Human wastes

The oil and gas industry produces much waste material, such as scrap metal, human waste, unspent chemicals, oily sludges and radiation. All of the incoming streams to a facility such as a production platform end up somewhere, and only few of the outgoing streams are useful product. It is one of the responsibilities of the engineer to try to limit the amount of incoming material which will finally become waste material. 

One of the reasons the tribes of early history were nomadic was to move periodically away from the stench of the animal, vegetable, and human wastes they generated. When the tribesmen learned to use fire, they used it for millennia in a way that filled the air inside their living quarters with the products of incomplete combustion. Examples of this can still be seen today in some of fhe more primitive parts of the world. After its invention, the chimney removed the combustion products and cooking smells from the living quarters, but for centuries the open fire in the fireplace caused its emission to be smoky. In ad 61 the Roman philosopher Seneca reported thus on conditions in Rome ... 

The pungent and irritating odor of chloramines is often mistaken for the chlorine odor of swimming pools. Chloramines form from the combination of sodium hypochlorite (added to sterilize the water) and nitrogen-containing compounds that are human waste by-products. 

The term cognitive is potentially misleading here if it means not affective, or not emotional. In fact, these reactions are eminently emotional appreciation of the beauty of face or figure, or of some chemical moiety that proves to be nutritious or aversion to the sound of a distressed baby s cry or the smell of human waste. 

Outfalls Discrete locations where large quantities of water and/or human wastes are introduced into rivers or the ocean. 

The situation is more complex in the region of Asia and the Pacific. Water quality has many enemies there. First, sedimentation constitutes a major cause of pollution in Asian rivers, since sediment loads are four times the world average. Secondly, hazardous and toxic waste deteriorates the water quality. It is noteworthy that lead levels in Asia s surface water are about 20 times higher than those in OECD countries. Thirdly, eutrophication is faced due to the extensive use of fertilizers in the last 30 years. But the list of problems does not end here. Asian rivers contain three times as many bacteria from human waste as the world average. Finally, urbanization and the release of untreated sewage and industrial waste to the environment are expected to cause severe water pollution problems. 

This chapter will explain how polyurethanes can play important roles in achieving acceptable equilibrium. Before we begin that discussion, we should discuss our most visible environmental problem — treatment of human waste. In the previous section, we covered the establishment of the equilibrium of SOCs, VOCs, and lOCs. The environmental effects of our daily existence resulting from personal hygiene and personal waste control are of immediate concern. Arguably, the types of pollution mentioned in the previous paragraphs warrant continuous monitoring. Human sanitary waste disposal requires continuous action. 

Figure 4.3 summarizes the objectives of environmental research. The air and water resources appear at the top. Conversion of resources via agricultural and industrial means is shown on the perimeter of the inner circle. The treatment of industrial, agricultural, and human waste in a closed system in order to return the components as air and water resources is shown in the outer circle. 

In addition to continued emphasis on reservoir capacity, we will shift our attention to other important specialty characteristics of polyurethane the abilities to be colonized by living cells and to attach active ligands. More specifically, this chapter will illustrate how polyurethanes are used to address environmental problems. The problems we will discuss are different in nature from the problems discussed in the last chapter. This chapter focuses on the treatment of waterborne human waste. 

Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to improving waste management lies not in available technology, but in our attitude and willingness to accept the large one-time setup costs. Human waste is not a waste—it is a resource waiting to be utilized. 

Install a composting toilet, which uses no water. Rather, it allows human wastes to decompose aerobically as air is vented over the waste, which is buried in peat moss. Dried, odor-free compost is removed every few months and is useful as a garden fertilizer. 

At the wastewater treatment facility, human waste is extracted from the water and typically ends up in a landfill. So why not use a composting toilet and skip the waste of water altogether and send our wastes directly to farmlands rather than to landfills ... 

Used water, sewage, contains waste products such as human waste and washing-up debris as well as everything else that we put down a drain or sink. The processes that are involved in its treatment are as follows. 

First, the application of fertilizers to the land surface has led to increased runoff of N and P from the land surface. Discharge of human wastes has augmented this flux. It appears that the total global nutrient flux today is about 2.5 times greater than the long-term geologic flux, and results in excess accumulation of organic carbon in the ocean (Meybeck, 1982 Wollast, 1983). Furthermore, because of land use activities, the flux of POC, DOC (Likens et al., 1981), and DIC (Meybeck, 1982) from land via rivers to the ocean has been enhanced. 

Several investigations [56,57] have been devoted to the electrochemical treatment of human wastes in an attempt to make possible its electrochemical combustion. Tennakoon et al. [57] degraded artificial feces/urine mixtures at 90°C in a U tube cell, further scaling up the process to a parallel plate cell... 

Figure 14 Schematic diagram of the packed bed cell and the flow circuit utilized for the treatment of human wastes (1) reservoir (2) pump (3) valve (4) flow meter (5) anode current collector (6) packed bed anode (7) cathode (8) water condenser (9) water inlet (10) water outlet and (11) outlet for gases. (From Ref. 57.)...

Tennakoon CLK, Bhardwaj RC, Bockris JO M. Electrochemical treatment of human wastes in a packed bed reactor. J Appl Electrochem 1996 26 18-29. 

Animal and human wastes have long been used as fertilizers, especially in Europe and Asia, particularly China. Even some American Indians are said to have planted a dead fish in each com hill to increase yields. Such materials contain small percentages of nitrogen and other plant nutrients that are assimilable by plants. Today, the use of raw sewage on crops persists in Asia and Europe, but volumewise is not of great significance. In the United States and most European countries, the use of raw... 

Hydrogen can be extracted from a range of sources since it is in almost everything, from biological tissue and DNA, to petroleum, gasoline, paper, human waste and water. It can be generated from nuclear plants, solar plants, wind plants, ocean thermal power plants or green plants. 

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