Increasing amounts of incineration residues need to be disposed, reused or treated, which calls for reliable characterisation methods. Leaching tests are often used for an assessment of release of pollutants from wastes under a variety of leaching factors. Nevertheless, the prediction of the contaminants release in field is difficult due to the complexity of the processes occurring in field. This work aims at evaluating limitations and possibilities of making long- term leaching predictions for incineration residues using diffusion leaching tests. Also the effect of carbonation on the leaching of elements was evaluated. Leaching predictions for Cl and Pb based on diffusion test data were compared with leachate data from MSWI bottom ash reused in road construction as well as leachate data obtained using a two-step compliance test. For the first years, leaching of Cl from bottom ash in field could be predicted with an accuracy within one order of magnitude. This could be considered as a good fit. Good agreement was also found between leaching predictions based on the diffusion test and the compliance test for Pb. However, predictions based on a diffusion tests might be misleading for longer time periods as the stock of contaminants depletes. Longer time series of field data are needed for comparison. Field conditions such as wet/dry and freezing/thawing cycles were not considered in this work, but might affect the mobility of contaminants. The impact of such field factors deserves a thorough examination in future research. Carbonation was found to significantly affect leaching of some elements from MSWI bottom ash. Leaching of Pb and Zn was increased due to carbonation, while leaching of Cr, Mo, and Sb decreased. Leaching of Cu was increased by carbonation alone, but it was also observed that leaching could be decreased if carbonation is combined with water-solidification. With such effect on leaching it is necessary to take carbonation into account when leaching predictions are made. / Godkänd; 2004; 20070127 (ysko)

Municipal solid waste incineration fly ash is often landfilled or sent abroad for stabilization because it is considered a hazardous waste. These approaches to fly ash are both costly, and highlight the need for alternative and sustainable ash recycling. Both the needs of waste recycling and preservation of natural resources can be solved by using fly ashes as a secondary construction material and as soil fertilizer.Three types of fly ashes have been investigated in the laboratory experiments. Namely municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI), refuse-derived-fuel (RDF) and biofuel fly ashes. Factors influencing changes in chemical properties and mineralogical composition of RDF fly ash exposed to environmental conditions close to those that are found in a landfill top cover were evaluated in the accelerated ageing experiment. Element availability to leaching and plant uptake in soil amended with MSWI, biofuel fly ashes and biosolids was also evaluated.RDF fly ash exposed to the conditions found in a landfill top cover (20% CO2, 65% RH, 30°C T) lead to the chemical and mineralogical transformations that resulted in reduced leaching of most of the elements studied here. Only concentrations of Cl- in the leachates were an issue, because they still exceeded the leaching limit values; nevertheless the leaching of this element in aged ash decreased by 50% compared to fresh ash.Application of pelletized MSWI fly ash with biosolids on soil resulted in elevated total concentrations of As, Cd and Pb in soil (by 29%, 100% and 300%), but dissolved concentrations of these elements in soil pore water, except the As, were low as in the range of drinking water concentrations (98/83/EC). Furthermore, the concentrations of Cd and Pb in plant biomass were negligible regardless of the type of ash used.Based on the observations, RDF fly ash is considered as a suitable material to be used in a landfill liner. Whereas MSWI and biofuel fly ashes based on element availability for plants studies, could be considered suitable for land applications. But doses to be applied on soil should be adjusted to the type of ashes used to avoid accumulation of potentially toxic elements in soil over time. / Godkänd; 2013; 20130827 (evebra); Tillkännagivande disputation 2013-10-04 Nedanstående person kommer att disputera för avläggande av teknologie doktorsexamen. Namn: Evelina Brännvall Ämne: Avfallsteknik/Waste Science and Technology Avhandling: Suitability of Fly Ash for Construction and Land Applications Opponent: Associate Professor Alessandra Polettini, University of Rome ”La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy Ordförande: Professor Anders Lagerkvist, Institutionen för samhällsbyggnad och naturresurser, Luleå tekniska universitet Tid: Fredag den 25 oktober 2013, kl 10.00 Plats: F1031, Luleå tekniska universitet

Anthropogenic induced nutrients in the Baltic Sea have led to 97% of it being eutrophic. Phosphorus is regarded the main regulating nutrient, and nearly 25% of the nutrients coming to the Baltic Sea originate from wastewater treatment plants. To reduce the nutrient concentrations in the effluents from treatment plants, tertiary treatment methods based on chemical dosing have been the principal answer. The chemicals create a sludge in addition to remediating the water, which needs disposal. Methods for remediating secondary wastewater with microalgae exist but are not common in conventional wastewater treatment. However, using microalgae could be beneficial, since they use inorganic carbon (from the atmosphere and wastewater) and inorganic nutrients, while producing biomass and oxygen. The biomass in turn has a potential to be used in production of bioenergy, food, and fertilizers.  This thesis investigated whether pre-phosphorus starvation of five different microalgae strains enhanced the removal rate of phosphorus from secondary wastewater. The aim was to determine the optimal starvation period of different algae strains and to achieve wastewater effluent concentrations below 0.1 mg/L at the shortest possible time. Algae were transferred to a phosphorus-free media for five, three, one and zero days before entering the wastewater in a batch reactor at a temperature of 27°C and a 16:8 hours light and dark regime. Phosphate and nitrate concentrations as well as biomass production were monitored during a period of ten days. The experiment was repeated three times using Chlorella Vulgaris and two times using Tetradesmus Obliquus, Ankistrodesmus Falcatus, Botryococcus Braunii and one time using Desmodesmus Communis. The secondary wastewater was obtained from a small wastewater treatment plant from the village Roja in Latvia. Prior to the experiments, it was filtered three times through filters with different pore sizes (the smallest pore size was 0.2 µm), and the average nitrate and phosphate concentrations were 21.3 ± 1.1 mg/L and 17.8 ± 0.56 mg/L, respectively. The nitrate to phosphate ratio was 1.8:1. It was possible to remove the inorganic phosphorus to concentrations below 0.1 mg/L within ten days, although it did not happen in all the reactors. It was found that in most cases pre-phosphorus-starvation increased the removal rate of phosphorus. For two of the strains, Chlorella Vulgaris and Ankistrodesmus Falcatus, the three-day of pre-starvation period was optimal, while two to three days was optimal for Tetradesmus Obliquus, compared to other pre-starvation periods. For Botryococcus Braunii the one-day and the zero-days starved batches removed the phosphorus most efficiently. For Chlorella Vulgaris and Ankistrodesmus falcatus nearly a 100% of the phosphorus was removed within seven days after three days of pre-starvation. Without pre-starvation, these strains achieved the same result after ten days. It was also found that the nitrogen was the limiting nutrient in the wastewater and that the different strains responded differently to the changes in environment brought on by the experiment. When using microalgae in wastewater treatment, the choice of strain greatly impacts the removal rate, as the likeliness for them to survive in a specific environment varies among strains. It was concluded that using microalgae as a wastewater treatment method could pose great benefits. However, more experiments with colder climate, non-pre-filtered wastewater, a less nutrient rich media, greater initial biomass concentrations and pilot tests are recommended. Another insight from this thesis was that the method for transferring algae between different media needs to be refined to reach the target concentration in a reactor (or other setup).

Decision-making in environmental issues often includes uncertainty in the input data and the resulting uncertainty when the data is used. Some spatial decisions are however taken without any formal analysis, meaning that the decision-makers have a mental map and preconceived notions about the decision options before the final decision actually is taken. An example of such decision situation is siting of new landfills, where there is no standard method to aid in the decision-making process today. In other decision situations, the methods and criteria may be well developed. A commonly used method for investigation contaminated sites in Sweden is called "MIFO"- Method of Surveying Contaminated Sites. In MIFO investigations start at a superficial level and after each phase, efforts are focused further on the brownfields with highest priority. A strict model has advantages as resources are prioritized at the most polluted sites. But having a static model with strict guidance also leads to problems as the sampling approach suggested by the model is not optimally adapted to individual sites. The risk is that contamination is overestimated or underestimated, leading to unexpected costs as well as waste of resources in a remediation situation. Variability of the data, uncertainty in the data quality and the consequences in having no versus strict guidance in a decision situation are discussed in two cases; a regional landfill siting project, and a local investigation of a contaminated site. Future research involves how to include uncertainty modelling as a standard in all environmental decision-making processes. Tools are needed to aid decision-makers in expressing the maximum accepted uncertainty in the outcome. Guidance for selecting and weighing of criteria in decision- situations must be developed, as well as models that consider the case specific demands and conditions. / Godkänd; 2004; 20070131 (ysko)

Godkänd; 1997; 20070418 (ysko)

Sammanfattning Varje år sorteras hushållsavfall felaktigt, vilket leder till att mycket av materialet går till förbränning istället för återvinning. Genom att utöka källsorteringen av hushållsavfall kan materialet återvinnas och cirkuleras i ett kretslopp. Trots de lagar och förordningar som finns vad gäller insamling av hushållsavfall, fortsätter mängden avfall att öka. En ny förordning har tagits fram av Regeringen för att motverka detta. Den nya förordningen som träder i kraft år 2025 innebär att alla bostadsfastigheter ska ha kvartersnära insamling.    Syftet med studien är att hjälpa bostadsbolaget Ljusdalshem med att ta fram ett förslag om kvartersnära insamling i området Gärdeåsen, som ligger i Ljusdal kommun. Området Gärdeåsen är byggt under miljonprogrammet. Området har enbart två fraktioner med insamling av brännbart och kartong. För att kunna genomföra detta arbete har en kvalitativ metod använts med hjälp av en litteraturstudie, flerfallstudie och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Två tidigare projekt har studerats för att få med viktiga aspekter i förslaget. De projekt som har studerats är Nordost och Andersberg, som har implementerat kvartersnära insamling av bostadsbolaget Gavlegårdarna i Gävle. Projekten skiljer sig i utformning och var därför av intresse att studera för att ta in viktiga aspekter när förslaget om kvartersnära insamling formas till bostadsbolaget Ljusdalshem.    Resultatet presenterar ett förslag till Ljusdalshem för implementering av kvartersnära insamling i området Gärdeåsen. Det som författarna kom fram till i denna studie var att bygga fyra nya återvinningsrum, med insamling för tidningar, förpackningar. Nya återvinningsrum har föreslagits med anledning av att de befintliga byggnaderna är slitna och renovering skulle bli omfattande. Det finns viktiga aspekter att se över när kvartersnära insamling byggs. En viktig aspekt för att förhindra lukt är att plocka ut mat-och restavfall från återvinningsrummet, därför bör de fyra återvinningsrum kompletteras med underjordsbehållare för mat-och restavfall. För att få ett effektivt resultat av sorteringen av hushållsavfall har beteendeförändringar hos de som bor i området en stor betydelse i förslaget, eftersom det finns en kunskapsbrist i områden med blandad kulturell mångfald. Ljusdalshem bör arbeta med informativa åtgärder. Detta gör att kunskap främjas och sorteringen av hushållsavfall kan öka. Den fysiska utformningen är också viktig för att öka sorteringen. Belysning, stora fönster och ljusa väggar, är åtgärder som främjar trygghetskänslan i återvinningsrummet för de boende. / Abstract Every year household waste is incorrectly sorted, which contributes to a lot of material goes to incineration instead of recycling. By expanding the sorting of household waste, the cycle can be linked, and the material can be used as a new resource. Despite the directive and the existing laws, the amount of waste continues to increase. A new regulation has been prepared to remedy this and will enter into force in 2025, where all residential properties will have neighborhood close sorting.  The purpose of the study is to help the housing company Ljusdalshem develop a proposal for neighborhood-wide collection in the area Gärdeåsen, which is located in Ljusdal municipality. The Gärdeåsen area is built under the million programs. The area has only two fractions with the collection of combustible and cardboard. In order to carry out this work, a qualitative method has been used with the help of a literature study and semi-structured interviews. Two previous projects have been studied to include important aspects of the proposal. The projects that have been studied are Nordost and Andersberg, which have implemented neighborhood-wide collection of the housing company Gavlegårdarna in Gävle. The projects differ in design and were therefore of interest to study in order to gather important aspects to consider when forming the proposal for neighborhood-wide collection for the housing company Ljusdalshem.   The result presents a proposal to Ljusdalshem for implementation of neighborhood-wide collection in the Gärdeåsen area. What the authors came up with was to build four new recycling rooms, with collection for newspapers, packaging, waste and food waste. New recycling rooms have been proposed because the existing buildings are worn, and renovation would be extensive. There are important aspects to consider when building neighborhood-wide collection. An important aspect to prevent odors is to remove food and residual waste from the recycling room, therefore the four recycling rooms should be supplemented with underground containers for food and residual waste. In order to obtain an effective result of the sorting of household waste, behavioral changes are of great importance in the proposal, as there is a lack of knowledge in areas with a mixed cultural background. Ljusdalshem should work with informative measures. This means that knowledge is promoted, and the sorting of household waste can increase. The physical design is also important for increasing the sorting. Lighting, large windows and light walls are measures that promote the feeling of security in the recycling room.

No description available.

It is known that traffic is a source of pollutants and that pollutant loads increase with elevated traffic densities. Studies executed in Stockholm, Sweden advocate that highway runoff from roads with an annual average daily traffic (AADT) exceeding 30,000 vehicles need treatment before discharge to the receiving water. It is common knowledge that sedimentation is the most expedient method for stormwater treatment. However, sedimentation units are area demanding and in highly urbanised watersheds the land use is often restricted. Studies have implied the occurrence of first flush, i.e. an initially higher pollutant load in the beginning of the runoff event, in highway watersheds. With an emphasized first flush it would be possible to treat only a part of the total runoff volume reducing the area needed for a sedimentation basin. In general two methods are used to design stormwater treatment ponds. One method is based on the reduced catchment area and pond surface and the other is based on an average runoff volume and a permanent pond volume. The methods are relaying on data from routine monitoring of various treatment systems and suggest removal efficiencies for pollutants. Applying general removal efficiencies for design it can be intricate to estimate an outlet concentration when the specific removal efficiency may be dependent on the initial concentration of the pollutant. Consequently, knowledge of the removal efficiencies dependence on initial concentration would be helpful to optimise stormwater treatment systems. This research has studied runoff from highly trafficated watersheds. The aim has been to evaluate the mass transport, stormwater quality and sedimentation behaviour and their implications for stormwater treatment. The study sites, Eugenia and Fredhäll, are located along the six-lane highway E4 through Stockholm that has an AADT load of 120,000 vehicles and a speed limit of 70 km/h. In lack of a unified definition of first flush the mass transport was studied using the EU directive 1991/271/EEC discharge demand for TSS of 60 mg/l. It was found that for the majority of the runoff events during winter the event mean concentration exceeded 60 mg/l suggesting that the complete runoff volume should be captured during winter. The dissolved concentration of metals showed significant variations between winter and summer, as did the concentration in the particulate matter (mg/kg). It was possible to correlate total metal concentration to total suspended solids with good correlation (r2 >0.90) for the majority of studied metals in winter and summer. The findings would imply that a successful treatment of the studied metal pollutants could be carried out by sedimentation. However, depending on discharge criteria, the elevated levels of dissolved matter, especially during winter, have to be considered with regards to the selection of the appropriate water treatment process. The sedimentation process could be described by a logarithmical function and initial turbidity. Good correlation (r2 >0.90) was indicated between turbidity and TSS. The sedimentation process of the studied highway runoff varied significantly (p<0.05) when elevated levels of NaCl could be found in the runoff. A significant difference (p<0.05) was shown for turbidity and TSS between summer and winter, which was assumed to be related to the use of studded tires. This study implies that the entire runoff volume must be treated and that the use of first flush as a design criterion is less applicable for the winter period. The study implies good correlation between total metal concentration and TSS. In addition the indicated correlation between turbidity and TSS would point to the possibility to use turbidity as a surrogate measurement for TSS and the studied metals. Moreover, the possibility to describe the sedimentation process by the initial concentration of turbidity would infer the utilisation of turbidity as a tool for process control for stormwater treatment systems. In addition, the novel results for the dependence on the sedimentation process could be incorporated in existing models for design of stormwater treatment systems in similar watersheds. / QC 20101115

This Master Thesis project consists in suggesting generic Product Category Rules (PCR) for newbuildings which will be in line with the requirements of the PCR for building product issued inFebruary 2006 by the Swedish Environmental Management Council. The suggestion for a PCRfor new buildings is meant to provide a structured framework to the real estate professionals fora reliable, comprehensive and verifiable communication of the environmental performance oftheir buildings. Typical examples of possible use of an environmental declaration of a newbuilding would be communication towards authorities, marketing purposes or planningpurposes. This will also allow the authorities to be able to include the environmentalconsiderations inherent to the buildings themselves in the decision-making process for housingdevelopments (in addition to other environmental considerations inherent to the developmentproject such as EIA results for instance).

Photogrammetry is a science which obtains reliable measurements by a means of pho-tographs, and it can be aerial or terrestrial. This study is done in KTH main Campus on L building located at Drottning Kristinas väg 30. It assessed the precision of Trim-ble total station S8 for photogrammetric point measurement relative to the coordi-nates measured with a total station. The steps performed in the study were: planning the measurements (selection of the study area, selection of the instruments, selection of the station points, selection of the software and putting the target points over the facade), data acquisition and finally data processing in TBC software. In the work, sys-tematic error tests were carried out, and the tests results show that there are systematic errors in easting and northing of the measurement result, however it was difficult to say there is or there is no systematic error in the elevation. The most likely source of these errors might be an incorrect orientation of the camera. It was seen that there were some factors influenced the precision of photogrammetric point measurements, such as image redundancy and parallax angle between images. The precision assess-ment was done by calculating photogrammetric points; from different parallax angles between images and from different numbers of images which were taken from differ-ent station points. The better results or smaller differences between the total station and photogrammetric coordinates were detected from five station points relative to four and three station points and from parallax angle in range 60-105 degree relative to parallax angles in range 30-60 and 0-30 degrees. In general, precise photogrammet-ric coordinates were obtained from parallax angle in range 60-105 degree and from five station points.Keywords: Photogrammetry; precision; station points, checkpoints, Trimble total sta-tion, Trible Business Center.