Sweden is a long-term world reference country in terms of sustainable development. On the other hand, Barcelona has recently made great efforts in order to improve and to make society aware of the importance of environmental issues. Hence, it would be interesting to investigate if these efforts had succeeded in the waste’s management in Barcelona compared to other leading European cities, and particularly to the case of Gävle. In this work, the operation of the management of the urban solid wastes of the two cities is explained. First, the objectives marked by Agenda 21 of each locality are exposed. Next, a theoretical perspective about management, generation of wastes and types of waste treatment is provided. In the following chapter, the results of the generation of wastes, selective collection and the treatments of the wastes are shown for both the cases of Barcelona and Gävle until the 2006. Finally, the two cities are compared and the results obtained in the management of the wastes are discussed. The conclusion in this study is that Barcelona has improved noticeable in terms of environmentally safe management of the wastes. This has happened thanks to the efforts of the city council and of the citizens. But It is still necessary to make a major effort by the inhabitants of Barcelona.

South Africa’s new Constitution was developed after the first democratic election in 1994. It is well composed and shows a great willpower to build the country on equality, freedom and democracy, and it also protects the rights of future generations. Despite a Constitution that promotes sustainable development and several laws that protect the environment, activities that are detrimental to nature go on. One of South Africa’s largest environmental problems is waste, in the forms of illegal dumping and poorly managed landfill sites. The aim of the thesis is to explore the pre-conditions for waste management practices in Cradock, a rural town within the Inxuba Yethemba Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province. The study is conducted through a qualitative minor field study in Cradock during six weeks. First the legislative framework was explored in order to see what the Municipality has to live up to, and then two interviews were performed: one with the Municipality’s Community Services Manager and one with the employees at the Municipality’s recycling project Ikamvalethu. This gave an understanding on the waste management in practice and the main obstacles and possibilities considered. Cradock’s landfill site is not designed to prevent environmental damage but is still in use even though it is not legally permitted to be utilized. The Municipality has got refuse removal for households once a week, something that has been shown to be too seldom. People cannot wait for the Municipality’s lorry to come and instead they dump the rubbish illegally in e.g. the streets or in open areas. In order to decrease the amount of waste that goes to the landfill and in an attempt to create work opportunities in the community, the Municipality has started the Ikamvalethu Recycling Project which is explored in the thesis. The theoretical link used in the thesis consists of Stern’s (2000) four types of causal variables influencing individual’s environmentally significant behavior. These variables are applied in order to discuss and explain the barriers and facilitators the community faces regarding waste. The most central obstacle is the lack of financial resources in the local government. The national and provincial governments must pay attention to and raise the issue of waste and support the local governments in order to improve its waste management.

Untersucht wurden das tatsächliche und potenzielle Aufkommen und die Behandlung biogener Abfälle und Reststoffe im Freistaat Sachsen. Für die im Haushalt anfallenden Küchen- und Grünschnittabfälle ergibt sich eine potenzielle Sammelmenge von insgesamt 528.759 Mg bzw. 125 kg je Einwohner und Jahr. Für Grünschnitt ergeben sich vor allem im Bereich der Pflegemaßnahmen auf öffentlichen Flächen und der Landschaftspflege Mengenpotenziale für die Verwertung. Mit der Vermeidung von Speiseabfällen, der Intensivierung der Erfassung und der effizienten Verwertung der biogenen Abfälle und Reststoffe zeigen sich positive Effekte auf die Klimabilanz.

Unexpectedly, it was found that when a waterborne polyacrylate adhesive was placed on carbon steel it was not tacky; this was not the case for the same adhesive placed on stainless steel. It was determined that the surface energy, as measured with liquid contact angles, of the adhesive films is significantly different between the two films, with the non-tacky film having a higher surface energy. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) showed that the non-tacky surface has a higher roughness which minimizes the contacting area between the film and a contacting surface. Analysis of the heating of the carbon steel coupon with infrared thermography shows a non-uniform temperature profile at the surface. This experimental data is corroborated using a 2-D heat transfer model that incorporates the heat transfer characteristics of the various components of carbon steel. Surface driven flow, or Marangoni convection, can develop from temperature gradients and are known to cause increased roughness in polymer films. IR thermography measurements of the adhesive film during drying shows larger temperature differences for the films on carbon steel than on stainless steel. These larger temperature differences induce greater Marangoni convection, which result in the rougher surfaces on carbon steel that were measured with AFM. The effect of lowering the tack of a polyacrylate film has significant impact in the dryer section of a paper machine. This effect was quantified using the Web Adhesion Drying Simulator, which is a laboratory-scale apparatus that measures the energy required to pull the sheet from a metal surface. By substituting the adhesive-on-stainless steel with the less-sticky adhesive-on-carbon steel surface, the energy required to pull the sheet from the metal surface was reduced significantly and the picking associated with the test was nearly eliminated.

Firing an underwater spark discharge generates an expanding plasma which causes a spherical shockwave to propagate through the surrounding water. The shockwave can have many effects, including resonance effects on bubbles, mechanical destructive effects on solid surfaces and living organisms, and sonochemical oxidative effects on particles and chemical species present in the water. This phenomenon has been shown to improve the efficiency of ink removal in a laboratory flotation deinking cell, while simultaneously decreasing fiber loss. These process improvements are attributed to the sonochemical oxidation of ink particle surfaces, caused by shockwave-induced cavitation. This finding is supported by zeta potential measurements. Sparking was found to reduce the zeta potential of ink particles by up to 20 mV. When sparking was performed during deinking, no effect was found on either ink removal or solids loss. However, when the pulp was pretreated with sparking before flotation, a significant improvement was seen in the brightness gain. Further, fiber loss was decreased by up to 25% in a single flotation stage. The economics of this process are attractive; payback is on the order of three months based on fiber savings alone. Also, at about 1.5 kJ per spark, the power requirements are minimal with respect to the benefit derived.

On May 2011, the Environmental Protection Administration launched a policy to cut the use of disposable cups. This policy obliges non-alcoholic beverage stores to give customers incentives for bringing their own cups or recycling disposable cups. Because college students often buy take-out non-alcoholic beverage, this study aimed to explore how psychological variables might affect their intent to bringing their own cups. Results from this study may provide some suggestions for the policy above. This study started with a focus group interview with 31 college students. This interview gave me a preliminary understanding of students¡¦ intent to bring their own cups and the related psychological factors. I then combined the findings from this interview and literature review to design the framework and questionnaire for this study. Following Kotler and Lee¡¦s (2008) concept of social marketing, the questionnaire was mainly designed to assess five variables: policy incentive, benefit of bringing own cups, cost of bringing own cups, convenience in buying cups, and convenience in washing cups. A convenience sample of 197 students in National Sun Yat-sen University participated. The results suggest the higher the profit or the lower the cost for bringing own cups, the stronger will be students¡¦ intent to do so. However, the other three variables had no significant effect. In addition, the analysis showed female students were more intended to bring their own cups than male students did. Students from different departments also differed in their intent, but the differences were small. Based on these findings, several policy recommendations were proposed.

Kitchen waste is the certain man-made trash in our daily life. It is mainly the water and oil, which is easy to decompose. In Taiwan, there is about 20,000 metric tons of family rubbish everyday, and approximately 20% to 30% of the rubbish is organic substance. Moreover, kitchen waste has a significant contribution on the total amount of rubbish. Thus, reduction and recycling of kitchen waste becomes an important issue, and it needs to be solved immediately. According to the article of Water Pollutant Prevention Act revised by Environmental Protection Bureau on 26 April 2000, wastewater discharges from apartment buildings need to be treated to meet the discharge standards. Furthermore, the discharge standards will be even more stringent in the near future. Kitchen wastewater includes liquids of kitchen rubbish, liquid of waste oil, and wastewater from grinding machines for food waste crushing. If all of the above polluting wastewater is discharged directly to the sewer system, the cost for sewer system maintenance would be huge. To protect the ecosystem and to minimize the cost of sewer system maintenance, kitchen waste and its wastewater need to be effectively treated. In this study, a kitchen waste treatment system is designed and constructed. This system is able to treat kitchen wastewater efficiently and effectively. Moreover, this system is easy to operate and maintain with less maintenance cost. The treated wastewater could meet the discharge standards with 91.4% of suspended solid removal, 91% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, 96.7% of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) removal, and 100% of grease removal.

Food waste is one of an organic waste and contains the value of recycling and reusing. EPA shows that there are almost the amount of 4500 tons food wastes which is about 36~64% in households in Taiwan everyday. Therefore, if food wastes could be reused again, not only greatly reducing the amount of waste, decreasing the problem of odor from progressing food wastes, but also increasing the using year of landfills and incinerators. Furthermore, it can develop fully the value of multiple reusing in recycling. The study is forced on questionnaires for the residents of the city of Kaohsiung and Taichung, to know the present of recycling of food waste and its difficulty in executing a strategy. Conferring the willingness to pay and the willingness to accept of food waste recovery and if the price is different or not by Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), and moreover evaluating the potential benefit. The results of the study are as following: there are conspicuous difference in ¡§if doing something about recovery¡¨ ¡§the way of recovery¡¨ and ¡§if see any inspectors examine the classification of refuse¡¨. The most difficulties of recovery food waste in both cities are ¡§its odor and breed mosquito and fly easily¡¨ and ¡§not knowing clearly what materials should be recovered or not¡¨. About the price of the willingness to pay and the willingness to accept, the major answer shows ¡§No, I would not.¡¨ from this questionnaires. On the other hand, answers of ¡§Yes, I would like.¡¨ all hope that the pay less is better and the compensation more is better. The price of the willingness to pay of Kaohsiung residents is NT$ 41.8 dollars, and Taichung residents is NT$ 45.3 dollars. Otherwise, the higher environmental conscious the Kaohsiung residents have, the higher willing to pay. At the same time, the difficulty of recovery food waste is low comparatively. In addition, ¡§occupation¡¨ ¡§family revenue per month¡¨ ¡§cooking per week¡¨ have effect on the price of the willingness to pay and the willingness to accept. In the result of regression, some of variable parameters could affect the price of the willingness to pay. It maybe provides society for reference according the benefit in the estimating of regression. Therefore, the study hopes to provide the decision-maker more clear environmental and economical information through evaluate and analyze the willingness of pay of food waste. Furthermore, it maybe help the government to make a future policy in order to practice the food waste recovery indeed and carry out the target of reducing the amount of waste and resources recovering for a sustainable resources of food waste.

Despite the fact that there has been an official waste recycling and composting system in Taiwanese, the system still works improperly and inefficiently in our society due to problems such as culture, political complexity, etc. We plan to examine the antecedents of the behavior of household recycling in the context of an integrated behavior model. This model incorporates our previous depth interview and a wide variety of important factors from previous research on environmental behavior into a single theoretical framework provided by the Theory of Planned Behavior. The competitive model is planned to be tested using data from a sample of near 2000 individual respondents, each of whom will complete a survey. We will draw public policy implications and focus on a more open and more effective process for operating waste management systems based on the results.

The difference of envirnomental attitude and behavior between the recyclers and non-recyclers.