Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 317-342).

This project was a case study with a Local Authority (Charnwood Borough Council, Leicestershire) to research the options in response to the challenges of managing household waste. This research focused on establishing and analysing methods of improving the sustainability of household waste management operation within a Waste Collection Authority, where the interaction with a variety of external and internal stakeholders meant a holistic approach was needed. Waste management practices and performances in Charnwood were evaluated and benchmarked against national standards and the demography of a semi-rural Borough. Waste management practices nationally were also reviewed. The performance of the LA was quantitatively compared with other UK LAs where higher recycling performances are achieved. Differences were separate food waste collection and treatment; a larger proportion of urban housing and the university with a transient population. Other differences included strategy and operational practices for garden waste, the storage, collection, transportation and treatment of waste. A time series statistical model was modified and applied to investigate long term waste generation trends from the Boroughs official waste data returns to Defra. These were used to assess the success of interventions undertaken. This statistical model was able to differentiate interventions that were able to achieve lasting improvements in either waste minimisation or recycling. The declaration of a Zero Waste Strategy was to capture the public imagination. A series of focus groups and public consultations were held to judge public reaction and develop and refine the strategy. These were used to adapt the Zero Waste idea to suit the local conditions. A major conclusion was that householder involvement would be crucial for successful implementation of the further separation of waste that would be required.

The aim of this work is to analyze the effectiveness of processes and administration in a particular project in the company of engineering sector and to suggest possible measures to help the company become lean. The theoretical part presents the issue of lean management, describes its history and basic elements, corporate culture and also the philosophy of the Toyota Production System. This thesis also describes in detail particular methodological tools, including Kaizen philosophy, furthermore there is mentioned the theory of lean office. The practical part begins with introduction of the company and with the analysis of the current situation of innovation activities in the company. In the next chapter, there is described in detail the project in production shop, waste analysis and overall project analysis is made. The following is a summary of outputs, evaluation of the state and proposal of measures for the future periods.

The construction industry is considered the world over as a major contributor to the high rates of waste generation in developed countries. The negative influence of waste generation on the environment, natural resources, and the profitability of firms puts increasing pressure on the industry to reduce the waste it generates. The pressures to reduce waste are heightened by current trends demanding sustainable management of waste for the purposes of economic, social, and environmental gains. Literature on factors influencing waste management (WM) suggests government legislation is the most critical success factor for ensuring waste is sustainably managed. A review of the literature however indicated that researches holistically investigating the practices of construction firms and the extent to which these practices meet the intended outcomes of government legislation on waste are not present. Thus this research was undertaken to holistically investigate WM practices in the UK construction industry, to identify best practices and the extent to which they meet the intended outcomes of government WM legislation ad policy. The study adopted a multiple case study design to examine WM approaches, strategies and practices at both the corporate and project level within construction companies. Four construction companies who had won awards for their sustainability and environmental performance were purposefully selected to investigate best practice WM. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, passive observations, and documentary analysis. Analysis of the data revealed that the drivers for WM in the construction industry are: economic considerations; company sustainability agenda; company image; client requirements; environmental concerns; government legislation; moral and social demands; industrial benchmarking; environmental concerns; and the requirements of standards. Regarding the influence of legislation, the results revealed that government legislation plays a secondary role in influencing WM as clients are interested in using only compliant firms. Best practices targeting design to reduce waste through standardisation and prefabrication; on-site segregation through multi-skip provision; supply take back schemes; intensified site education; and the use of incentives were identified to lead to improved WM. The results also indicated that company sustainability agenda is the most influential driver for achieving sustainable construction, demolition and excavation (CD&E) WM. The findings highlighted the importance of having a clear vision and structure for WM at the corporate level alongside strategies to be implemented on projects to ensure sustainable WM is achieved. To help construction firms in achieving sustainable WM, which is the ultimate goal of government legislation, a best practice framework has been developed based on the findings from the study and evaluated using semi-structured interviews with selected target participants. The framework presents a coherent and systematic approach for achieving sustainable WM in construction companies by providing a roadmap for instituting measures at both corporate and project levels, taking into account factors that are likely to promote or inhibit the achievement of sustainable WM.

No description available.

E-waste is an emerging issue driven by the rapidly increasing quantities, the hazards involved and the valuable materials in it. Due to a lack of environmentally sound technologies or equipment and the imperfect e-waste management system, the poor quality e-waste recycling and disposal methods commonly practiced in developing countries now have serious and hazardous effects on the environment and the workers'/residents' health. Additionally, industrialized countries are exporting increasing quantities of e-waste to developing countries, complicating the situation finther. The environmental and health issues caused by e-waste in developing countries have resulted in the search for solutions to address this problem before it becomes worse. The main purpose of this research is to find how legislation and regulations be used to improve management of e-waste in developing countries especially studying a case in China on e-waste management, which is a very helpful example to other developing countries which are also facing the same e-waste'issue. A case study methodology was used in this research. To collect data, semi-structured interviews with officers or experts from key relevant government departments/institutions involved in e-waste management/regulation, from electronic appliance producers, from customers at different levels of the value chain, as well as direct and non-participant observations were carried out in six cities of China. For another perspective, the review of relevant departmental documents/publications was also carried out to multiply the source of data. In this case study the analysis relies largely on qualitative data and interpretive methods, applied to what was found in interviews/observations and what is written down in documents/ literatures. The research found that lack of systernatic and enforceable law and regulations has become the most serious obstacle in the e-waste management system and limited the effective control of e-waste in developing countries. Developing subsidiary regulations and standards could support the enforcement of the main national law and regulations on e-waste management and it could farther urge the development of local regulations to improve the enforceýbility of the national law and regulations. Identifying the principal administrative department and coordinating the cooperation of various departments could avoid the duplication of administrative functions among government departments. It is important to construct monitoring systems to supervise the enforcement of the regulations and construct the standards and registration system to qualify the e-waste recycling and disposal enterprises, the secondhand market of electronic products and the regenerative resources market of reusable materials in ewaste. The economic differences made it possible to formulate special regulations for economically backward areas compared to the, more advanced areas even within one country. Improving the existing e-waste recovery system and regulating the payment system according to the local economic conditions for e-waste recycling and disposal could improve the integrated management of e-waste. Producers as well as government and even consumers should be responsible for e-waste together. The government needs to continuously strengthen regulatory systems to ensure that the huge economic benefits from the e-waste recycling industry are not overshadowed by the negative impact on the workers'/residents' welfare and overall environmental sustainability,

This study analyses legal regime of hazardous waste management. Study analyses international legal regime and describes the most important conventions and agreements and also introduces relevant international organizations. Next part of study is about European legal regime of hazardous waste, on which is based Czech regulation. Final parts deal with Czech regulation. There si briefly introduced Act no. 185/2001 and short history view. Last part deals with every method of hazardous waste management and also analyses waste hierarchy.

Cette thèse s’inscrit dans le cadre des études sur le stockage des déchets radioactifs HA/MAVL en couches géologiques profondes. L’objectif est de tester la capacité des codes couplés chimie-transport à prendre en compte l’impact des variations de porosité sur le transport des solutés, et ce, en concevant des expériences de diffusion colmatage/dissolution les plus simples possibles, pour limiter au maximum le nombre de degrés de liberté du système.Pour ce faire, des montages expérimentaux de type « diffusion traversante » ont été adaptés pour l’étude de différents milieux poreux de complexité croissante : du sable compacté, des frittés de verre, de la craie, du grès jusqu’aux matériaux proches de ceux envisagés dans le cadre d’un stockage, les argilites de Tournemire. En même temps qu’une expérience de diffusion de traceur inerte, des réactions de précipitation (oxalate de calcium, gypse ou barytine) ou de dissolution (attaque acide de la craie) ont été réalisées, de manière à évaluer leur influence sur le flux diffusif de ces traceurs. En fin d’expérience, les milieux poreux et les précipités ont été caractérisés par MEB-EDS. Enfin, ce large jeu de données a permis de tester un des codes de chimie-transport utilisé dans cette thèse, le code Crunch. Les résultats obtenus à partir des premières expériences de diffusion/colmatage réalisées au travers des sables et des frittés de verre tendent à démontrer que le premier montage expérimental utilisé n’était pas adapté à ces milieux poreux très perméables. Les courbes de flux sont en effet très bruitées, et les observations des solides au MEB ne révèlent pas l’existence d’un front de précipité, comme attendu, mais seulement de nouvelles phases éparpillées au sein des milieux poreux. Ceci est à mettre en lien avec de possibles écoulements parasites de solution lors des prélèvements.En revanche, les expériences réalisées au travers de la craie, qui est plus imperméable, n’ont pas été entachées par ces artefacts. Dans ce cas, il a été clairement observé au MEB un front de précipitation au sein de la craie, dont l’effet sur les flux diffusifs de traceurs de l’eau (HTO ou HDO), est plus ou moins important suivant le type de précipité. Ainsi, d’un côté, la cellule avec précipitation de barytine est impactée dès le départ par le colmatage, avec une baisse continue du flux de HDO, qui peut être jusqu’à 40 fois plus faible que le flux mesuré dans le milieu poreux sain. En revanche, la cellule avec précipitation de gypse est impactée beaucoup plus tardivement par le colmatage (70 jours après le lancement de l’expérience), et de manière moins marquée, avec des valeurs de flux baissant d’un facteur 3 par rapport à celles mesurées dans le milieu sain. Tout ceci tend à suggérer que l’efficacité du colmatage est plus liée à la nature du minéral qu’à la quantité précipitée, la barytine étant probablement plus dense et moins poreuse que le gypse. En plus, après plus de deux mois d’expérience, le flux de HTO de la cellule contenant l’échantillon d’argilite de Tournemire ne montre aucun impact en lien avec l’éventuelle précipitation de gypse, ce qui est cohérent avec les très faibles coefficients de diffusion mesurés dans cette roche. En outre, pour les frittes de verre, on a vu un léger effet de la précipitation de la barytine sur la diffusion. En ce qui concerne la simulation, les premiers essais réalisés avec Crunch n’ont pas permis de reproduire les résultats expérimentaux, particulièrement ceux issus de l’expérience de diffusion/précipitation de barytine. Ceci peut s’expliquer par la façon dont sont prises en compte les lois cinétiques dans le code, mais plus probablement par la formulation de facto trop empirique de la loi d’Archie, utilisée pour relier l’évolution du coefficient de diffusion à celle de la porosité / This phD is in the frame of nuclear waste storage . The purpose is to test the ability of coupled chemical transport code to study the impact of porosity changes on solute transport, by designing clogging/dissolution experiments .To do this, experimental setups "through-diffusion" have been adapted to study the various porous media with increasing complexity: the compacted sand, glass frit , the chalk, sandstone close up to the materials used in the context of a storage, argillites Tournemire. Together with an inert tracer, diffusion experiment, precipitation reactions (calcium oxalate, gypsum or barite) or dissolution (acid attack chalk) were performed to assess their influence on the diffusive flux of these tracers. At the end of experience, the porous media and precipitates were characterized by MEB-EDS. Finally, this large data set was used to test one of the coupled chemical transport codes used in this phD, the Crunch code. The results from the first diffusion / clogging experiments performed through sand and glass frits show that the first experimental setup was not suited to such highly permeable porous media. The flux Curves are very noisy, and SEM observations do not reveal the existence of a precipitate front, as expected, but only new scattered phases in porous media. This is due to possible parasitic flow solution during sampling. In contrast, experiments through the chalk, have not been touched by these artifacts. In this case, it was clearly observed by SEM a precipitated front within the chalk, the effect on diffusive flux of water tracers (HTO and HDO) is more or less important depending on the type of precipitate. Thus, on the one hand, the cell with barite precipitation is impacted from the start by clogging , with a continued decrease of the HDO flux , which can be up to 40 times lower than the flux measured in the porous media without clogging. However, the cell with gypsum precipitation is affected much later by the clogging (70 days after the start of the experiment), and less markely, with flux values lowering a factor of 3 compared to those measured in healthy environment. All this tends to suggest that the efficiency of the clogging is more related to the nature of mineral than the precipitated amount, barite is probably denser and less porous than gypsum. In addition, after more than two months of experience, the HTO flux of the cell containing the Argilite Tournemire sample shows no impact related to the possible gypsum precipitation, which is consistent with the very low diffusion coefficients measured in this rock. In addition, for glass frits, there has been a slight effect of the barite precipitation on the flux. With regard to the simulation, the tests carried out with Crunch did not permit to reproduce the experimental results, particularly those from the diffusion / precipitation barite experiment. This can be explained by the way are considered kinetic laws in the code, but more probably to empirical formulation of the Archie law, used to link the evolution of diffusion coefficient with the porosity .

Due to the limited studies related to healthcare services future expanding demand, required resources and utilities, and related environmental and economic challenges; this research is carried out to complement other researchers in other economic sectors to identify the gaps, highlight good potentials of sustainability achievements and recommend necessary actions. This research investigates the future expanding demand of healthcare services; the environmental and economic challenges related to this expand and its environmental and economic impacts and the opportunities to overcome these impacts in order to improve healthcare services sustainability and performance. The research follows a SLR to discover earlier works related to environmental sustainability in buildings and healthcare facilities. The environmental challenges related to expanding in healthcare facilities found in the literature are increase in energy consumption and waste generation. The environmental impacts related to these challenges are excessive CO2 and GHG emissions. The economic impacts are escalations of project expenditures, operating expenditures and utilities expenditures. The research uses SD Analysis, as a methodological approach, to framework and understands different healthcare system elements and to develop models that are representing the dynamic relations between these elements. Bahrain healthcare system is selected as a research context due to the availability of good quality healthcare secondary data, the small size of the country that makes it a good model to implement and test new concepts, the limited country resources, and the country keenness to implement sustainability plans to meet sustainability objectives. This research numerically tests and subsequently, supports the implication of stated environmental and economic challenges. It also develops a number of important technical parameters and indicators such as energy and water benchmarks for different healthcare facilities. The research also determines another two sources of environmental challenges related to expanding in healthcare facilities. The first challenge is excessive water consumption. Availability of enough treated water for healthcare applications, especially in countries with limited fresh water resources and depending on 90% of its water need on desalination like Bahrain, a tangible environmental challenge needs to be addressed. The second one is a group of environmental challenges related to the practicing of healthcare services that can expose personnel and environment to high risks. These challenges need to be efficiently managed to improve the environmental sustainability and the social sustainability of healthcare facilities. The research also investigates the effectiveness of a number of mitigation measures used to overcome the environmental and economic negative impacts, such as using energy efficiency technologies, renewable-based energy resources and waste energy recovery. In this regard, the research numerically tests and subsequently supports the implication of stated environmental and economic impacts and the effectiveness of tested measures in mitigating the undesirable results on healthcare facilities. The developed SD Model, as one of the main contributions of this research, is considered as a strategic planning and decision-making administrative tools to forecast future healthcare facilities demand and required resources. It is also considered as a risk assessment tool to assess environmental challenges related to utilities and its environmental and economic impacts in order to improve healthcare facilities sustainability and performance. The potential of utilities saving and utilities expenditures saving in healthcare buildings are high and it is recommended to work toward energy efficiency and renewable energy deployment to achieve sustainable healthcare buildings. Recovery of energy from Medical Waste incineration to be kept under consideration as it is offsetting double the quantity of CO2e emissions resulting from the incineration process. Safe recycling of wastewater of some healthcare processes is highly recommended as it can reduce water consumption and contributes to the reduction of healthcare facilities CO2e emissions. Sources of gray water and gray water applications must be carefully selected to avoid any contradiction with Infection Control regulations or other healthcare regulations. It is recommended to conduct utilities assessment studies on wide sample of healthcare facilities to avoid low peaks and odd operation periods.

In this study, hazardous waste inventory for Turkey is developed based on wastes identified as hazardous in European Waste Catalogue and Regulation on Control of Hazardous Wastes, Annex 7 Necessity of such inventory arises from importance of acquiring information on the amount of hazardous wastes generated and on their countrywide distribution for a sound hazardous waste management system for Turkey. Hazardous waste inventory is constructed by using waste generation factors obtained from literature which are coefficients that relate production with environmental emissions. Whenever possible, direct information obtained from generators was utilized. Both absolute and minor entries are covered. It is estimated that 4,940,000 &ndash / 5,110,000 t/yr of hazardous wastes are being generated in Turkey. 1,790,000 &ndash / 2,252,000 t/yr of these are classified as absolute entries and 3,146,000 &ndash / 3,160,000 t/yr of hazardous wastes are minor entries. It is observed that highest generation occurs from mining and thermal processes which involve high amounts of minor entries. Beside these industries highest generation occurs from wood preservation. Per capita hazardous waste generation is estimated as 30 &ndash / 77 kg/capita/yr which is in accordance with per capita generation range of EU. Highest hazardous waste generation occurs from Marmara Region with 527,730 t/yr followed by Aegean (524,580 t/yr), Central Anatolia (481,820 t/yr), Black Sea Region (277,850 t/yr), Mediterranean (211,580 t/yr), Southeast Anatolia (58,290 t/yr) and Eastern Anatolia (36,520 t/yr) excluding minor entries from mining industry and thermal processes. The trends in hazardous waste generation and GDP from manufacturing industry show the same trend. Contribution of regions are in the same order both in hazardous waste generation and GDP.