Still most of the hazardous wastes are disposed in uncontrolled landfills >>>

"Sustainable Waste Management: The Forefront of Innovation" was the topic under which Prof. Marco Castaldi's organising team gathered a wide range of presentations from around the world:

In this study, the status of healthcare waste generation and treatment, management system in Korea was investigated to figure out the overall status.

To realize a circular economy and carbon neutrality, it is necessary to improve factors that impede recycling, such as plastic waste treatment in the informal sector and manage hazardous substances in plastics for safety.

Microplastics (MPs) derived from plastic wastes have attracted wide attention throughout the world due to the wide distribution, easy transition, and potential threats to organisms.

Hospital and medical wastes are disposed in tens of thousands of dedicated incinerators or are autoclaved to destroy pathogens and then landfilled. However, over a hundred cities which have waste to energy (WTE) power plants fueled by municipal solid waste, use these plants to co-combust medical wastes. This report identified forty one such plants, located in a dozen nations, which in total co-combust about 90,000 tons of medical waste annually. The medical waste represented an average of 2.4% of the total amount of wastes combusted in these WTE power plants. Generally, the medical wastes are collected at the point of origin in puncture resistant, leakproof and sealed containers which are transported to WTE plants and are mechanically conveyed to the WTE furnace.

Bulgaria: Disposal of the most dangerous locations with buried pesticides

Recent updates from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) highlight changes to laws and regulations brought about by the implementation of the Circular Economy Package (CEP) - transposition into UK law.

This assessment provides a status report on cytotoxic waste management in Western Balkans (WB) using data from the International Solid Waste Associations, with a focus on the national member countries.

Wuhan is the largest city in Central China, with a land area of 8569 square kilometers and a permanent population of more than 11 million.

An efficient procedure of treating municipal solid waste is incineration which enables reduction of the waste volume, and energy recovery during combustion. During this process, fly ashes are produced.

Vietnam: Director of the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Nguyen Toan Thang said at a conference calling for investment in WTE that with the annual growth rate of 5 percent per annum, total domestic garbage in the city would reach 13,000 tons a day by 2025.

The European Waste Catalogue (EWC) provides a common system of waste classification in accordance with the waste law throughout the EU, with the purpose to improve the efficiency of waste management activities. The individual codes within the EWC classify the various waste types.

Medical wastes constitute a larger portion of infectious wastes that are potentially dangerous since they contain pathogenic agents. While sustainable management of municipal solid waste, wastewater sludge and construction and demolition waste gain significant attention, medical waste has not attracted the same level of attention as other types of wastes, especially in developing countries. Therefore, medical waste management is still a critical issue in many countries due to ist potential environmental hazards and public health risks.

Due to the increasing numbers of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars as well as in electric and electronic equipment, the design and recycling of batteries is gaining increasing importance. This fact demands for an efficient and holistic battery concept as well as a future concept for recycling and treatment.

Purpose: The demand for household batteries is considerable in the European context with just over five billion placed on the market every year. Although disposable batteries account for the largest market share in Europe, the use of rechargeable batteries is promoted as a less waste generating and a more environmentally friendly practice. A comparative life cycle assessment was therefore carried out to verify this assertion.

During the production of paper and packaging materials, various paper sludges are producedas waste material. This research project, funded by the DBU, investigates cofermentation in the digesters of mechanical biological treatment plants (MBT) as an ecological and economical solution for the use of these residuals. Three types of paper sludge from different ways of paper production were analyzed. The slurries were checked for possible inhibition effects upon the biogas process in MBT and their Biogas yield. First results have shown that the co-fermentation of paper sludges in digesters of MBT plants could be useful. The results found so far do not show definite inhibition effects.

The environmental impacts of rotary kiln incineration, which is widely used in China for treating industrial hazardous waste (IHW), is evaluated in this work through life cycle assessment (LCA).

The objective of this study is to clarify the material flow of specific nanomaterials with focus on construction materials to deviate its release scenarios for the end-of-life phase. The waste stream of construction and demolition (C&D) waste is very challenging because it is generated by both households and industry. Furthermore, the volume of C&D waste in Japan or in Austria is very high. Regarding nanotoxicity, the content of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) in paints for construction materials is considerable. Chen et al. (2008) pointed out that SiO2 nanoparticles can easily be airborne because of their size. Kaegi et al. (2008 & 2010) have also shown that the nano-fraction of the whitening pigment (TiO2) and nano-Ag was released into surface water under real weather conditions from facade coatings.

In the energy-intensive industries of cement production, the use of refuse derived fuels (EBS) is in common since several years especially to decrease costs.

Sludge often arise as unintentional spin-off product in industrial processes. With regards to Transport (e.g. thixotropy, high water content) and further recycling (especially when contaminated) sludge is very inconvenient. However, with improved technical features sludge material might become usable as construction material for example in dams and embankments.

Coal tar, as a by-product from coal gasifi cation in municipal or manufactured gas plants (MGP), has been used for numerous industrial purposes including wood impregnation and as a raw material for ointments. Initially valued for its antibiotic properties, the constituents of coal tar constituents, when released into the environment, now pose considerable threats to soil and groundwater quality in many industrialized countries.

The coke oven plant started production in 1942 and was rebuilt after the extensive damage towards the end of World War II. For the production of by-products tar and crude benzene (light oil, coal) were distilled on site. Due to the effects of war and associated with the destruction of various parts of the coking plant, there were massive contaminations of the soil at the operational facilities. Based on these contaminations in soil there is still a signifi cant input of pollutants into the groundwater.

In the course of the complete teardown of the area of the former southern and eastern railway stations of Vienna and its complete redesign as a new central railway station of Vienna a substantial diesel contamination was detected. In the perspective of a sustainable solution ÖBB decided to eliminate this spill. For this purpose, initially around 4,500 m³ pollutant-containing soil were excavated and disposed. The remaining area was cleaned by an in situ remediation.