Wastes management

A European survey of available statistics of waste in Europe has revealed that the sohd waste generated from hospitals constitutes approximately only 0.35% of society s total solid waste. Because of great difficulties regarding the handling of waste from different healthcare activities the EU member states wished in the beginning of the 90s that certain aspects of healthcare waste be subjected to European harmonisation. 

Directives Directive 75/442/EEC constitutes the legal framework for Community policy on waste management. After coming into force in 1977, it was amended by Directive 91/156/EEC in order to incorporate the guidelines set out in the Community Strategy for Waste Management in 1989. 

Under Directive 75/442/EEC waste shall mean any substance or object in the categories set out in Annex 1 of that directive that the holder discards or intends or is required to discard. 

Article 1 of Council Directive 91/689/EEC defines hazardous waste by referring to the List of Hazardous Waste adopted by Council Decision 94/904. 

Council Directive 94/67/EC is aimed at providing measures and procedures to prevent or, where that is not practicable, to reduce as fast as possible negative effects on the environment, in particular the pollution of air, soil, surface and groundwater, and the resulting risks to human health, from the incineration of hazardous waste and, to that end, to set up and maintain appropriate operating conditions and emission limit values for hazardous waste incineration plants within the Community. This Directive applies without prejudice to other relevant Community Legislation, in particular relating to waste and the protection of the health and safety of workers at incineration plants.  

The designer must consider all possible sources of pollution and, where practicable, select processes that will eliminate or reduce (minimise) waste generation. The Institution of Chemical Engineers has published a guide to waste minimisation, IChemE (1997). 

Unused reactants can be recycled and off-specification product reprocessed. Integrated processes can be selected the waste from one process becoming the raw material for another. For example, the otherwise waste hydrogen chloride produced in a chlorination process can be used for chlorination using a different reaction as in the balanced, chlorination-oxyhydrochlorination process for vinyl chloride production. It may be 

Processes and equipment should be designed to reduce the chances of mis-operation by providing tight control systems, alarms and interlocks. Sample points, process equipment drains, and pumps should be sited so that any leaks flow into the plant effluent collection system, not directly to sewers. Hold-up systems, tanks and ponds, should be provided to retain spills for treatment. Flanged joints should be kept to the minimum needed for the assembly and maintenance of equipment. 

When waste is produced, processes must be incorporated in the design for its treatment and safe disposal. The following techniques can be considered  

Discharge to foul water sewer (with the agreement of the appropriate authority). 

The first interest of UV spectrophotometry is to give some qualitative information such as the previous attempt of typologies for natural water and urban wastewater (see Chapters 7 and 8). From a more practical point of view, the study of UV spectra of industrial wastewater can be envisaged for several purposes such as sampling 

Estimated TOC removal Estimated TOC Estimated (semi-deterministic removal (area under Origin TOC removal method) (A265) spectrum)  

Classification of wastes may be according to purpose, distinguishing between defense waste related to military appHcations, and commercial waste related to civiUan appHcations. Classification may also be by the type of waste, ie, mill tailings, high level radioactive waste (HLW), spent fuel, low level radioactive waste (LLW), or transuranic waste (TRU). Alternatively, the radionucHdes and the degree of radioactivity can define the waste. Surveys of nuclear waste management (1,2) and more technical information (3—5) are available. 

Radioactivity occurs naturally in earth minerals containing uranium and thorium. It also results from two principal processes arising from bombardment of atomic nuclei by particles such as neutrons, ie, activation and fission. Activation involves the absorption of a neutron by a stable nucleus to form an unstable nucleus. An example is the neutron reaction of a neutron and cobalt-59 to yield cobalt-60 [10198 0-0] Co, a 5.26-yr half-life gamma-ray emitter. Another is the absorption of a neutron by uranium-238 [24678-82-8] to produce plutonium-239 [15117 8-5], Pu, as occurs in the fuel of a nuclear 

Many of the uranium fission fragments are radioactive. Of special interest are technetium-99 [14133-76-7] and iodine-129 [15046-84-1] having half-Hves of 2.13 X 10 yr and 1.7 x 10 yr, respectively. Data on all isotopes are found in Reference 6 (see also Radioisotopes). 

Radioactive waste is characterized by volume and activity, defined as the number of disintegrations per second, known as becquerels. Each radionucHde has a unique half-life,, and corresponding decay constant, A = 0.693/tj 2 For a component radionucHde consisting of JS1 atoms, the activity, M, is defined as 

Activities and existing and projected volumes of all types of radioactive waste are Hsted in Reference 7. 

Biocides and their derivatives not appearing in the black list 

Substances which have a deleterious effect on the taste and/or smell of the products for human consumption derived from the aquatic environment Toxic or persistent organic compounds of silicon Inorganic compounds of phosphorus and elemental phosphorus Non-persistent mineral oils and hydrocarbons of petroleum origin Cyanides, fluorides 

Substances which have an adverse effect on the oxygen balance, particularly ammonia, nitrates The following metalloids and metals and their compounds  

Extra duties are imposed on the producers of Special Waste , i.e. a waste that is on the European Hazardous Waste list reproduced in Table 17.6 and if it has one or more of the hazardous properties listed in Table 17.7 (reproduced from Part 2 of Schedule 2 of the Special Waste Regulations, 1996). Also Special Waste is any Controlled Waste which has one of the listed properties. Extra requirements are detailed for the safe transfer and management of such waste. 

Section 34 of EPA 90 imposes a cradle to grave philosophy for waste management. This places a duty of care upon anyone who has control of controlled waste, i.e. importers, producers. 

In the past it was common practice to discharge acid directly into the open sea or coastal waters. For a long time the weak-acid problem was the subject of controversy. As a result the European Community decided to stop the discharge of weak acid into open waters by 1993. 

The European Ti02 producers developed various effluent-treatment processes to meet the environmental requirements [2.50]. The most important processes are the precipitation of gypsum from the weak acid [2.51] and the concentration and recovery of the free and bound acid. Another outlet for the metal sulfate solution is the production of iron oxide pigments (see Section 3.1.1.2). 

Thermal decomposition of the metal sulfates and production of sulfuric acid from the resulting sulfur dioxide. 

Sachtleben Chemie (based on know-how of Covered store for mixed filter cake k) Calcina- 

Bayer AG).a) Heat exchanger b) Evaporator tion furnace I) Waste-heat boiler m) Cyclone  

The Building Regulations Approved Document C now requires a risk-based approach to the assessment of groimd gas. It relies heavily on other sources of guidance on ground gas, especially the suite of reports on ground gas 

There are no specific legal requirements to maintain gas protection measures once they have been installed although it will often fall under the requirements of general health and safety legislation. If an incident, such as an explosion, did occur because of lack of maintenance of gas protection measures in a commercial or similar building, then it is likely that the owner and/or operator would be prosecuted under the Health and Safety legislation. 

Methane and, to a lesser degree, carbon dioxide are greenhouse gases that are considered to contribute to climate change. Where appropriate, it is possible to promote oxidation of methane to carbon dioxide in venting systems. 

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The treatment of these issues will be discussed jointly with the health, safety and environment (HSE) departments within the company and with the process and facilities engineers, and their treatment should be designed in conjunction with an environmental impact assessment. Some of the important basic principles for waste management are to ... 

UCLEARREACTORS - WASTE MANAGETffiNT] (Vol 17) Nuclear waste management... 

Nuclear Waste Management. Separation of radioactive wastes provides a number of relatively small scale but vitally important uses of gas-phase purification appHcations of adsorption. Such appHcations often require extremely high degrees of purification because of the high toxicity of... 

J. C. Mesta ia P. S. Bhardwaja, ed.. Visibility Protection Kesearch and Policy Aspects Air and Waste Management Association, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1987, pp. 

B. D. Bauman, "Scrap The Reuse Through Surface-Modification Technology," paper presented at International Symposium on Research and Depelopment for Improping Solid Waste Management, Cincinnati, Ohio, Eeb. 7, 1991. 

L. Erwin and L. Hall Healy, Jr., Packaging and Solid Waste Management Strategies, The American Management Association, Washington, D.C., 1990. 

P. F. FeimeUy, The Ro/e of Incineration in Chemical Waste Management, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, 1986. 

California environmental law pesticides, chemicals, biotechnology chemicals, pesticides, ha2ardous wastes state international environmental issues chemistry, pesticides, environment environmental poHcy pollution, waste management U.S. environmental regulations... 

I. S. Dermiss md A. P. Jeapes, Fourth International Conference on NuclearFuel Reprocessing and Waste Management, RECOD 94, London, 1994. 

R. W. Asquith, P. I. Hudson, and M. AstiU, International Conference on NuclearFuel Reprocessing and Waste Management RECOD 87, Paris, 1987. 

J. C. Had, Proceedings of the Waste Management andEuel Cycle Symposium, University of Arizona, Tucson, 1978, pp. 371—387. 

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