Irina Aura Istrate

Treatment and disposal of tyres: two EU approaches. A review

The treatment and disposal of tyres from vehicles has long been of considerable environmental importance. The main problem lies in the mixed composition of the tyres. Studies have been undertaken to modify the structure of the tyres, especially with reference to the percentage of granulated rubber incorporated, in order to improve their performance, and also to reduce their environmental impact during normal functioning (noise, particulates, etc.) and facilitate recycling and final disposal. The aim of the present study is to review and compare how used tyres are treated and disposed of in two different EU countries. The first is Italy, which has been part of the European Union since its inception, and has important industrial traditions. The second is Romania, an emerging country which recently became part of the EU, and whose economic and industrial development has had a major boost in recent years, with a strong growth in waste production, together with consumption in urban areas. The occasion was useful to consider the situation concerning the evolution of the different aspects related to the management of the end-of-life tyres. In particular, the paper considers the properties of tyre waste and their potential reuse, the enhancement of end-of-life tires and the various types of recovery, such as the reconstruction of tyres and the material recovery. The aspects related to the energy recovery and the use of the life cycle analysis, as a tool to support the choices of the best management system, were also taken into consideration, not forgetting that an adequate end-of-life planning is important when developing a sustainable product, since it can affect considerably its overall life cycle.

Trends in the management of residual municipal solid waste

In agreement with European Union directives, the integrated management of municipal solid waste must be developed ensuring a balanced relationship between the streams of selective collection and the one regarding the residual waste. A theoretical scenario is made where the residual municipal solid waste is composed only of non‐recyclable fractions. An important aspect concerns the role of the organic fraction as selective collection can significantly decrease its content in the residual waste. This paper focuses on the planning, design and management consequences of this unsteady scenario. The treatments that are considered are: combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, integrated thermal plants, aerobic mechanical–biological treatments, anaerobic mechanical–biological treatments and other types of treatment. The considerations are based on the experience of the authors not only in terms of development of research but also in terms of transfer of the research results to the real scale, and knowledge of the state‐of‐the‐art of the sector.

Maintenance strategies and local impact of MSW incinerators

The present paper gives a contribution to the understanding of the effects of variations in maintenance scheduling on the environmental impact of municipal solid waste incinerators. The proposed approach allows a vision of their impact beyond the conventional balances. The characteristics of a selected case study were put forward and discussed. A plant proposed for a region in the North East of Italy was chosen for the scheduling effects analysis because of the long period of non-operation of each waste treatment line: 3 months per year as requested from the local environmental protection agency. The following effects were discussed on a yearly basis: maintenance stop fractionation, maintenance stop lasting, maintenance stop seasonal scheduling; the last aspect was discussed also at device level. The extreme scenario of seasonal stop gave the opportunity of assessing the highest reduction of yearly average impact from the stack, varying the season of maintenance: a reduction up to 23% could be obtained for the pollutants concentration contribution at ground level in the area of highest impact, comparing the worst case with the best case by a diffusive model. In the case of more common periods of stops for maintenance the reduction would be lower. The role of district heating must be taken into account too.

Noise and Air Pollution from Urban Traffic

Together with the atmospheric emission of pollutants, noise can affect the health of the population. In particular, urban traffic is important when considering population health, because of its proximity to the receptors. In comparison with other pollutants, the control of environmental noise has been hampered by insufficient knowledge of its effects on people and of dose-response relationships, as well as by a lack of defined criteria. Due to the high levels of external noise and interior noise, the difficulties are in communication and a series of nonspecific symptoms: irritability, headache, palpitations, sleep disorders, stress. Concerning air pollution, the health of the population is directly influenced by primary emissions or atmospheric transformation from motor vehicles. Few studies have characterized the spatial correlation between both factors, air pollutants and noise, thus this paper, based on urban noise measurements, presents preliminary data on noise levels in a European capital and a discussion where interactions with air quality are dealt with. Data demonstrates that the urban structure of the analysed city cannot guarantee an adequate protection of the population against noise, because of the interactions between neighbouring areas.

Experimental Research Regarding the Application of Electro-Flushing Method on Diesel Contaminated Soils

Abstract In 2011, as a result of the inventory conducted at the national level, The Ministry Of Environment concluded that the largest number of contaminated sites with hydrocarbons are due to the petroleum products distribution (nearly 400 sites), followed by the hydrocarbons extraction (about 310 sites). So, soil contamination with liquid petroleum products resulting from many industrial activities became an important issue of environment protection. Unfortunately not all local governments have provided a list of contaminated sites, which means that there is a possibility to have a bigger problem at the national level. All these surfaces are in a continuous growth due to industrial and social development and that is why it is necessary to study and improve decontamination methods of contaminated sites in order to regain one of our most important resources - the soil. In this paper, the main results obtained during a research that aimed to study two different treatment methods of contaminated soil in a combined solution, are presented. The newly developed method is called electro-flushing. Results proved that combining the two nominated methods could be a viable solution for treating diesel polluted soil with better performances comparing with using them separately. Concerning the electrochemical treatment of diesel contaminated soils an efficiency of 35-40 % could be obtained after 28 days; while using the flushing method up to 15-20% efficiency could be reached. On the other hand, if we combine these two methods, we can reach remediation efficiency up to 50%. So, the main interesting results of the present research is given by the fact that combining two known remediation methods, better performances could be achieved.