The environmental impacts of recycling, mechanical biological treatments (MBT) and waste-to-energy incineration, the main management strategies to respond to the increasing production of post-consumer materials are reviewed and compared. Several studies carried out according to life-cycle assessment (LCA) confirm that the lowest environmental impact, on a global scale, is obtained by recycling ...

In most cases, the anammox process is used for nitrogen removal from reject water coming from dewatering of digested sludge. However, there are more industrial streams suitable for treatment by partial nitritation/anammox process. The landfill leachate may be a good example of such wastewater. Generally, landfilling is the most used solution for treatment of urban solid wastes. The problem with...

The Urban Informal Sector (UIS) is a major and expanding part of developing economies both in terms of employment and output. However, they cause substantial environmental damages and worsen living conditions, prompting authorities to impose rigid environmental regulations. Yet, these steps have been mostly arbitrary and based on adhoc popular sentiment or political exigencies and not on rigoro...

This work reports a study of the proton-binding capacity of biopolymers obtained from different materials supplied by a municipal biowaste treatment plant located in Northern Italy. One material was the anaerobic fermentation digestate of the urban wastes organic humid fraction. The others were the compost of home and public gardening residues and the compost of the mix of the above residues, d...

Efficient Solid waste utilization is a challenging task. In rural areas organic wastes like cattle waste is available in abundant, which is not utilized in the valuable forms and in urban areas it is disposed off in an improper manner. In this study biogas primarily from cattle waste was generated by using a fabricated anaerobic biogas digester. The methane is easily separated from biogas by re...

Biomass conversion to ethanol as a liquid fuel by the thermophilic and anaerobic clostridia offers a potential partial solution to the problem of the world's dependence on petroleum for energy. Coculture of a cellulolytic strain and a saccharolytic strain of Clostridium on agricultural resources, as well as on urban and industrial cellulosic wastes, is a promising approach to an alternate energ...

A chronological sequence of urban soils 3-92 years old was studied to determine the effects of time on morphogenesis, artifact weathering, and the geochemical partitioning of Pb. Key chronofunctions determined are an increase in ˆA horizon Development Index (defined herein based on soil color) and water-soluble Pb, and a decrease in pH and C/N, with increasing soil age. Key artifact weathering ...

This study was carried out to reveal the plastic wastes separation practice and disposal mechanism as well as awareness of the negative impact of plastic wastes on the environment, in Makurdi area of Benue State, Nigeria. Questionnaires were administered to 468 individual respondents in 6 sub-locations of the city. Inquisition was also made from 10 hospitals, 6 market centers and the waste mana...

Management of municipal solid wastes (MSW) in most developed societies now involves the use of thermo-chemical conversion methods. This leads to energy and material recovery while also protecting the environment. However, till date most of the wastes generated in Nigeria (including plastic wastes) are either land-filled or openly burnt. These methods are not sustainable and environmentally non-...

Today's media is filled with headlines about real and perceived financial meltdowns in Asia and the impacts on our stock portfolios. But the real, long term impacts will fall on the region's poor and the development process in general. From the standpoint of environmental management in the region, we are beginning to see some slackening in what was a brisk pace confronting a range of issues, in...