Discard studies have demonstrated that waste is more than just a symptom of an all-too-human demand for meaning, or a merely technical problem for the likes of sanitary engineers and public health officials. The afterlife of waste materials and processes of waste management reveal the centrality of transient and discarded things for questions of materiality and ontology, marginal and polluting ...

The use of plasma arc technologies, especially in the treatment of hazardous wastes, is set to expand. The technology is intermediate within the waste management hierarchy and is characterised as an Advanced Conversion Technique (ACT) with Best Available Technique (BAT) attributes. Adoption is driven by the increasing stringency of environmental regulations, the requirement for efficient resour...

In Switzerland, infrastructure construction is frequently discussed in regional sustainable development because it causes extensive movements of materials. But construction itself is of decreasing importance in industrial countries, as we expect a down-slow in growth of the built environment. Hence, the focus of research on sustainability is shifting to management of the existing building stock...

Methane can be produced by anaerobic digestion. The Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) test is widely applied to determine the anaerobic biodegradability of wastes. It is based on a fermentation process, which is time consuming, about 30 days. This study investigates the use of near infrared spectroscopy to predict the Biochemical Methane Potential value of municipal solid waste. Near infrared...