Magister Artium - MA / The oil industry is growing increasingly aware of its serious image problem. There is a growing awareness of the systematic abuses of people and the environment inherent in the production, processing and marketing of petroleum. (Rowell, 1997). From the Club of Rome to the Bruntland Report to Rio De Janeiro and Johannesburg Earth Summits, increased pressure on the oil industry has been witnessed. Pressure has mounted to, in particular, start managing the industry’s impact on the environment. It was the first pictures of earth from space, which revealed the view of the limited “spaceship earth”, after which Garrett Hardin’s seminal article, entitled ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ triggered an understanding of the close links between the environment and our economic activity in 1974, Daniel Yergin (1991) argues. Today the oil industry is facing ‘peak oil’ (the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction will be reached) and the looming fallout from environmental damage costs and disasters (Clyde,1996). It has been argued by Brain Clyde (1996) that the emergence of notions of ‘sustainable development’ and practice in the context of the oil industry, reifies global capitalism as the liberating and protecting force (Clyde, 1996). This thesis sets out to explore these notions of sustainable development and the ways in which they challenge (or not) the foundations of knowledge around environmentally ethical behaviour amongst large oil companies and the manner in which they manage, in particular, used oil. There is a growing body of research contained in the fields of Political Ecology and Industrial Ecology that points to the need for blame to be placed between multinational oil companies and national governments for failing in their mandate to protect the environment (Africa Institute, 2013 and Danida, 2012). This thesis argues that used oil management is not only the responsibility of oil companies but also that of national governments and suppliers in the general public. If the role of national governments is to create enabling conditions for the development of “fit for purpose” waste policy and regulations in order to lead or track “best practices” in used oil management, this thesis shows that more often than not, policy has either failed in practice or has not been developed owing to a lack of political will. The prospects for implementation of best practices typically speak to concepts of recycling, reuse and proper disposal in terms of Lansink’s Ladder (1979) concept (He was a Dutch member of parliament who presented a schematic presentation of the order of preference for waste management options, with disposal at the bottom and prevention at the top) of the “waste hierarchy” with which this study engages (Gertsakis and Lewis, 2003). The waste management hierarchy supports the approaches taken in studies in the field of Industrial Ecology which suggest practice-based solutions to waste oil and policy development. This thesis explores four contexts of waste management in Africa, focusing on comparisons between policy and practice in sites that I have worked at in Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia and relates these to South Africa. Waste management infrastructure to support used oil management is largely in poor shape or non-existent, whilst the gap between waste management policy and legislation and actual waste management practices appears to be widening. This is mainly due to ongoing capacity constraints or non-existence of waste management facilities for the different waste streams. As result of industrialization, urbanization and modernization of agriculture in Africa waste generation is expected to increase significantly. My interest in this research, and the major intention of this study came from my personal experience working as an environmental specialist in the petroleum industry, where I have witnessed poor waste oil practices as a result of inadequate infrastructural or waste disposal options. Exacerbating the problem, as I argue in the study, are poorly defined waste management policy/regulations with consequential severe environmental and health degradation.

Salinisation has been identified as a major cause of the progressive deterioration in the public water system in South Africa. To deal with this problem Waste Stabilisation Ponding systems have been used by the Leather Processing Industry as zero-dischaJ;ge wastewater evaporation disposal processes in water-limited inland regions of the country. While effective in the evaporation disposal function these systems are plagued by the generation of serious odour nuisance creating intractable environmental problems relating to adjacent residential communities. High loading to ponds of organic compounds, sulphides and ammonia results in strongly reducing anaerobic conditions prevailing in early parts of pond cascades. These are characterised by bright red colours due to the predominance of purple photosynthetic bacteria. Sporadic micro algal blooms of Spirulina sp. and Dunaliella sp. had been previously noted to occur on the latter ponds in these cascades, and were associated with their conversion to facultative function, with aerobic surface layers, and a marked reduction in odour release. This research programme undertook an investigation of the microbial ecology of a tannery waste stabilisation ponding system to describe factors which give rise to these blooms, and to determine whether microalgal growth may be manipulated to achieve a reliable oxygengenerating capping of the anaerobic ponds. The predominance of near pure cultures of Spin/lina platensis was demonstrated for the blooms and factors restricting its growth in the system were described. These include the interaction of ammonia and sulphide toxic effects and laboratory studies were undertaken to show how effluent loading may be regulated to enable effective growth of the cyanobacterium. At appropriate dilutions of tannery effluent an enhancement of growth was noted, compared to growth in defined mineral medium. An investigation of this phenomenon provided preliminary evidence for organic uptake by the pond micro algae and a possible contribution to heterotrophic nutrition. The manipulation of Spirulina sp. growth in a High Rate Algal Pond raceway was undertaken in outdoor pilot plant studies and the effect of microalgal capping of the anaerobic ponds in the cascade was demonstrated by activating a recycle loop from a blooming facultative pond. Heavy metal contaminants were effectively eliminated by an optimisation of the primary anaerobic pond function and precipitation as metal sulphides. Biomass was harvested and dried, during which a range of methods were evaluated. Toxicological studies were undertaken on the dried biomass using Artemia and chick assays, and feed studies showed its useful application in rations for the abalone Haliotlls midae and rainbow trout Onchorhynchlls mykiss. Based on positive independent assessment of research outcomes, a decision was made by the tanning company operating the Waste Stabilisation Ponding system, to proceed to the construction of a full-scale 2 500 m2 High Rate Algal Pond raceway. This would be used for controlled Spirlilina biomass production to effect a practical capping of the anaerobic ponds in the system, and to evaluate its commercial potential in the feed market. The Advanced Integrated Wastewater Ponding System described by Oswald (1991) provided the conceptual basis for the Algal Biotechnology process development undertaken. The studies of the microbial ecology and the biotechnological potential of this system have shown that a Spirulina-based High Rate Algal Ponding process can be engineered in such a way that saline tannery effluents may be treated to effect a significant reduction in overall pollution load, that biomass may be recovered as a value added product of the treatment process and that the operational performance of Waste Stabilisation Ponding systems, and hence their immediate environment, may be improved by the use of the High Rate Algal Pond as a retrofitted upgrading unit operation.

The considerable volume of chromium-bearing wastes generated during the process of leather tanning, exacerbated by the potential for trivalent chromium in the wastes to be oxidised to the toxic hexavalent state, has created a major waste disposal dilemma for the tanning industry. While methods are available for the safe and effective treatment of residual chrome-tanning liquors, little has been done to address the issue of the chrome-bearing solid wastes. Given the increasingly stringent environmental compliance standards facing tanneries, unless an appropriate treatment process is developed in the immediate future, the continued use of chromium as a tanning agent could be compromised. Recent investigations have demonstrated the potential of heated alkaline conditions for dechroming these solid wastes. This study expanded upon these considerations and examined the feasibility of utilising the highly alkaline tannery waste effluents as cost-effective, substitute alkaline media. The three effluents considered in this study, classed as lime sulphide liquors, were shown to be capable of dechroming wet blue shavings, with resultant separation of the solid wastes into a protein and a concentrated chromium product. The solubilised protein product contained low chromium concentrations which comply with legal discharge limits. The precipitated chromium product offers opportunity for reutilisation in the tannery. A novel industrial-scale treatment process, based on these investigations, indicated the process to be capable of treating the quantity of shavings produced on a daily basis by a medium to large scale tannery. Application of this method for the dechroming of other chrome-tanned solid wastes was also shown to be feasible.

The aim of the research was to critically assess and investigate the current solid waste management methods and practices of households and in an urban area in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) Bluewater Bay, Port Elizabeth. In order to achieve the research objective, the following sub-research objectives/questions need to be considered: 1. What is the level of awareness and understanding of the waste management principles (avoid, reduce, recycle and dispose) in Bluewater Bay households? 2. How do households handle and manage solid waste in Bluewater Bay? 3. What is the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality doing to raise awareness regarding waste problems and waste management? 4. What information is disseminated to the public to keep them informed regarding waste management? 5. What incentives and support for the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste does the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality offer? Fifty households were sampled for the case study and the study employed qualitative research methods consisting of a three-prong approach, the first was the questionnaire for Bluewater Bay residents, the second was semi-structured interviews for relevant Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality officials, and the third was a review of existing national documents pertaining to waste management legislation including national and international literature. The findings of the study show that there is an awareness of waste management principles in the study area and that residents are willing to participate in sustainable waste management activities. Some are already taking part out of their own free will, even though the conditions are not conducive and the environment is not enabling. There is community awareness about waste management principles in the area and a lack of information regarding waste management in general. Residents are willingto avoid, reduce, recycle and dispose of waste sustainably. They find it important but the necessary facilities are not available. The municipality does not provide that in the area. The research also made recommendations in order to realise the implementation of integrated waste management techniques and principles in the area.

Worldwide chromium waste from tanneries is a major environmental concern. A considerable amount of effort is being implemented by tanneries to resolve the environmental concerns. Because of the wide range of chemicals used in tanning, waste treatment is an important issue in the industry. All the tanneries put considerable money and effort into treating their effluent. South African tanneries currently have various methods of disposing of their chrome waste. Most have systems for recycling the waste and disposing of it in municipal waste dumps or it is dumped on the company's own land. Hence the cost of disposal varies widely. Some companies are forced to pay excessive amounts to dispose of their waste at hazardous waste dumps. Others appear to get away by using municipal dumps. Trivalent Chrome (Pty) Ltd offers a solution to the environmental concern by extracting the most dangerous compound in the waste and converting it to a by-product (green chrome oxide). However, the company must be able to then sell of the green chromium oxide. The study seeks to address how the company can market the by-product.

No description available.

In this thesis a novel guidance method for a 3-degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator arm in 3 dimensions for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) disposal has been developed. The work carried out in this thesis combines existing methods to develop a technique that delivers advantages taken from several other guidance techniques. These features are necessary for the IED disposal application. The work carried out in this thesis includes kinematic and dynamic modelling of robotic manipulators, T-space to C-space conversion, and path generation using Graph Theory to produce a guidance technique which can plan a safe path through a complex unknown environment. The method improves upon advantages given by other techniques in that it produces a suitable path in 3-dimensions in close-proximity environments in real time with no a priori knowledge of the environment, a necessary precursor to the application of this technique to IED disposal missions. To solve the problem of path planning, the thesis derives the kinematics and dynamics of a robotic arm in order to convert the Euclidean coordinates of measured environment data into C-space. Each dimension in C-space is one control input of the arm. The Euclidean start and end locations of the manipulator end effector are translated into C-space. A three-dimensional path is generated between them using Dijkstra’s Algorithm. The technique allows for a single path to be generated to guide the entire arm through the environment, rather than multiple paths to guide each component through the environment. The robotic arm parameters are modelled as a quasi-linear parameter varying system. As such it requires gain scheduling control, thus allowing compensation of the non-linearities in the system. A Genetic Algorithm is applied to tune a set of PID controllers for the dynamic model of the manipulator arm so that the generated path can then be followed using a conventional path-following algorithm. The technique proposed in this thesis is validated using numerical simulations in order to determine its advantages and limitations.

<p>As the database of information for constructed wetlands grows, the benefits and limitations of this alternate wastewater treatment technology will be better understood. Based upon the results for numerous field and case studies, wetlands treatment can be highly successful at a relatively low cost. This technology appears to hold considerable promise for its technological capabilities plus it is widely applicable. Wetlands treatment has been successfully used to treat domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, leachate, acid mine drainage and stormwater.</p> / Master of Science

No description available.

The nuclear waste problem is defined and analyzed from a systems engineering viewpoint. Problem magnitude and systems context are discussed. Requirements for a waste repository are presented and the current progress of the repository is noted. The Department of Energy's waste disposal system including repository site selection, monitored retrievable storage facility, and waste transportation system is analyzed. A description of nuclear fuel reprocessing is given. The potential benefits and risks of reprocessing are addressed including economic feasibility and environmental issues. A framework for systems analysis of the problem is presented. Four recommendations for further systems analysis are presented: 1. An unbiased systems analysis of the Yucca Mountain proposed repository including indirect political, social and economic aspects. 2. A systems engineering backing of the monitored retrievable storage facility 3. Development of rail transportation guidelines for nuclear waste 4. An economic analysis of the feasibility of spent fuel reprocessing to include indirect costs / Master of Engineering