Management of Healthcare Waste from the Circular Economy Point of View [in Greek]
Διαχείριση Αποβλήτων Υγειονομικών Μονάδων από την Σκοπιά της Κυκλικής Οικονομίας [στα Ελληνικά]
Prof. E. Voudrias
Democritus University of Thrace (GR)
Health services represent one of the largest industries in the world. For example, health sector in the EU generates 10% of gross domestic product, 15% of public spending, 8% of the workforce and has a high potential for growth. Of course, the first priority of health services is the provision of high quality medical care. However, the implementation of waste minimization and recycling programs can save both environmental and economic resources. Case studies to understand that the implementation of the circular economy model in a health unit is both profitable and environmentally friendly will be presented.
Hazardous Waste Management in Greece [in Greek]
Διαχείριση Επικίνδυνων Αποβλήτων στην Ελλάδα [στα Ελληνικά]
Dr. P. Merkos / Prof. E. Gidarakos
Chem. Engineer, Env. Inspector of the Hellenic Ministry of Environment and Energy / Technical University of Crete (GR)
During this workshop, the following will be discussed:
Environmental odour is a major concern of residents in the vicinity of odour sources. This workshop will treat the entire chain from the odour source, the dilution in the atmosphere, detection technology of various VOC compounds up to the risk assessment as well as abatement strategies.
The workshop will include the characterization of the odour source by emission factors and emission models, the use of dispersion models to describe the transport and dilution in the atmosphere, the evaluation of odour impact criteria, human risk assessment of hazardous VOCs. The scope of the workshop is to include odorous substances related to the industry (e.g. rendering plants, refineries), municipal plants (e.g. waste treatment plants, solid waste landfills), and animal husbandry.
The goal of the workshop is the exchange ideas and to achieve a better understanding of the specific aspects relevant to environmental odour.
Today, consumers attention toward ACW management increased. More and more legislation had, and will have, to take into account the need to introduce new rules and actions addressed to realize a full control of all the different stages related to CRETE2018 – Workshop on HSI applied to ACW management. The development of accurate, fast, robust, reliable and objective quality inspection systems to apply with reference to every step of the entire ACW management chain, from the primary collection and handling to the final recovered products, is thus one of the challenges of the next years. To accept and win it, it is necessary the availability of analytical tools simple to apply, robust in detection performance and characterized by low costs. These aspects are linked to the need to perform a large number of analyses from the collection and storage stage to the industrial recycling/recovery stage. Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) can represent the right answer to fulfil all the previous mentioned goals. Such an approach, when successful, is quite challenging being usually reliable, robust and characterized by lower costs, if compared with those usually associated to commonly applied analytical off-line and/or on-line analytical approaches. More and more applications have been thus developed and tested, in these last years, in solid waste sector inspection, with a large range of investigated products, such as end-of-life polymer products, micro-plastics, construction and demolition waste, WEEE, PCB, cullet of different origins and characteristics, organic waste, etc. .
The course outline will include:
Part 1: hyperspectral imaging and chemiometrics fundamentals.
Part 2: architectures logics, units and devices to utilize to systematically apply HI based techniques for hazardous waste characterization, monitoring and control during the different recycling/processing stages (i.e. materials fed to the plant, processing control and final recovered products quality assessment).
Part 3: Examples of some application, based on HSI, originally developed by the authors, and/or also taken from the literature, are presented, compared, critically analyzed and discussed, with reference to the different hardware configuration and logics utilized to perform the analysis, according to the characterization, inspection and quality control actions to apply on the different ACW products in the different stages of their manipulation, handling and processing.
Target audience includes scientist, managers, technicians and engineers, active in the solid waste sector, who want to understand the potentialities offered by hyperspectral imaging (HSI) in real problems solving at laboratory (i.e. “off-line”) or industrial (i.e. “on-line” and/or “in-line”) scale. All those who are planning, or that should like, to introduce HSI based procedures inside an existing process.
Plastic (a non-renewable resource) recycling must globally increase. Flame retardancy is necessary in plastics for fire protection especially in printed circuit board, casing, cables and screens of electronical and electric equipment, in upholstering foam of cars and furniture, in isolating foam of buildings, in technical textiles, among others. Brominated flame retardants are used in some parts with concentrations between 5 and 15%, frequently with a synergist, antimony trioxide.
The gradual global classification of substances as persistent organic pollutant (POP) with concentration limits (0.1%) or mandatory destruction (in 2017: decabromodiphenylether), and in the EU the definition of the hazard property HP 14 ‘Ecotoxic’ with a concentration limit of 0.25% (2017 EU decision in force in June 2018) for these substances radically change the management of these plastics.
The presence of these legacy substances (substances not classified POP or hazardous at the time they were incorporated in products) creates challenges for the management of these bulk plastics (light fraction of automotive shredded residue – ASR, brominated polystyrene from buildings) or for the fraction sorted on line for bromine (plastics of some WEEE: small household appliances, screens, …):
The research on recovery technologies (polymer, purified fuel, bromine, antimony – a critical raw material) is active. The session will cover some aspects of the characterisation, the classification, the sorting, the promising technologies and the environmental impacts of this legacy.
Healthcare waste (HCW) includes the total waste stream from a healthcare facility. Healthcare facilities range from doctor’s office, medical practice, urgent care to hospitals and medical laboratory and research. For this reason HCW contains a wide range of waste similar to house-hold/domestic waste (paper, plastic packaging, food preparation, etc.) as well as hazardous waste. The hazardous HCW may be due to one or more of the following characteristics:
The workshop specialized HCW in hospitals to better understand the characteristics of HCW management and gives an overview of:
Perhaps the most common and useful material since the beginning of the 20th century, plastics, has made modern life unthinkable without it. Mankind has developed a “disposable” lifestyle and estimates are that around 50% of plastic is used just once and thrown away. Because of their durability, low-recycling rates, poor waste management and maritime use, a significant portion of the plastics produced worldwide enters and persists in marine ecosystems, through a variety of pathways, including rivers. It has been estimated that between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes of plastics enter the ocean every year from coastal populations worldwide.
During the workshop, the real full dimensions of this global problem will be presented, its consequences will be explored, available solutions will be searched for, among which education and its dynamics.
The European Directive on waste (2008/98/EC) sets definitions and issues the basic concept for development of sustainable (municipal) waste management in the EU. Municipal waste management performance depends primarily on three treatment categories: recycling & composting, incineration and landfilling. The proposed Circular Economy Package should stimulate Europe’s transition towards more sustainable resources and energy oriented waste management. The Package also includes a revised legislative proposal on waste that sets ambitious recycling rates for municipal waste for 2025 (60%) and 2030 (65%). In this lesson, the dynamic visualisation of European (EU 28) municipal waste management performance, using the Ternary Diagram Method – RIL “Recycling, Incineration and Landfilling” –, will be presented. Such, three types of visualization for the municipal waste management performance have been investigated and are extensively described.
In general, municipal waste management is based on separate collection of valuable fractions and treatment of mixed municipal waste in incineration facilities as well as MBT plants. Separation of valuable fractions like plastics and metals from mixed waste for recycling processes as well as unwanted materials like PVC plastics by using modern sensor based contactless technology becomes very attractive and is increasingly applied in the practice. Recovery of (thermal) energy from mixed municipal solid waste usually is accomplished by mono-incineration plants or in co-incineration units. Three types of Solid Recovered Fuels (i.e. “SRF LOW Quality”, “SRF MEDIUM Quality” and “SRF PREMIUM Quality”) that are used in energy recovery plants are manufactured in Austria from mixed municipal solid waste. In the New Competence Centre for Excellent Technologies – K-Project “ReWaste4.0” Industry 4.0 approaches in waste management are investigated. Finally, all mentioned issues will be presented and discussed in the special course.
Industrial and hazardous wastes (IHW) pose a greater risk to the environment and human health than non-hazardous wastes and thus require a stricter control regime. Specifications are included in the European legislation, particularly in the Waste Framework Directive (WFD). Beside multiple options for waste recycling the major disposal pathways for IHW exist with incineration and disposal. The latter is not limited to direct disposal, but also constitutes a necessary amendment to the thermal treatment since highly toxic residues still have to be disposed of after incineration.
Contaminated sites are either the consequence of inappropriate waste handling and disposal or result from accidental events associated with IHWs. In order to allow for a future usage of these sites and to minimize the risk for the environment and human beings securing and eventually decontamination measures have to be applied.
In addition, many landfills have been filled during the last century and closed after they have reached their final capacity. This regards sites for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), but also landfills which have been filled with industrial and hazardous waste (or mixtures of both). Today, a significant share of these closed landfills still emit landfill gas (LFG) and polluted leachate, caused by long term anaerobic biodegradation processes or leaching of contaminants caused by a lack of sufficient protection barriers. In consequence, a number of hazardous waste landfills had to be remediated in the past whereat remediation measures often continue at present. In some exceptional cases these sites are nowadays subject to landfill mining activities, aiming at a complete removal of the waste and its hazardous potential.
Some waste disposal sites can be remediated by the application of biological in-situ measures aiming at an accelerated and sustainable reduction of the remaining emission potential. The overall intention behind these activities is the reduction in landfill aftercare, both in terms of finances and efforts.
For others sites, which cannot be remediated by means of biological processes, securing measures may have to be applied. These measures range from the concept of encapsulation to a long lasting active treatment of soil and water which are contaminated by the emissions.
The training course will address multiple issues related to the treatment and safe disposal of IHW, landfill remediation and securing as well as options for the securing of further contaminated sites (technical measures for emission control and reduction, legal obligations, and methodologies for biological landfill stabilization).
Landfill mining serves four main purposes:
The discussion of the feasibility of LFM and in search for optimum utilization of resources continues in a conceptual phase by modeling various resource-economy scenarios.
Formerly created models tackle economic and technical feasibilities, but lack the holistic association between processes in landfill over time and feasibility of mining in economic and technical perspective. Therefore this study presents an attempt to design a universal model for assessment of landfill management activities, including:
The model contributes to better understanding of landfill mining processes and preparation of excavated materials for recycling and energy recovery. It is focused mainly on:
Model validation shows a strong correlation between determined by model and practical investigation results. For a complex view of landfill mining not only waste decay plays an important role, but also overall cycle of landfill closure, including its aftercare use for energy generation, that’s why evaluation of different energy recovery scenarios during landfill closure cycle is also relevant.