Waste Management and the Environment

Waste Management and the Environment VIII contains papers present at the 8th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment, organised every two years by the Wessex Institute. The contents were contributed by professionals, researchers, government departments and local authorities and cover the current situation of waste management. 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. There is a 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 waste disposal sites, 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 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 development of sustainable strategies is the preferred trend for Waste Management. The approach which has emerged as the most promising has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery (including the sale of waste as Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) and of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF)) are seen as the best actions. This largely decreases the volume of waste that needs final disposal. Contents cover such topics as: Environmental impact; Reduce, reuse, recycle and recovery (4Rs); Waste incineration and gasification; Energy from waste; Industrial waste management; Hazardous waste; Agricultural waste; Wastewater; eWaste; Landfill optimisation and mining; Remote sensing; Thermal treatment; Emergent pollutants; Environmental remediation; Direct and indirect pre-treatment of MSW; Disposal of high-level radioactive waste; Legislation; Behavioural issues.