Electronic waste generally means discarded or obsolete electronics products. Around 20 to 50 million tons of e-waste is generated worldwide every year. The United States is the world’s largest e-waste producer, generating about 2.5 million tons of used electronics annually. However, American recyclers get to choose their own methods of recycling because there is no national legislation to regulate it. Often, the result is witnessed thousands of miles away, in growing dumping grounds in developing nations like China. Guiyu is a town in southeastern China that has become a center for processing imported e-waste. Local people extracting metals from e-waste use primitive methods that cause great harm to the environment and their health. I am doing a combination written and visual project to provide an overview of how e-waste trafficking works and what damage has been brought to other countries from U.S. e-waste exports. / text

The work describes various physical and chemical treatments to eliminate the deleterious effects of impurities in phosphogypsum on the delayed setting time and impaired strength development behaviour of cement to which it was added as a set regulator. The physical treatments included washing, milling, and ultrasonic treatment of the material, while the chemical treatments dealt with acidic and basic additions to the phosphogypsum during the washing stage. It was found that chemical treatment with a milk of lime solution, which is often recommended in literature, was ineffective in reducing set retardation. Treatment with ammonium hydroxide or sulphuric acid was more effective in this regard. Intergrinding phosphogypsum with slaked lime improved its effectiveness in reducing set retardation, but the use of unslaked lime was less effective and also resulted in marked reductions in compressive strengths. A combined treatment of wet milling phosphogypsum with a lime slurry in a ball mall was derived from these experiments and is recommended for full-scale plant applications.

Contaminated land can pose risks to human health, buildings and the environment. In principle, the regulatory mechanisms already exist in the UK to minimize the risks that can arise from the redevelopment and use of contaminated sites. However there is known to be wide variation in way the redevelopment of contaminated land has been controlled by various regulatory authorities. This thesis examines the control system for the redevelopment of contaminated land in the UK and assessesh ow and why variation in regulatory standards occurred. The empirical investigation is based on a comparative case study methodology. Four regulatory regimes, representing contrasting standards of regulation have served as case studies. The focus of the study is the redevelopment of former gasworks sites as it is common for such sites to be contaminated with harmful substances such as coal tar, phenols, spent oxide, cyanide, sulphur and asbestos. The recommended procedures and activities presented in official policy and guidance notes provide a benchmark for the assessment of regulatory practice. For an analysis of variation this thesis uses a theoretical framework developed from a critical review of the main approaches within the policy implementation literature and insights from organizational studies. The regulatory regime is complex and effective regulation requires input, and action, by various technical experts. For this reason the research, empirically and theoretically, focuses primarily on the linkage, and/or relationship between expert knowledge, communication and action for explanations of variation. The thesis argues that the level of commitment by individual regulatory experts and officers to the policy aims was a critical factor in explaining the variation in the standards of regulation. Moreover, for those redevelopments where contaminated land had been raised as an issue by certain institutional actors then regulatory performance was good

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Environment and sustainable development are very current topics in today's society, both national and international. The government's bill 2004/05:150 ”Swedish environment objectives - a common commission” contains several environmental quality objectives, that in turn is divided up in smaller secondary objectives. One of the secondary objectives says: “Latest year 2010 shall at least 35% of the food waste from households, restaurants, largescale kitchens and shops be recycled through biological treatment. The objective intends source separated food wastes to composting at home as central treatment”. The aim with the project is to investigate which initiatives are required in order for Halmstads municipality to achieve the secondary objective concerning 35% recycling of food wastes. During the sorting of household combustible waste in Halmstads municipality today, there is no sorting of food waste. This means that only food waste from restaurants and large-scale kitchens are collected for further biological treatment. Systems for handling waste are complex and many factors play a part when choosing the most favourable collection system for each municipality. An inventory shows that recycling of 5500 tons of food waste is required in order to fulfil the secondary objective. There are several different solutions to collect this amount. My proposal is to use a two vessel system in households, restaurants and large-scale kitchens. This means that the waste is separated into two different containers. The waste will be sorted into sealed plastic vessels of which one is for biological waste, and the other for combustible. In order to keep the two vessels a part, two different colours could be used. For example, a brown vessel for biological waste and a green one for combustible. The households should also be able to use home composting as a complement. At restaurants and large-scale kitchens there should be the possibility to an alternative collection through a garbage disposal unit with a container. When the vessels are emptied, the combustible waste goes to incineration and the food waste is taken to a biogas facility.