with heat recovery and waste gas cleaning and accelerated composting, but both of these technologies are subject to criticism either by environmentalists on the grounds of possible hazardous emissions, failure to eliminate pathogenic agents or failure to immobilise heavy metals, or by landfill operators and contractors on the basis of waste management economics, while key questions concerning the effects of the various practices on public health and environmental safety remain unanswered. The probable and relative effects on both public health and environmental safety of tradition and modern landfill technologies will be evaluated with respect to proposed alternative treatment technologies.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2005

Participatory management of waste disposal.

The general objective of this study was to develop a sustainable waste disposal management model in Yom riverside communities by creating a sense of ownership in the project among the villagers and encourage the community to identify problems based on their socio-cultural background. The participatory approach was applied in developing a continual learning process between the researcher and stakeholders. The Tub Phueng community of Si Samrong, Sukhothai Province was selected as the location for this study. From the population of 240 households in the area, 40 stakeholders were selected to be on the research team. The team found that the waste in this community was comprised of 4 categories: 1. Occupation: discarded insecticide containers used for farming activities; 2. Consumption: plastic bags and wrappers form pre-packed foods; 3. Traditional activities: after holding ceremonies and festivities, the waste was dumped in the river; and 4. Environmental hygiene: waste water from washing, bathing, toileting, cooking and cleaning was directly drained into the Yom River. The sustainable waste disposal model developed to manage these problems included building simple waste-water treatment wells, digging garbage holes, prosecuting people who throw garbage into the river, withdrawing privileges from people who throw garbage into the river, and establishing a garbage center. Most of the villagers were satisfied with the proposed model, looked forward to the expected positive changes, and thought this kind of solution would be easy to put into practice.

Community Health Planning↗
PubMed2001

The characterisation, treatment and sustainable reuse of biosolids in Ireland.

Ireland is an island country on the western boundary of the European Union. A suite of environmental legislation over the last decade has combined to increase the amount of municipal sludge for treatment fourfold, while, simultaneously, eliminating traditional disposal methods. The Irish Government has instituted a comprehensive programme of policy development, infrastructure provision and drafting of "codes of good practice" to meet these environmenta; and legislative challenges. As the programme has developed, it has become clear that the sludge/biosolids issue shares many of the philosophical and logistical elements of other environmental issues that are developing apace in Ireland, including municipal waste management, agricultural waste management and overall integrated development. In many ways, it represents a model of the ultimate "sustainable development" issue. To provide specific data for decision making and policy/infrastructure/technology development, the Irish Government has funded a US$600k programme of research in The Characterisation, Treatment and Sustainable Reuse of Biosolids. The design philosophy of the programme is a "cradle-to-grave" approach, in order to integrate the outcomes of specialised research studies into an overall sustainable development model.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed2005

Life-cycle assessment of municipal solid wastes: development of the WASTED model.

This paper describes the development of the Waste Analysis Software Tool for Environmental Decisions (WASTED) model. This model provides a comprehensive view of the environmental impacts of municipal solid waste management systems. The model consists of a number of separate submodels that describe a typical waste management process: waste collection, material recovery, composting, energy recovery from waste and landfilling. These submodels are combined to represent a complete waste management system. WASTED uses compensatory systems to account for the avoided environmental impacts derived from energy recovery and material recycling. The model is designed to provide solid waste decision-makers and environmental researchers with a tool to evaluate waste management plans and to improve the environmental performance of solid waste management strategies. The model is user-friendly and compares favourably with other earlier models.

Aluminum↗