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At least 631 records · Page 35Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

Environmental modelling of use of treated organic waste on agricultural land: a comparison of existing models for life cycle assessment of waste systems.

Modelling of environmental impacts from the application of treated organic municipal solid waste (MSW) in agriculture differs widely between different models for environmental assessment of waste systems. In this comparative study five models were examined concerning quantification and impact assessment of environmental effects from land application of treated organic MSW: DST (Decision Support Tool, USA), IWM (Integrated Waste Management, U.K.), THE IFEU PROJECT (Germany), ORWARE (ORganic WAste REsearch, Sweden) and EASEWASTE (Environmental Assessment of Solid Waste Systems and Technologies, Denmark). DST and IWM are life cycle inventory (LCI) models, thus not performing actual impact assessment. The DST model includes only one water emission (biological oxygen demand) from compost leaching in the results and IWM considers only air emissions from avoided production of commercial fertilizers. THE IFEU PROJECT, ORWARE and EASEWASTE are life cycle assessment (LCA) models containing more detailed land application modules. A case study estimating the environmental impacts from land application of 1 ton of composted source sorted organic household waste was performed to compare the results from the different models and investigate the origin of any difference in type or magnitude of the results. The contributions from the LCI models were limited and did not depend on waste composition or local agricultural conditions. The three LCA models use the same overall approach for quantifying the impacts of the system. However, due to slightly different assumptions, quantification methods and environmental impact assessment, the obtained results varied clearly between the models. Furthermore, local conditions (e.g. soil type, farm type, climate and legal regulation) and waste composition strongly influenced the results of the environmental assessment.

Agriculture↗
PubMed1998

Radiation protection recommendations as applied to the disposal of long-lived solid radioactive waste. A report of The International Commission on Radiological Protection.

(79) Waste, by definition, has no benefit. It should be viewed as one aspect of the beneficial practice that gave rise to it. Furthermore, radioactive waste management should be placed in the context of the management of society's waste in general. (80) A major issue in evaluating the acceptability of a disposal system for long-lived solid radioactive waste is that doses or risks may arise from exposures in the distant future. There is uncertainty surrounding any estimate of these doses or risks due to lack of knowledge about future conditions. Such exposures are treated as potential exposures as their magnitude depends on future processes and conditions that have probabilities associated with them. (81) Nevertheless, the Commission recognises a basic principle that individuals and populations in the future should be afforded at least the same level of protection from the action of disposing of radioactive waste today as is the current generation. This implies use of the current quantitative dose and risk criteria derived from considering associated health detriment. Therefore, protection of future generations should be achieved by applying these dose or risk criteria to the estimated future doses or risks in appropriately defined critical groups. These estimates should not be regarded as measures of health detriment beyond times of around several hundreds of years into the future. In the case of these longer time periods, they represent indicators of the protection afforded by the disposal system. (82 Constrained optimisation is the central approach to evaluating the radiological acceptability of a waste disposal system; dose or risk constraints are used rather than dose or risk limits. By this transition from limitation to optimisation, the needs of practical application of the radiological protection system to the disposal of long-lived solid waste disposal are met: determination of acceptability now for exposures that may occur in the distant future. Optimisation should be applied in an iterative manner during the disposal system development process and should particularly cover both site selection and repository design. (83) Two broad categories of exposure situations should be considered: natural processes and human intrusion. The latter only refers to intrusion that is inadvertent. The radiological implications of deliberate intrusion into a repository are the responsibility of the intruder. Assessed doses or risks arising from natural processes should be compared with a dose constraint of 0.3 mSv per year or its risk equivalent of around 10(-5) per year. With regard to human intrusion, the consequences from one or more plausible stylized scenarios should be considered in order to evaluate the resilience of the repository to such events. (84) The Commission considers that in circumstances where human intrusion could lead to doses to those living around the site sufficiently high that intervention on current criteria would almost always be justified, reasonable efforts should be made at the repository development stage to reduce the probability of human intrusion or to limit its consequences. In this respect, the Commission has previously advised that an existing annual dose of around 10 mSv per year may be used as a generic reference level below which intervention is not likely to be justifiable. Conversely, an existing annual dose of around 100 mSv per year may be used as a generic reference level above which intervention should be considered almost always justifiable. Similar considerations apply in situations where the thresholds for deterministic effects in relevant organs are exceeded. (85) Compliance with the constraints can be assessed by utilising either an aggregated risk-oriented approach, with a risk constraint, or a disaggregated dose/probability approach, with a dose constraint, or a combination of both. A similar level of protection can be achieved by any of these approaches; however, more information may

Hazardous Waste↗
PubMed2001

Anaerobic treatment: a key technology for a sustainable management of wastes in Europe.

Environmental regulations in the European Union, based on the concept of integrated prevention and control of pollution, are oriented towards the sustainability of the production processes, and this leads to better recovery of resources from raw materials, energy saving, etc. This philosophy introduces a new framework to Environmental Engineers, who have to make efforts concerning waste minimisation. During the last few decades technologies based on the anaerobic treatment of wastewaters and organic wastes have been applied successfully to a wide variety of problems. A case study on the impact of applying anaerobic technology to the treatment of wastewaters from the sugar industry in Spain is presented. Nowadays, processes based on anaerobic treatment appear to be an excellent option as the core of an integrated process for waste and wastewater treatment.

Bacteria, Anaerobic↗
PubMed2002

Online load measurement in combined sewer systems--possibilities of an integrated management of waste water transportation and treatment.

To obtain a further appreciable reduction of discharges in the area of sewage disposal, besides waste water purification at our treatment plants, discharge of wastewater through the sewer system has to be taken into account. Today, control strategies pursuing this aim are mainly based on hydraulic conditions like level or flow rate. They all neglect the wastewater organic load as an essential parameter. The main reasons are the expensive methods used to continuously measure traditional organic sum parameters like COD or TOC. A meaningful alternative to those parameters is the spectral absorption coefficient at lambda = 254 nm (SAC), defined in DIN 38402 by the German Institute for Standardisation. As a purely physical parameter, the SAC shows a good correlation to organic sum parameters like COD and TOC, especially if municipal wastewater is considered. By using an UV-process probe, it is possible to measure the SAC and infer the organic load of raw wastewater continuously without any sample pre-treatment. By the use of this instrument numerous possibilities arise, in order to control the sewers discharge load depend.

Automation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Managing medical waste.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed2006

Managing hazardous waste in the laboratory.

This article offers an introduction to the federal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations as they relate to hazardous wastes generated by clinical and anatomic pathology laboratories. Traditionally, the EPA has targeted "heavy" industries such as manufacturing for compliance auditing, but it recently turned an eye toward health-care facilities since they are identified as important sources of hazardous waste generation. Enforcement of EPA regulations within health-care facilities presents the challenge of a new labyrinth of definitions, rules, and compliance methods for laboratorians who have already made it through other regulatory agency mazes, including the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) standards, the College of American Pathologists (CAP) checklists, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards.

Hazardous Waste↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Management of infectious waste by US hospitals.

In July 1987 and January 1988, forty-six percent (441/955) of randomly selected US hospitals responded to a questionnaire intended to identify their waste disposal practices. Survey responses were received from hospitals in 48 states. United States hospitals generated a median of 6.93 kg of hospital waste per patient per day and infectious waste made up 15% of the total hospital waste. Most hospitals (greater than 90%) considered blood, microbiology, "sharps," communicable disease isolation, pathology, autopsy, and contaminated animal carcass waste as infectious. Other sources of hospital waste that were commonly (greater than 80%) designated infectious were surgical, dialysis, and miscellaneous laboratory waste. The infectious waste was normally (80%) treated via incineration or steam sterilization before disposal, whereas noninfectious waste was discarded directly in a sanitary landfill. Eight-two percent of these US hospitals are discarding blood, microbiology, sharps, pathology, and contaminated animal carcass waste in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control's recommendations, while the compliance rate for the Environmental Protection Agency's recommendations (excluding optional waste) is 75%. No hospital could identify an infection problem (excluding needle-stick injuries) that was attributable to the disposal of infectious waste. While the management of infectious waste by US hospitals is generally consistent with the Centers for Disease Control's guidelines, many hospitals employ overly inclusive definitions of infectious waste.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.↗
PubMed1989

Hygiene control in standard waste disposal works.

Standard waste disposal works are subject to a continuous hygiene control. As a rule, deposited waste is not inert, i.e. substances can be extracted, which in certain quantities and concentrations must be considered as a source of danger to the water. Inflammable, explosive and health endangering gases are formed. The following must be controlled: groundwater in the area surrounding the disposal site, development of odour from the disposal site, appearance of vermins and noise resulting from the waste disposal works. Waste disposal must clearly be viewed critically from the aspect of waste management control, however, in future it will not be possible to manage without a standard waste disposal system. Hygiene control must represent a fixed component in the waste disposal works.

Air Pollution↗