Handbook of Environment and Waste Management

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• About the Editors
• Contributors

Managing biosolids and wastewater is not an easy task. Requirements for higher degrees of wastewater treatment can increase the total volume of biosolids generated. The biosolids management options would be much complicated when the combination of more biosolids quantities, mixtures of biosolids, and increasing regulatory requirements have to be considered. In most of the treatment facilities, a large portion of total operating and maintenance costs is allocated for biosolids processing and disposal. This chapter will discuss in depth about biosolids management starting from the generation of the biosolids until they are ready to be reused or disposed of. The technological topics covered are biosolids production, classification of biosolids (primary, chemical, biological, other wastewater biosolids, etc.), biosolids treatment and processing (thickening, stabilization, conditioning, and dewatering), land application, and finally the use and disposal of biosolids.

Sludge accumulates as a residue in all wastewater treatments. Sludge contains the solids and colloids separated from wastewater, as well as substances from biological and chemical operation units. Sludge contains all of the impurities gathered from water or wastewater treatment processes, and thus has a variable nature and must be treated accordingly. This chapter summarizes all aspects of sludge management in practice.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management constitutes major environmental, economical, and social problems in the worldwide. Landfill is the most accepted method of solid waste disposal in the world. This chapter includes brief description about waste generation and waste stream to the society/community as well as minimum criteria for solid waste disposal facility siting, operations and design, groundwater monitoring and action, and closure and post-closure maintenances, etc. for landfill.

Under the hierarchy of waste management, landfilling is the least desirable option, but it is still commonly practiced. Although biodegradation processes ensure neutralization and stabilization of waste, but because of the long-term period of waste degradation, landfills pose threat to the environment. In order to minimize detrimental influence on the surroundings, landfills should be properly constructed and managed for all the operation time and after the closure. The chapter presents the standards for landfill construction and operation binding in the European Union.

Leachate from waste landfill is attracting attention due to environmental impacts related to pollution of groundwater and surface water. Typically, four groups of leachate pollutants namely dissolved organic matters, inorganic matters, heavy metals, and xenobiotic organic compounds vary in concentration during acid phase and methanogenic phase required landfill to be lined. Several types of liners consist of clay, geomembranes, geotextiles, geosynthetic clay liner, and geonet are generally used in municipal solid waste (MSW), which have to take into considerations of hydraulic conductivity, shear strength, chemical compatibility, and resistant to creep and puncture.

Industry has become an essential part of modern society and waste production is an inevitable outcome of the developmental activities. A material becomes waste when it is discarded without expecting to be compensated for its inherent value. These wastes may pose a potential hazard to the human health or the environment (soil, air, and water) when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed off or managed. In this viewpoint, the management of hazardous wastes including their disposal in environment-friendly and economically viable way is very important and, therefore, suggestions are made for developing better strategies. Out of the various categories of the wastes; this chapter introduces different types of waste to be managed using different ways to be environment friendly as wastewater treatment, waste oil management, and finally recycling of waste plastics.

The ultimate solution to the high volume of excess foundry sands generated in metal casting facilities is to beneficially reuse them. A variety of possible reuse programs suit the utilization of foundry sands. These programs mainly relate to civil and agricultural applications, e.g., highway embankment, concrete, backfills, topsoil, and growing amendments. Foundry sand exhibits qualified physical, mechanical, or chemical properties for these end-use products and is acknowledged as a marketable resource. Most often, foundry sand is characterized to match a target material, which has been adopted as a standardized component in an end-use product, e.g. fine aggregate in concrete. If the match gives favorable outcomes, the foundary sand is introduced fully or partially replacing the target material to form a technically competitive end-use product, e.g. foundry sand used in concrete. In addition to its engineering qualifications, foundry sand's environmental safety is also ensured to comply with regulations. The chemical characterization of foundry sand needs to be accomplished to demonstrate that it will not pose a thread to environments and human health during reuse programs. This chapter is organized to present the system (foundry) sand operation, foundry sand generation and management, chemical characterization of foundry sand, reuse applications of foundry sand.

Fly ash had been a problem for many power stations. This study has focused on using an encapsulation technique to stabilize the fly ash by a geopolymer. The potential of a geopolymer to stabilize fly ash was explored through the use of four geopolymer formulations. The leach rates of untreated fly ash helped to target of seven elements that are arsenic, barium, beryllium, selenium, strontium, calcium, and potassium. The lowest leach rates were observed at the geopolymer formulation with Si/Al=2.

Recycling is a series of activities that includes collecting recyclable materials that would otherwise be considered waste, sorting, and processing recyclables into raw materials, and manufacturing them into new products. In this chapter, the collection of recyclable materials in both developed and developing countries are reviewed. The physical and chemical recycling methods are also included with necessary engineering calculation. Finally, the marketing of recyclable materials is also depicted.

It takes a lot of valuable energy and materials to create and manufacture products and the resulting industrial waste can be difficult to manage. The utilization of these industrial waste and by-products can help in reducing the exploitation and consumption of natural resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and assist in the protection of environment. This chapter discusses the properties (physical, chemical, mechanical, and environmental) as well as the techniques for the utilization of fly ash, cement kiln dust, and recycled demolished concrete in civil engineering construction.

The use of solid wastes as construction materials is one way to address the global issue of sustainability and climate change. Many researchers and scientists have made significant contribution to turn wastes into useful resources. This chapter summarizes the publications of researchers who spent years of intensive effort to investigate certain important aspects of solid wastes utilization in construction. The solidwastes include, fly ash, timber industrial ash (TIA), palm oil fuel ash, expanded coal slag (ECS), foamed aggregate, waste styrofoam, and ground granulated blast furnace slag. The chemical composition, physical and engineering properties of the solid wastes and their effect on the performance of concrete, the most widely used construction material is briefly covered. Sustainable and viable options for infrastructure development are explored and discussed. The controlled density pervious lightweight concrete with high porosity allows water from precipitation and other sources to pass through it, thereby reducing the surface runoff from going straight into the drain. The recharging of water into designated retention ponds are designed to minimize the fluctuation of groundwater levels. The study is to establish an economical method for construction on problematic soils especially on peat. The pervious low-carbon media with TIA has been studied on its potential for harvested rainwater treatment. The compressive strength development and water absorption of ECS concrete were presented in the ECS mix design nomograph that can be used to predict the dry density, compressive strength, and water absorption of various percentages of ECS concrete. The structural performance of reinforced concrete beams containing recycled crushed foamed concrete fine aggregate (RFA) is briefly covered. The cement industry contributes about 5% to global CO₂ emissions from the calcination process of limestone and combustion of fuels in the kiln. A model of CO₂ uptake by biomass silica foamed concrete is proposed as a potential mitigation strategy against CO₂ emission. The proposed foamed concrete absorbs CO₂ 42.7% faster than the normal concrete. Successful deployment could contribute toward sustainable development while benefiting from the carbon credits.

Wastes and waste-amended soils can content different contaminants in them. Total concentrations of these contaminants can not be used for ecological risk assessment. Biological methods appeared to be necessary to evaluate the potential ecological impact. Estimation of toxicity of wasts and waste-amended soils plays an important role for decision making concerning further management of them. Nowadays, vary methods of bioindication and bio-testing based on bacteria, crustacean, protozoan, rotifer, alga, higher plant and other organisms are used. In this chapter, the most common used methods are presented.

Improper design of landfill sites may cause serious problems to groundwater. Leachate, a very concentrated pollutant generated from the decomposition of waste and by precipitation, may penetrate through the waste layers and go straight to the aquifer. This chapter discusses some background on groundwater resource, its properties, and monitoring at landfill sites. Pulau Burung landfill in Penang, Malaysia was taken as the case study site where boreholes and monitoring wells were sampled and the results discussed.

This chapter provides an overview of groundwater contamination problems, common types of groundwater contaminants, contaminant transport processes, groundwater cleanup goal and strategy, and remedial technologies. The remedial technologies covered are containment method, pump-and-treat, surfactant/cosolvent flushing, air sparging, permeable reactive barrier, bioremediation, and a few other in-situ cleanup technologies. The system installation and design, performance monitoring, and advantages and limitations associated with each of the cleanup technologies are discussed.

In Canada, annual monitoring programs are conducted at selected dredged material ocean disposal sites to meet Canada's treaty obligations under the London Convention 1972 and its 1996 Protocol. Results of these monitoring activities are used to confirm the appropriateness of decisions allowing dredged material disposal at sea and to assess the disposal impacts. This chapter introduces and describes the methods and tools used by Environment Canada for monitoring of nearshore dredged material ocean disposal sites.

In this chapter, a brief introduction is presented to radioactive pollution and its management. Both natural and artificial sources of radiation are discussed with special attention to the relative importance of each source. In addition, radioactive isotope applications in tracing, radiography, insect control, food preservation, medical diagnoses, therapy, sterilization, and power generation are briefly described. Sources of radioactive pollution are identified including nuclear weapon tests, nuclear accidents, routine effluent release into the environment, and radioactive waste. Radioactive pollution prevention measures are presented including: treaties, regulations and standards, and technical methods to control pollution. The risk-informed regulatory process is briefly described, along with the technical methods to control radioactive wastes via site selection criteria, design of radioactive waste disposal facilities, and performance assessment.

India has witnessed a substantial growth in the production of plastics and an increased consumption of plastic. In the absence of adequate waste collection and segregation process, the management of the waste created by discarded used plastics items, especially ones used for packaging applications has become a challenging task. This article provides an overview of the resource recovery from plastic waste with consideration of integrated waste management (IWM), to evaluate the best possible option for tackling waste in Indian circumstances.

Surface raw waters contaminated by humic acid (27–405 mg/L) and having extremely high color (425–5750 color units) were successfully treated by magnesium coagulant, lime, and polymer. After coagulation and clarification treatments, over 98% of the color was removed when optimum dosages of magnesium chloride, calcium hydroxide, and polymer Nalco-625 were determined by a streaming current detector and applied to raw waters during proper mixing and flocculation. Both sedimentation (2–24 h. D.T.) and dissolved air flotation (2.5–20 min. D.T.; 33% recycle) are feasible for clarification, resulting a 2.3–3.1% of clarifier sludge. Either sedimentation effluent or flotation effluent had to be treated by recarbonation and sand filtration in order to meet the drinking water standards. The clarifier sludge containing mainly magnesium and calcium was subsequently conditioned with 20–100 mg/L polymer Magnifloc 905N, thickened to 16.7–25% with a sludge reducer, and dewatered to 40–43% with a filter press. The dewatered sludge was incinerated at 600°C for recovery of magnesium and calcium chemicals. The recovered chemicals containing no organics were proved to be good coagulants. Alternatively, the dewatered sludge can be buried in a sanitary landfill operation. Another feasible dewatering technique developed was microwave process for sludge dewatering.

The following section is included:

• Index