PTT 352

ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
Hierarchy of waste management
OBJECTIVES OF GOOD
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

1. To protect the
environment

4. To support the 2. To promote a

efficiency and OBJECTIVES good quality
productivity of the environment
economy

3. To generate
employment and
income
Waste Management
 General
WASTE
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS-
(6 METHODS)
 • The most popular method of waste disposal and commonly
found in developing countries.
• The waste were buried in the land after went through
processes that eliminate odor or any dangerous leftovers or
residues.
• Becoming less practical due to availability of free land and
Landfill accumulation of methane and other landfill gases, which
can cause numerous contamination problems.
• Landfill give rise to air and water pollution which severely
affects the environment and can prove fatal to the live of
humans , plants and animals.

• Also known as thermal treatment in which solid waste

are burn at high temperatures as to convert them into
residue or gaseous products.
• Reduce volume of solid waste to 20 to 30 percent of the
Incineration original volume
• Reduce the stress on landfills.
• Very popular in countries where free land is an issue
(e.g. Japan).
 • Recovery-process of taking useful discarded items
for a specific next use.
• These discarded items are then processed to extract
or recover materials and resources or convert them
to energy in the form of useable heat, electricity or
Recovery and fuel.
Recycling • Recycling-process that convert waste products into
new products to prevent energy usage and
consumption of fresh raw materials.
• The idea behind recycling is to reduce energy usage,
reduce volume of landfills, reduce air and water
pollution, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
preserve natural resources for future use.

• Electically charged or highly ionized gas that

produces temperatures that exceed 12,600 °F
• A vessel uses characteristics plasma torches
Plasma operating at +10,000 °F that creates a gasification
zone till 3,000 °F for the conversion of solid or liquid
Gasification wastes into a syngas.
• Provides renewable energy and other important
benefits.
 • Easy and natural bio-degradation process
that takes organic wastes-remains of plants
and kitchen waste and turns into nutrient
rich food for plants.
• Used in organic farming, normally used
Composting microbes to decompose organic compounds.
• Advantage-The best method that can turn
unsafe organic products into safe compost
• Disadvantage-Slow process and takes lot of
space

• Convert the non-recyclable items into usable

Waste to heat, or fuel through a variety of processes.
• Types of renewable energy source as non-
Energy recyclable waste can be used over and over
again to create energy.
(Recover • Reduce carbon emission by eliminating the
Energy) need for energy from fossil sources.
• Widely known as WtE.
 WASTE MANAGEMENT
APPROACH

•Should be compatible with the nature of a given society.

•In keeping with global trends, the systems are being oriented to
concentrate on sustainability issues; mainly through the incorporation of
3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) technologies.

•However degree and nature of improvements towards sustainability are

varying and depend on the economic status of a country.

•High income countries like Japan and South Korea can afford to spend
more to incorporate 3R technologies.

•Most of the latest efforts focus on “Zero Waste” and/or “Zero

Landfilling” which is certainly expensive for developing countries like
Indonesia, India.
 DEFINITION

•Order of preferences for waste management strategies based on

prevention to eliminate the waste/pollution at source.
•Establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability.
•Emphasis on reducing , reusing and recycling as key to
sustainable materials management

ADVANTAGES:
•Cost effective to reduce the costs of operation and
maintenance.
•Prevent emissions from greenhouse gases, reduces pollutants,
save energy, conserve resources, create jobs and stimulate the
development of green technology.
•protect human health and the natural environment
STRATEGIES
 Integrated Solid Waste Management
(ISWM)
• The selection of a combination of techniques,
technologies, and management programs to
achieve waste management objectives is called
integrated solid waste management (ISWM)
• The EPA proposed a hierarchy of actions to
implement ISWM:
• source reduction (including reuse and waste
reduction),
• recycling and composting,
• disposal in combustion facilities and landfills
▪ The hierarchy of waste management system should
consider:

▪ Prevention principle – waste production must be

minimized and possibly avoided
▪ Producer responsibility and polluter paid principle – the
waste producer or who contaminated the environment
should pay for their actions
▪ Precautionary principle – potential problems should be
anticipated
▪ Proximity principle – waste should be disposed of as
closely as possible to its origin produced.
▪ There were a few options of waste management suitable after
generation and before final disposal comprise (Harrison and
Hester, 2002):
 Waste minimisation
 Collection and sorting
 Reuse
 Recycling
 Composting
 Anaerobic digestion
 Energy recovery (incineration or other more advanced thermal
treatment techniques)
 Incineration (without energy recovery)
Solutions: Reducing Solid
Waste
• Refuse: Don't buy things that you don't need
• Reduce: Consume less
• Reuse: Reusable items instead of one-time use –cloth bag
–• Repurpose: Use for another purpose use used glass bottle as
spice bottle
• Recycle: Take materials from waste to make new,useful
products.
Key changes that need to occur:
• Consume less
• Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less
energy and material
• Redesign manufacturing process to produce less waste and
pollution
• Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse,
remanufacture, compost, or recycle > Modular parts > 3D
printing
• Shift from selling goods to selling or leasing services
• Eliminate or reduce packaging
• Fee-per-bag waste collection
• Cradle to grave responsibility laws
Ways to Recycle
• • MRFs: materials recovery facility - mixed waste gets
separated (machines + workers) - high amount to generate
profit
• • Source separation - households/businesses separate - less
air and water pollution, lower start-up cost-More recyclable
• Composting -biodegradable organic waste broken down - can
use for fertilizer, topsoil, landfill cover
• - Europe: 85% of biodegradable waste - US: 35% - Issues to
consider: – odor – what goes in to it/composition – size–
aeration
 Zero Emission Concept
(Introduction)
• The Zero Emission (United Nations University)
aims to approach the ideal of zero environmental
stress by suppressing resource consumption and
minimizing waste.
• Zero Emission concept can contribute :
- to creation of more effective technology,
- new production process,
- conservation and recycling of natural
resources (waste into energy).
UNU -Zero Emission Approach
 Basic tool for zero pollution
(7 R’s Golden Rule)
• Regulation
• Reducing
• Reusing
• Recycling
• Recovering
• Rethinking
• Renovation
 Zero Emission Concept
• Zero emission (ZE) is defined as a systemic,
interdisciplinary optimization approach with
elements of sufficiency, efficiency and substitution.
• Zero emission consists of:
- different approaches and definitions,
- management-and marketing approach,
- continuous improvement process,
- CO2 neutrality of systems and
- sustainable utilization of “waste water and waste“
 Zero Emission
• In order to achieve this goal, we should start
with the following:
1. The full utilization of cleanly energy
2. Zero emission of sewage
3. Zero emission of exhaust
4. Full use of ecological materials
5. Creating urban and rural areas 'Green' project
The full utilization of cleanly energy
• Now the large-scale use of oil, natural gas, coal and
other fossil energy is limited.
• They couldn't be innumerable and, in this energy
consumption, also produce large quantities of carbon
dioxide, and causing great damage of the entire
planet's ecological environment.
• Therefore, eco-city's sustainable development should
take full advantage of solar energy, wind energy, water
energy, hydrogen energy, geothermal, biomass and
other sustainable use of cleanly energy.
• This requirement is not only of fully utilizing energy,
but also the life course and the climate regulated by
temperature, thus avoiding the requirements of
thermal pollution disasters.
 Zero emission of sewage
• The ecological processing technology of garbage resources, and cities and
rivers' ecological restoration technology play an important role in
environmental pollution control and ecological construction.
• Urban sewage zero emissions aim at the sewage purification of the basic
unit of cities (areas, factories, etc.) on the spot.
• If the effluent quality is up to tertiary treatment standards above water, the
urban sewage can achieve zero emissions.
• All the basic units of cities decentralize the sewage, and direct emission
after treating.
• That is, urban sewage treatment change the model from the traditional
focus on the collection of sewage treatment to the decentralized of the
district (or factories), and promote the transformation of the main
investment, then to achieve the government zero investment.
• Operating costs are zero because the ecological system operating requires
for solar energy, bio-energy, gravity and other ecology energy, it needn't
professional and technical personnel for maintenance management, and
system operation process can produce receipts (reuse water, plants, etc.), so
operators can achieve zero cost.
 Zero emission of exhaust
• Zero emission of exhaust means, in the production process of
factories, power plant, the landfill treatment, and the automobile
exhaust emissions, there are no sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides,
methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, and other
atmospheric environmental pollution.
• For example, in USA, New Mexico State's energy department
belonging to national laboratory is developing a new technology
which ultimately making coal power plant exhaust to achieve zero
emissions
• China's first environmental-protection solid waste landfill-Guangzhou
Xingfeng landfill is recently completed and put into trial operation,
and the high-tech environmental protection garbage dump in China
makes the first garbage wastewater, exhaust zero emissions.
• Auto Shanghai has achieved energy structure diversified, owned gas,
oil, and electricity, have the initial capacity to withstand the risk of
energy, and the emission standards is gradually moving from low-
emission to ultra-low emissions and zero emissions.
 Full use of ecological materials
• The characters of such materials are using a relatively longer life, can degradation,
consume less resources and energy, have small pollution to ecology and
environment , can avoid damage to the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect.
• What's more, the whole processes of life from materials' manufacturing, using,
discarding to recycling, are easy to recover and recycle in harmony with the
ecological environment.
• Ecological materials mainly include: environmentally compatible materials such as
pure natural materials (wood, stone, etc., biological extracts, such as chitin), the
imitation biological material (used for artificial bone, artificial dirt and other bio-
ceramic), green packaging materials (such as natural packaging materials - such as
straw processing, edible packaging materials), ecological building materials (such as
eco-cement, eco-concrete, non-toxic decorative materials, etc.), environmental
degradation of materials (such as biodegradable plastics.
• In order to evaluate the environmental harmonious performance of the building
materials comprehensively, we need the Life Cycle Assessment method.
• The Life Cycle Assessment method is assessing the environment pollution, energy
consumption and resources effect in the entire life cycle, and it is an ongoing
research and developing method.
Creating urban and rural areas 'Green'
project
• The urban and rural areas 'Green' project is implementing the
neighbouring-urban shelter project, integrating the urban and
forest, protecting and improving the original ecological
environment, and establishing the national forest protected
areas and national parks.
• Planners should pay great attention to retain the original
natural vegetation, because such biological diversity is
impossible to achieve by artificial environment.
• In recent years, our country has also launched a large-scale
ecological environment construction, but so far, all the
greening cities , Garden Cities, landscape cities, garden cities,
and forest cities at home and abroad, are not the eco-city on
the scientific significance, but only in the ladder leading to the
eco-city.