Waste Management Techniques For Improved Environmental And Public Health

A central concern that has remained relevant in recent years has been the management of waste and pollution. Improper disposal methods such as open-air burning and unsafe recycling have led to significant public and environmental health issues including respiratory disorders, resource depletion, and infant mortality. Adopting new waste management techniques is a necessity in order to preserve the health of the global community and ecosystem. Waste Management Techniques for Improved Environmental and Public Health: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides innovative insights into the advancing methods and technologies of reducing pollution and promoting sustainable development. The content within this publication examines ecological technologies, risk assessment, and green operation. It is designed for ecologists, biologists, researchers, enterprises, academicians, policymakers, scientists, environmental engineers, and students seeking current research on developing theories and techniques within waste moderation and environmental protection.

A central concern that has remained relevant in recent years has been the management of waste and pollution. Improper disposal methods such as open-air burning and unsafe recycling have led to significant public and environmental health issues including respiratory disorders, resource depletion, and infant mortality. Adopting new waste management techniques is a necessity in order to preserve the health of the global community and ecosystem. Waste Management Techniques for Improved Environmental and Public Health: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides innovative insights into the advancing methods and technologies of reducing pollution and promoting sustainable development. The content within this publication examines ecological technologies, risk assessment, and green operation. It is designed for ecologists, biologists, researchers, enterprises, academicians, policymakers, scientists, environmental engineers, and students seeking current research on developing theories and techniques within waste moderation and environmental protection.

Sustainability is a growing area of research in ecology, economics, environmental science, business, and cultural studies. Specifically, sustainable waste disposal and management is a growing concern as both solid and liquid wastes are rapidly expanding in direct correlation with population growth and improved economic conditions across regions. The Handbook of Research on Waste Management Techniques for Sustainability explores the topic of sustainable development in an era where domestic and municipal waste is becoming a concern for both human and environmental health. Highlighting a number of topics relating to pollution, green initiatives, and waste reduction in both the public and private sector, this research-based publication is designed for use by environmental scientists, business executives, researchers, graduate-level students, and policymakers seeking the latest information on sustainability in business, medicine, agriculture, and society.

Waste Management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste. Society is increasingly aware of the need to establish better practices and safer solutions for waste disposal. This requires further investigation into disposal methods and recycling as well as new technologies to monitor landfills, industrial mining wastes and chemical and nuclear repositories. This creates a need for more research on current disposal methods such as landfills, incineration, chemical and effluent treatment, as well as recycling, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness and general education. Unfortunately, many of the policies adopted in the past were aimed at short term solutions without due regard to the long term implications on health and the environment, leading in many cases to the need to take difficult and expensive remedial action. The desired direction of Waste Management is towards sustainable strategies. The approach which has emerged as the most promising has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery are seen as the best actions. This largely decreases the volume of waste that needs final disposal. Recovery refers to the establishment of two new classifications, those of Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) and of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). They both relate to useful products obtained from waste and make a shift from the mere recycle or reuse – mostly seen as a way to reduce dumping – to the valuable employment of such matter within the production cycle. Another aspect of this revolution is happening subtly and gradually by people buying waste; particularly eWaste and some types of plastic, the so-called technical waste. This is happening due to the strong demand and high price of certain new materials and the possibility of sorting out waste in developing regions of the world. As a result, a market in Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) has developed. Covering various areas under the topic of Waste management, this volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment.

Incineration has been used widely for waste disposal, including household, hazardous, and medical wasteâ€"but there is increasing public concern over the benefits of combusting the waste versus the health risk from pollutants emitted during combustion. Waste Incineration and Public Health informs the emerging debate with the most up-to-date information available on incineration, pollution, and human healthâ€"along with expert conclusions and recommendations for further research and improvement of such areas as risk communication. The committee provides details on: Processes involved in incineration and how contaminants are released. Environmental dynamics of contaminants and routes of human exposure. Tools and approaches for assessing possible human health effects. Scientific concerns pertinent to future regulatory actions. The book also examines some of the social, psychological, and economic factors that affect the communities where incineration takes place and addresses the problem of uncertainty and variation in predicting the health effects of incineration processes.

The proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment follows on from the success of previous meetings held in Cadiz (2002), Rhodes (2004), Malta (2006), Granada (2008), Tallin (2010) and the New Forest (2012). There is growing awareness of the detrimental effects of current waste disposal and a movement towards greater accountability for effective waste management. Better practices and safer solutions are required. This creates a need for more research on current disposal methods such as landfills, incineration, chemical and effluent treatment as well as recycling, waste incineration, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness, and general education. Waste Management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste. Unfortunately many of the policies adopted in the past were aimed at short term solutions without due regard to the long term implications on health and the environment, leading in many cases to the need to take difficult and expensive remedial action. The desired direction of waste management is towards sustainable strategies. The approach which has emerged as the most sustainable strategy has been called 3Rs, where reduction, reuse and recycling, in this order, are seen as the best actions. Recently recovery is added as the fourth action (4Rs) applied in order to; for example, recover energy from waste that cannot be classified under the 3Rs. This largely decreases the volume of the waste that needs final disposal. Further steps are required towards improvement of current technologies, increased collaboration between the public, government and private sectors and increased involvement of all stakeholders. Topics covered include: Environmental impact; Reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery (4Rs); Cost and benefits of management options; Waste incineration and gasification; Energy from waste; Industrial waste management; Nuclear and hazardous waste; Agricultural waste; Wastewater; eWaste; Landfill optimization and mining; Remote sensing; Thermal treatment; Emergent pollutants; Environmental remediation; Legislation; Behavioural issues.

Health care waste is poorly managed at many health care facilities worldwide, creating the potential for a preventable infection risk. This publication considers how effective health care waste management policies can be implemented with relatively modest levels of effort and investment, as a component of new health care investment and promotion programmes.