Fostering Circular Economy in Urban Areas

The 21st century is an urban world. Strategies that aim to tackle the urban material challenge and promote circular economy are necessary to achieve sustainable development. Having established the importance of circular economy towards sustainable development, this study presents applicable strategies to reduce consumption and promote circularity specifically in urban centers. Main strategies may be categorized into three areas: reducing material use through better design, efficient manufacturing and processing, and more intensive recycling. For materials use reduction, dematerialization, appropriate design based on product service lifetime, design for X principles and extended producer responsibility are identified as prominent design approaches or policies. For effective manufacturing and processing, the implementation of best available technologies and additive manufacturing were identified to have potential significant impact. For end-of-life phase management, differences between upcycling, recycling, and downcycling require targeted industry-specific policies.

Problems of water and wastewater utilities with technological regulation and introduction of industrial environmental control

Приведены требования природоохранного законодательства при переходе к технологическому нормированию на основе технологических показателей наилучших доступных технологий, организации производственного экологического контроля, в том числе систем автоматического контроля сбросов и выбросов загрязняющих веществ. Представлен анализ нормативных правовых актов природоохранного законодательства, а также ряд проблем, возникающих при реализации требований этих актов при внедрении наилучших доступных технологий и организации производственного экологического контроля на объектах водоотведения предприятий водопроводно-канализационного хозяйства. Проблемы представлены в отношении следующих факторов: невозможности или избыточности проведения инвентаризации сбросов по ряду загрязняющих веществ; недостаточности предельного срока 7 лет для реализации программ повышения экологической эффективности и планов мероприятий по охране окружающей среды при наличии нескольких объектов I и II категорий негативного воздействия на окружающую среду; избыточности требований установления технологических нормативов сбросов на уровне «от достигнутого»; противоречий нормативных актов, затрудняющих внедрение систем автоматического контроля. В статье использованы: опыт строительства и реконструкции ГУП «Водоканал Санкт-Петербурга» очистных сооружений централизованных систем водоотведения; практика производственного экологического контроля, а также результаты взаимодействия отраслевого сообщества организаций водопроводно-канализационного хозяйства; выводы, полученные при актуализации в 2021 г. ИТС 22.1-2016 «Общие принципы производственного экологического контроля и его метрологического обеспечения». Предлагаются пути решения проблем. The requirements of the environmental legislation in the process of transition to technological regulation based on the process parameters of the best available technologies, the introduction of the industrial environmental control including systems for automatic control of pollution discharges and emissions, are given. An analysis of the regulations of the environmental legislation is presented, as well as a number of problems arising in the implementation of the requirements of these regulations in the introduction of the best available technologies and industrial environmental control at the wastewater facilities of water and wastewater utilities are described. Problems are highlighted in relation to the following factors: impossibility or redundancy of conducting an inventory of discharges for a number of pollutants; inadequacy of the 7-year deadline for the implementation of the programs for improving the environmental efficiency and plans of action for environmental protection in presence of several objects of the I and II categories of the negative environmental impact; redundancy of the requirements for establishing technological regulations for discharges at the level «from the achieved»; contradictions in the regulations that complicate the introduction of automatic control systems. The paper describes the experience of the construction and upgrade of the public wastewater disposal facilities operated by SUE «Vodokanal of St. Petersburg»; the practice of industrial environmental control, as well as the results of the interaction between the sectoral community of the water supply and wastewater disposal utilities; the conclusions drawn during updating ITS 22.1-2016 «General principles of industrial environmental control and its metrological support» in 2021. The ways of addressing the problems are proposed.

Digitalization of state environmental management: Legal aspects

This article discusses the features of the digital transformation of the following state functions: information support in the field of environmental protection, state accounting in the field of environmental protection, regulation in the field of environmental protection (in terms of the use of the best available technologies), state environmental supervision, and administration of fees for negative environmental impact (NVOS). It is proved that the data of the state register of objects of negative impact, formed as a result of the state accounting of objects that have a negative impact on the environment, the implementation of state environmental supervision, and the administration of fees for NWOS should become the basis for making environmentally significant decisions. To expand the scope of use of this information, it is proposed to ensure the interoperability of the state register data. In addition, the authors come to the conclusion that digitalization of technological rationing based on the best available technologies (hereinafter also BAT) is associated with the use of such technologies as data turnover regulation, experimental legal regimes (regulatory sandboxes) and assessment of the compliance of the applied technology with the best available technology. Moreover, when implementing state environmental supervision, inspections should be planned based on the hazard category of objects of negative impact and when conducting inspections, remote control methods should be used. It is also essential to introduce electronic test sheets for self-checking enterprises. Finally, the digitalization of calculating and collecting fees for NVOS should ensure the smooth functioning of calculating fees by the payer in digital format and control over the correctness of calculation and collection by the supervisory authority.

Mini-review of waste-to-energy related air pollution and their limit value regulations in an international comparison

The concept of circular economy supports mitigation of climate change and other environmental pressures to the planet. Circulating materials in anthropogenic processes come with the risk of accumulating hazardous substances and compounds. In this concept, waste incineration or waste-to-energy (WtE) is a necessary technology to remove these compounds from the life cycle. In this mini-review, contaminants of major importance in the flue gas from waste incineration plants and their environmental impact are discussed. Air pollution of WtE is often seen as the most relevant environmental impact of this treatment option. The emission values parameter set for different countries is presented and compared. The most stringent legally set of emission values could be found in parts of Europe and South Korea. Japan also permits similar strict values when authorising individual incineration plants. In North America, the values are partially less strict as the best available technologies in Europe suggest being possible. Emerging economies, such as India and China, have shown efforts to improve their environmental protection standards but still have room to improve. This could be set in relation to other industrial emitting processes and therefore could be used to assess the relevance of this industry sector to the national emission inventories.

The modern paradigm of rational environmental use as a trend of environmental legal regulation

The main aim of the article is to review modern concepts of the legal principle of rational nature management. To fulfil that aim, a descriptive-analytical and data-gathering methods are utilized. The principle of rational environmental management should be considered as a modern paradigm of environmental and legal regulation. The article substantiates that this paradigm includes doctrinal views on the legal support of rational use of natural resources, state environmental policy, a set of existing legal norms on rational use of natural resources, legal relations on the use of natural resources, and a developed ecological culture. The authors concluded that the central core and an obvious trend in the environmental management paradigm is the idea of the best available technologies.

Assessment of Pre-Treatment Techniques for Coarse Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) Recycling

Waste electrical and electronic equipment or e-waste generation has been skyrocketing over the last decades. This poses waste management and value recovery challenges, especially in developing countries. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are mainly employed in value recovery operations. Despite the high energy costs of generating crushed and milled particles of the order of several microns, those are employed in conventional hydrometallurgical techniques. Coarse PCB pieces (of order a few centimetres) based value recovery operations are not reported at the industrial scale as the complexities of the internal structure of PCBs limit efficient metal and non-metal separation. Since coarse PCB particles’ pre-treatment is of paramount importance to enhance metal and non-metal separations, thermal, mechanical, chemical and electrical pre-treatment techniques were extensively studied. It is quite evident that a single pre-treatment technique does not result in complete metal liberation and therefore several pre-treatment flowsheets were formulated for coarse PCB particles. Thermal, mechanical and chemical pre-treatments integrated flowsheets were derived and such flowsheets are seldom reported in the e-waste literature. The potential flowsheets need to be assessed considering socio-techno-economic considerations to yield the best available technologies (BAT). In the wider context, the results of this work could be useful for achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals.

The new expertise required for designing safe tailings storage facilities

The global mining community has seen a dangerous sequence of failures in tailings dams, beginning with Mount Polley mine, followed by the Samarco, Cadia Valley and Córrego do Feijão mines. This sequence of failures began on August 4, 2014, at the Mount Polley tailings storage facility in British Columbia, Canada. The initial failure in the embankment at the Mount Polley tailings storage facility had substantial impact on the global mining industry. The Independent Expert Engineering Investigation and Review Panel (IEEIRP) tasked with the investigation of the breach in the tailings dam at Mount Polley made major contributions for new guidelines. The incident has given rise to comprehensive recommendations for best available tailings technologies (BAT) based on principles such as the elimination of surface water from impoundments with the promotion of unsaturated conditions in the tailings through drainage provisions. The application of these BAT principles for the surface storage of tailings leads to the use of filtered tailings technology. Filtered tailings technology or “dry stack tailings” can satisfy each of the BAT components when the impoundment is properly designed and constructed. The implementation of the best available technologies for the physical stability (BAT-PS) of tailings impoundments competes directly with the best available technologies for the chemical stability (BAT-CS) of reactive tailings that may produce acid and metalliferous drainage. The new expertise in mine waste management required to achieve both BAT-PS and BAT-CS are discussed in the present paper.

Heat setting system development of bridge floor surface using low temperature geothermal energy

Multilevel transport interchanges play a decisive role in the road infrastructure both throughout the world and in Russia. Significant problems of the safe operation of multi-level highways in the general metropolitan traffic system and the country territory, in general, are associated with the need to thoroughly clear them of snow and ice during winter and off-season periods. The simplest, most obvious, and historically proven non-mechanical ice control method is using the chemical reagents mixtures. Despite the fact that the quality of the original anti-ice chemical products is constantly being improved, the reagents composition is updating, the target operation remains unchanged — a decrease in the ice and snow melting temperature point. Unfortunately, in the process of melting with heavy snowfall, the concentration and, accordingly, the brine viscosity increases, leading to «oiling» of the asphalt pavement, thereby worsening the already difficult situation on the road. One of the attractive ways to keep the roadway in proper condition is to heat it to get rid of ice. Direct heating methods such as central heating or electric heating are too costly and economically unfeasible. It seems promising to use low-temperature geothermal energy, which will significantly reduce energy costs and increase the transport projects’ economic attractiveness. This work is devoted to the study of the practical applicability of the bridge floor surface heat setting technology using low-temperature geothermal energy as part of the «Best available technologies» concept implementation in accordance with GOST R 56828.15-2016 in terms of infrastructure facilities energy efficiency. Based on the work results, the authors provide the study results and numerical modeling, as well as their comparison. The results presented in this article are a part of the dissertation research «New technological solutions development for the bridge floor surface at transport interchanges» Kostenko S.А.