Effectiveness of selected issues related to used tyre management in Poland

This paper discusses interactions between the generation, collection and recovery of used tyres while considering an indicator of their mass accumulation per area in Poland. Notably, this study aimed to assess selected issues related to used tyre management efficiency from 2008 to 2018 based on European Union and national regulations. Within 11 years, over 5 million Mg of used tyres was introduced into the domestic market—exceeding the amount required for 50 million registered vehicles. It was demonstrated that a significant tyre waste management process involved the recovery of 47% of all tyres, which was almost entirely correlated with the total volume of tyres. Only the growth trend for generated tyres was considered significant, and the rarely used indicator of the accumulation of used tyres per area exhibited an uneven accumulation of used tyres, with the highest amount being 48.06 Mg km−2 in a region with a small area but a significant volume of waste tyres. Therefore, the management of used tyres requires action in the country to optimally increase this form of waste collection while consolidating the development, gathering and processing infrastructure in the context of further minimising environmental pressure and increasing the efficiency of their use by considering the 4R principle.

Food waste generation in a university and the handling efficiency of a university catering facility-scale automatic collection system

Purpose This study aims to evaluate the generation of food waste in a university and the handling efficiency of an automatic waste collection system. Design/methodology/approach The quantity of food waste generated and collected from a university canteen was surveyed. The food waste handling efficiencies using manual collection strategy and automated food waste collection system were determined by the density of food waste. Life-cycle costing analysis was done to evaluate the economic impacts of various food waste collection methods. Findings As compared with the manual collection approach, the automatic system can improve the food waste handling efficiency by 30% (from 0.01 to 0.007 bin kg−1) and reduce the water use by 20% (from 0.512 to 0.406 L kg−1); however, it also consumes 4.4 times more energy (from 0.005 to 0.027 kWh kg−1). Under ideal system operation, the 10-year cost of food waste collection was significantly reduced from $3.45 kg−1 in the manual collection to $1.79 kg−1, and the payback period of the system collection was 1.9 years without discount. Practical implications The outcomes of this study show that an automatic food waste collection system is feasible, and it is recommended for small- and medium-sized catering facilities (e.g. canteens and food courts) to improve food waste handling efficiency. This study also provides useful reference data of automatic food waste collection systems for planning food waste management programs for catering facilities. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the waste handling efficiency, operational expenditure and life-cycle cost of a small-scale automatic food waste collection system.

Personal protective equipment use during COVID-19 pandemic and associated waste management in households in Sri Lanka

The use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is compulsory when accessing public places due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in many countries. Facemasks are the most common PPE used, however, some people use face shields and gloves. Frequent hand sanitizing is also recommended aiming to control the spread of the disease. All these activities generate a large amount of plastic waste daily. In Sri Lanka, it is estimated that 12 million facemasks are used daily, while 0.22 million gloves and 0.29 million face shields are used. Out of 12 million facemasks, 10 million are surgical or N95 masks. In addition, 0.79 million sanitizer bottles are used in a day, leaving empty plastic bottles. The most common method of disposing of facemasks in Sri Lanka is open burning by the users at their homes (55%). The rate of burning is comparatively low for other PPE. Although nearly 30% of people handover used facemasks to the municipal solid waste collection, there are no special precautions taken for separate collection and safe disposal. Guidelines are in place for handling healthcare waste generated in households under self-quarantine, but they are not applied for PPE waste generated in other households. Major drawbacks in PPE waste management is identified and mitigation measures were proposed. The estimate of waste plastics generated due to PPE use is 88.5 tonnes per day in the country. Energy recovery via pyrolysis may be a viable alternative to landfilling and affordable for developing countries.

Efforts For Empowerment and Dry Waste Management Using A Waste Bank System in Kepuh Village, Kertosono District, Nganjuk Regency

The issue of waste management is still a thorny problem for Indonesia. This is because most of the waste produced by households still ends up in the Final Disposal Site (TPA). Meanwhile, the capacity of landfills, especially in big cities, is getting full. In fact, it is not easy to find land to open a new TPA to accommodate the garbage collected from the community. The purpose of this community service is to teach the residents of Kepuh Village to process household dry waste. The qualitative method used in this activity uses socialization and guidance. The stages in data analysis using qualitative methods are data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results of the discussion in this community service are [1] Implementation of Waste Bank Socialization at the Chairman's House [2] Dry waste collection [3] Waste sorting at Residents' Houses and [4] Implementation of waste bank at Village Hall. The conclusion is that people do not understand the effect of dry waste disposal on the environment, fostering independence with dry waste processing practices.