Towards zero industrial waste: Utilisation of brick dust waste in sustainable construction

Laboratory investigations were carried out to establish the potential utilisation of brick dust (BD) in construction. The dust is a waste material from the cutting of fired clay bricks. Currently, the disposal of the dust is a problem to the brick fabrication company, and hence an environmental pollution concern. The dust was stabilised either used on its own or in combination with Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA), a by-product material from coal combustion. The traditional stabilisers of lime and/or Portland Cement (PC) were used as controls. The main aim was to use a sustainable stabiliser material, where these stabilisers were partially replaced with Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag (GGBS), a by-product material from steel manufacture. Compacted cylinder test specimens were made at typical stabiliser contents and moist cured for up to 56 days prior to testing for compressive and California Bearing Ratio (CBR) strength tests, and to linear expansion during moist curing and subsequent soaking in water. The results obtained showed that partial substitution of the dust with PFA resulted in stronger material compared to using it on its own. The blended stabilisers achieved better performance. These results suggest technological, economic as well as environmental advantages of using the brick dust and similar industrial by-products to achieve sustainable infrastructure development with near zero industrial waste.     

Options for sustainable industrial waste management toward zero landfill waste in a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) factory in Thailand

The feasibility of the 3R concept tends to increase the reduction, reuse, and recycling of industrial waste. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of 3R methods to cope with industrial waste generated from high-density polyethylene production in Thailand. The sources and types of waste and existing waste management practices were identified. The four sources of waste generation that we identified were: (1) production, (2) packaging, (3) wastewater treatment, and (4) maintenance, distributed as 47, 46, 4, and 3 %, respectively. The main options for management were: sales to recycling plants (60.41 %), reuse and recycling (25.93 %), and industrial-waste landfilling (10.47 %). After 3R options were introduced, the proposed alternatives were found to be capable of reducing the amount of waste by 33.88 %. The results of life-cycle assessment (LCA) were useful for considering the environmental impact where 3R options were adopted. We also found that net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts could be reduced when industrial waste diverted from landfill is used as alternative fuel. However, the cost of waste disposal seems to be the greatest obstacle for the adoption of 3R methods in Thailand.     

Waste prevention for sustainable resource and waste management

Although the 2Rs (reduce and reuse) are considered high-priority approaches, there has not been enough quantitative research on effective 2R management. The purpose of this paper is to provide information obtained through the International Workshop in Kyoto, Japan, on 11–13 November 2015, which included invited experts and researchers in several countries who were in charge of 3R policies, and an additional review of 245 previous studies. It was found that, regarding policy development, the decoupling between environmental pressures and economy growth was recognized as an essential step towards a sustainable society. 3R and resource management policies, including waste prevention, will play a crucial role. Approaches using material/substance flow analyses have become sophisticated enough to describe the fate of resources and/or hazardous substances based on human activity and the environment, including the final sink. Life-cycle assessment has also been developed to evaluate waste prevention activities. Regarding target products for waste prevention, food loss is one of the waste fractions with the highest priority because its countermeasures have significant upstream and downstream effects. Persistent organic pollutants and hazardous compounds should also be taken into account in the situation where recycling activities are globally widespread for the promotion of a material-cycling society.     

Stakeholder analysis for industrial waste management systems

Stakeholder approaches have been applied to the management of companies with a view to the improvement of all areas of performance, including economic, health and safety, waste reduction, future policies, etc. However no agreement exists regarding stakeholders, their interests and levels of importance. This paper considers stakeholder analysis with particular reference to environmental and waste management systems. It proposes a template and matrix model for identification of stakeholder roles and influences by rating the stakeholders. A case study demonstrates the use of these and their ability to be transferred to other circumstances and organizations is illustrated by using a large educational institution.     

Biohydrogen using leachate from an industrial waste landfill as inoculum

Since hydrogen is a renewable energy source, biohydrogen has been researched in recent years. However, data on hydrogen fermentation by a leachate from a waste landfill as inoculum are scarce. We investigated hydrogen production using a leachate from an industrial waste landfill in Kanagawa Prefecture. The results showed no methane gas production, and the leachate was a suitable inoculum for hydrogen fermentation. The maximum H₂ yield was 2.67 mol of H₂ per mol of carbohydrate added, obtained at 30°C and an initial pH of 7. The acetate and butyrate production was significant when the H₂ yield was higher. Oxidation–reduction potential analysis of the culture suggested that hydrogen-producing bacteria in the leachate were facultative anaerobic. Scanning electron microscope observations revealed that the hydrogen-producing bacteria comprised bacilli about 2 μm in length.     

Benefits of supplementing an industrial waste anaerobic digester with energy crops for increased biogas production

Currently, there is increasing competition for waste as feedstock for the growing number of biogas plants. This has led to fluctuation in feedstock supply and biogas plants being operated below maximum capacity. The feasibility of supplementing a protein/lipid-rich industrial waste (pig manure, slaughterhouse waste, food processing and poultry waste) mesophilic anaerobic digester with carbohydrate-rich energy crops (hemp, maize and triticale) was therefore studied in laboratory scale batch and continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR) with a view to scale-up to a commercial biogas process. Co-digesting industrial waste and crops led to significant improvement in methane yield per ton of feedstock and carbon-to-nitrogen ratio as compared to digestion of the industrial waste alone. Biogas production from crops in combination with industrial waste also avoids the need for micronutrients normally required in crop digestion. The batch co-digestion methane yields were used to predict co-digestion methane yield in full scale operation. This was done based on the ratio of methane yields observed for laboratory batch and CSTR experiments compared to full scale CSTR digestion of industrial waste. The economy of crop-based biogas production is limited under Swedish conditions; therefore, adding crops to existing industrial waste digestion could be a viable alternative to ensure a constant/reliable supply of feedstock to the anaerobic digester.     

SLFP: a stochastic linear fractional programming approach for sustainable waste management

A stochastic linear fractional programming (SLFP) approach is developed for supporting sustainable municipal solid waste management under uncertainty. The SLFP method can solve ratio optimization problems associated with random information, where chance-constrained programming is integrated into a linear fractional programming framework. It has advantages in: (1) comparing objectives of two aspects, (2) reflecting system efficiency, (3) dealing with uncertainty expressed as probability distributions, and (4) providing optimal-ratio solutions under different system-reliability conditions. The method is applied to a case study of waste flow allocation within a municipal solid waste (MSW) management system. The obtained solutions are useful for identifying sustainable MSW management schemes with maximized system efficiency under various constraint-violation risks. The results indicate that SLFP can support in-depth analysis of the interrelationships among system efficiency, system cost and system-failure risk.     

Bioextract production using distillery slop as a carbon source for the anaerobic digestion process

Distillery slop is the waste from alcohol manufacture, as from breweries or distilleries, which produce highly organic pollutants. This experiment studied bioextract that used distillery slop instead of molasses as a carbon source for the anaerobic digestion process. In this study, raw materials consisting of water spinach (Impomoea aquatica) residual, pineapple (Ananus comosus) residual, and fresh fish residual were used in the process to obtain the bioextract. The experiment was divided into three parts: a controlled experiment, mixed carbon sources (molasses and distillery slop), and a single carbon source (only distillery slop). The anaerobic digestibility of the bioextract was evaluated by a batch reactor at ambient temperature for a period of 90 days. The results of this study showed, by observing chemical oxygen demand (COD) at the initial and final processes, that the anaerobic digestive processes have a gradually decreasing rate throughout the fermentation period. The pH of the bioextract decreased at the beginning phase from pH 4 and increased to pH 7 in the last phase during the 90-day period. The results of a test with bean seeds showed compost maturity of over 80% following the organic fertilizer standard requirements of Thailand. With respect to variability, the optimal ratio generating the maximal compost maturity was 1:500 for the bioextract using only molasses as a carbon source and 1:250 for the bioextract using only distillery slop as a carbon source.     

Systems analysis as support for decision making towards sustainable municipal waste management--a case study.

During the last decade, systems analysis has become a more frequently used tool in municipal waste management. This paper investigates how one such analysis, carried out in a Swedish county, was perceived by local municipal officers and politicians as support in the decision-making process. A questionnaire was sent to municipal officers and politicians in local government committees and municipal councils. The respondents considered the most important aspects in evaluating scenarios to be: possibilities for municipal co-operation to minimize cost and negative environmental influence; sound working conditions for refuse disposal personnel; low emissions of greenhouse gases; keeping household economy in mind; and using technologies that are known and reliable. Aspects of relatively low importance were the number of locally generated job opportunities, and minimizing work efforts for the households. The study also showed differences between male and female respondents and between politicians and municipal officers, on how scenarios were valued and on which aspects of the systems analysis were of greatest importance for this valuation. Respondents, on average, were satisfied with the systems analysis, and its usefulness as a decision-support tool. However, more work should be carried out to explain and present the results of the systems analysis to further improve its usefulness.     

Investigation of biomass waste biochar production to act as matrix for urea

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - In this work, the synthesis of biochar from several biomass wastes to act as matrix for urea was investigated. The objective was to select the most...     

Demand for waste as fuel in the swedish district heating sector: a production function approach

This paper evaluates inter-fuel substitution in the Swedish district heating industry by analyzing almost all the district heating plants in Sweden in the period 1989-2003, specifically those plants incinerating waste. A multi-output plant-specific production function is estimated using panel data methods. A procedure for weighting the elasticities of factor demand to produce a single matrix for the whole industry is introduced. The price of waste is assumed to increase in response to the energy and CO2 tax on waste-to-energy incineration that was introduced in Sweden on 1 July 2006. Analysis of the plants involved in waste incineration indicates that an increase in the net price of waste by 10% is likely to reduce the demand for waste by 4.2%, and increase the demand for bio-fuels, fossil fuels, other fuels and electricity by 5.5%, 6.0%, 6.0% and 6.0%, respectively.     

Physicochemical and thermal characterization of nonedible oilseed residual waste as sustainable solid biofuel

The present study aims to investigate the potential of nonedible oilseed Jatropha (Jatropha curcas) and Karanja (Pongamia pinnata) defatted residual biomasses (whole seed, kernel, and hull), as solid biofuel. These biomasses showed good carbon contents (39.8–44.5%), whereas, fewer amounts were observed for sulfur (0.15–0.90%), chlorine (0.64–1.76%), nitrogen (0.9–7.2%) and ash contents (4.0–8.7%). Their volatile matter (60.23–81.6%) and calorific values (17.68–19.98 MJ/kg) were found to be comparable to coal. FT-IR and chemical analyses supported the presence of good amount of cellulose, hemicellulose and lower lignin. The pellets prepared without any additional binder, showed better compaction ratio, bulk density and compressive strength. XRF analysis carried out for determination of slagging–fouling indices, suggested their ash deposition tendencies in boilers, which can be overcome significantly with the optimization of the blower operations and control of ash depositions. Thus, overall various chemical, physical properties, thermal decomposition, surface morphological studies and their high biofuel reactivity indicated that residual biomasses of Jatropha and Karanja seeds have high potential to be utilized as a solid biofuel.     

Optimal planning for the sustainable utilization of municipal solid waste

The increasing generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a major problem particularly for large urban areas with insufficient landfill capacities and inefficient waste management systems. Several options associated to the supply chain for implementing a MSW management system are available, however to determine the optimal solution several technical, economic, environmental and social aspects must be considered. Therefore, this paper proposes a mathematical programming model for the optimal planning of the supply chain associated to the MSW management system to maximize the economic benefit while accounting for technical and environmental issues. The optimization model simultaneously selects the processing technologies and their location, the distribution of wastes from cities as well as the distribution of products to markets. The problem was formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programing problem to maximize the profit of the supply chain and the amount of recycled wastes, where the results are showed through Pareto curves that tradeoff economic and environmental aspects. The proposed approach is applied to a case study for the west-central part of Mexico to consider the integration of MSW from several cities to yield useful products. The results show that an integrated utilization of MSW can provide economic, environmental and social benefits.     

An environmentally sustainable decision model for urban solid waste management

The aim of this work is to present the structure and the application of a decision support system (DSS) designed to help decision makers of a municipality in the development of incineration, disposal, treatment and recycling integrated programs. Specifically, within a MSW management system, several treatment plants and facilities can generally be found: separators, plants for production of refuse derived fuel (RDF), incinerators with energy recovery, plants for treatment of organic material, and sanitary landfills. The main goal of the DSS is to plan the MSW management, defining the refuse flows that have to be sent to recycling or to different treatment or disposal plants, and suggesting the optimal number, the kinds, and the localization of the plants that have to be active. The DSS is based on a decision model that requires the solution of a constrained non-linear optimization problem, where some decision variables are binary and other ones are continuous. The objective function takes into account all possible economic costs, whereas constraints arise from technical, normative, and environmental issues. Specifically, pollution and impacts, induced by the overall solid waste management system, are considered through the formalization of constraints on incineration emissions and on negative effects produced by disposal or other particular treatments.     

Choosing a sustainable demolition waste management strategy using multicriteria decision analysis

This paper presents an application of the ELECTRE III decision-aid method in the context of choosing a sustainable demolition waste management strategy for a case study in the city of Lyon, France. This choice of waste management strategy takes into consideration the sustainable development objectives, i.e. economic aspects, environmental consequences, and social issues. Nine alternatives for demolition waste management were compared with the aid of eight criteria, taking into account energy consumption, depletion of abiotic resources, global warming, dispersion of dangerous substances in the environment, economic activity, employment, and quality of life of the local population. The case study concerned the demolition of 25 buildings of an old military camp. Each alternative was illustrated with different waste treatments, such as material recovery, recycling, landfilling, and energy recovery. The recommended solution for sustainable demolition waste management for the case study is a selective deconstruction of each building with local material recovery in road engineering of inert wastes, local energy recovery of wood wastes, and specific treatments for hazardous wastes.     

Sanitary aspect of using partially treated landfill leachate as a water source in green waste composting

Shredded green wastes were composted in windrows, at the Harewood Whin landfill, near the city of York, in West Yorkshire, UK. Landfill leachate were added twice during the second and fourth week of the process in two piles. One pile was turned once every week for eight weeks and the other was turned twice, during the same period. Each time approximately, 2 m3 of leachate was added, into each pile. The two piles each contained about 45 m3 of shredded green waste. The effect of adding leachate on the sanitisation of the green waste during composting, was evaluated based on the changes in the levels of faecal coliforms and faecal streptococci. The results suggested that using leachate as the moisture source had no significant effect (tested with two factors ANOVA test) on the sanitisation process when compared with two similar piles, used as the control, for which tap water was used for moisture addition. In all four piles sanitisation was almost complete and below the acceptable levels. Additionally, the results indicated that there was no significant effect on the sanitisation process of the turning frequency.     

An international waste convention: measures for achieving sustainable development.

Waste is a by-product of economic growth. Consequently, economic growth presents challenges for sustainable resource management and development because continued economic growth implies continued growth in waste outputs. Poor management of waste results in the inappropriate depletion of natural resources and potentially adverse effects on the environment, health and the economy. It is unsustainable. This paper begins by outlining the magnitude of and the current response to the growth in the quantity of waste outputs. This is followed by a consideration of why the international response to date, including the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21, fails to address the issue adequately. The paper concludes with a discussion on why and how an international treaty or other measure could advance sustainable development by providing an appropriate framework within which to address the problem.     

A novel sustainable decision making model for municipal solid waste management

This paper reviews several models developed to support decision making in municipal solid waste management (MSWM). The concepts underlying sustainable MSWM models can be divided into two categories: one incorporates social factors into decision making methods, and the other includes public participation in the decision-making process. The public is only apprised or takes part in discussion, and has little effect on decision making in most research efforts. Few studies have considered public participation in the decision-making process, and the methods have sought to strike a compromise between concerned criteria, not between stakeholders. However, the source of the conflict arises from the stakeholders' complex web of value. Such conflict affects the feasibility of implementing any decision. The purpose of this study is to develop a sustainable decision making model for MSWM to overcome these shortcomings. The proposed model combines multicriteria decision making (MCDM) and a consensus analysis model (CAM). The CAM is built up to aid in decision-making when MCDM methods are utilized and, subsequently, a novel sustainable decision making model for MSWM is developed. The main feature of CAM is the assessment of the degree of consensus between stakeholders for particular alternatives. A case study for food waste management in Taiwan is presented to demonstrate the practicality of this model.     

Waste glass as absorbent for thin layer chromatography (TLC)

This study shows that glass powder of 200–300 mesh size range can be used as an absorbent for thin layer chromatography without adding any binder provided its uniformity is improved by a suitable thermal treatment. For this purpose TLC plates of the said mesh size range glass powder are heated thermally in a muffle furnace at a temperature of 650 °C for a period of 3 h.