This book provides a basic understanding of waste management problems and issues faced by modern society. Scientific, technical, and environmental principles are emphasized to illustrate the processes of municipal and industrial solid wastes and liquid wastes, and the nature of impacts resulting from waste dispersal and disposal in the environment. Economic, social, legal, and political aspects of waste management are also addressed. Environmental issues and concerns receive thorough coverage in discussing waste reduction, resource recovery, and efficient and practical waste disposal systems. Other specific topics include recycling, physical and chemical processing, the biological treatment of waste solids, incineration, pyrolysis, and energy recover, hazardous wastes, and landfill management.The role of government and other institutions in waste management and resource recovery matters is also detailed. Discussion questions, worked examples, and end-of-chapter problems reinforce important concepts. Waste Management and Resource Recovery is particularly suitable as a text in waste management courses in environmental science or engineering programs. It also works well as a reference for practitioners in the waste management field.

Current development results in a linear flow from raw material to waste, which cannot be sustainable in the long term. Plus, a global population of 7 billion people means that there are 7 billion waste producers in the world. At present, dumping and landfilling are the primary practices for getting rid of municipal solid waste (MSW). However, this waste contains resources that we’ve yet to utilize. To create sustainable societies, we need to approach zero waste by recovering these resources. There are cities and countries where zero waste is close to becoming a reality. Landfilling of organic waste is forbidden in Europe, and countries such as Sweden, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland have developed a variety of technologies to recover resources from MSW. Resource Recovery to Approach Zero Municipal Waste explores the solid waste management laws and regulations of different countries, comparing the latest resource recovery technologies and offering future perspectives. The book tackles the many technical, social, ecological, economical, and managerial aspects of this complex subject while promoting the development of sustainable societies to achieve a greener global environment.

Solid waste is one of the newest fields to achieve recognition as a sub-discipline in environmental engineering. As such, one is hard-pressed to find thorough coverage of related topics in academic curricula. Many graduate programs in environmental engineering have one introductory course in waste control. A handful of texts, some excellent, exist to serve this need. Recent purported crises in solid waste management have forced the understanding that something beyond the traditional control methods may be appropriate. Resource recovery is the correct nomenclature for the longest standing alternative approach seeking to extract materials from the waste stream for eventual re-use in one or another beneficial fashion. Several books have evolved, covering various approaches. Design approaches therein have borrowed heavily from other disciplines, ceasing where solid waste differs from the feeds to be processed. These books were oriented towards knowledgeable practitioners. This work attempts to present waste processing as a study in unit operations appropriate to university study at the graduate level. The study of unit operations is typical in environmental engineering. These unit operations are different. A variety of student backgrounds are suitable. However, a familiarity with the basics of waste control, such as would be gained from one of the introductory courses mentioned above, is assumed, as is a sound quantitative background. It is hoped that this work fills an empty niche. Contents 1 Waste as a Resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 1 . . . . .

Uncontrolled spreading of waste materials leads to health problems and environmental damage. To prevent these problems a waste management infrastructure has been set to collect and dispose of the waste, based on a hierarchy of three principles: waste prevention, recycling/reuse, and final disposal. Final disposal is the least desirable as it causes massive emissions, to the atmosphere, water bodies and the subsoil. The emission of methane to the atmosphere is an important source of greenhouse gasses. Organic waste therefore gets a lot of attention in waste management, which for Europe can be illustrated by the issue of the Landfill Directive (99/31/EC) and the Sewage Sludge Directive (86/278/EEC). Proper treatment of organic waste may however turn this burden into an asset. In particular, biological treatment may help in developing more effective resource management and sustainable development. The following advantages may be listed: The greenhouse effect is tackled as methane emissions from landfilling are prevented Soil quality can be restored or enhanced by the use of compost in agriculture Compost may replace peat in horticulture and home gardening, reducing greenhouse emissions and wetland exploitation Anaerobic digestion has the additional benefit of producing biogas that may be used as a fuel Pesticide use can be reduced by proper use of the disease suppressive properties of compost Resource Recovery and Reuse in Organic Solid Waste Management disseminates at advanced scientific level the potential of environmental biotechnology for the recovery and reuse of products from solid waste. Several options to recover energy out of organic solid waste from domestic, agricultural and industrial origin are presented and discussed and existing economically feasible treatment systems that produce energy out of solid waste and recover useful by-products in the form of fertiliser or soil conditioner are demonstrated. The potential of environmental biotechnology is highlighted from different perspectives: societal, technological and practical.