Samantha E. Cruz-Sotelo

Application of analytic hierarchy process in a waste treatment technology assessment in Mexico

The high per capita generation of solid waste and the environmental problems in major rural communities of Ensenada, Baja California, have prompted authorities to seek alternatives for waste treatment. In the absence of a selection methodology, three technologies of waste treatment with energy recovery (an anaerobic digester, a downdraft gasifier, and a plasma gasifier) were evaluated, taking the broader social, political, economic, and environmental issues into considerations. Using the scientific literature as a baseline, interviews with experts, decision makers and the community, and waste stream studies were used to construct a hierarchy that was evaluated by the analytic hierarchy process. In terms of the criteria, judgments, and assumptions made in the model, the anaerobic digester was found to have the highest rating and should consequently be selected as the waste treatment technology for this area. The study results showed low sensitivity, so alternative scenarios were not considered. The methodology developed in this study may be useful for other governments who wish to assess technologies to select waste treatment.

Household hazardous wastes as a potential source of pollution: a generation study.

Certain domestic wastes exhibit characteristics that render them dangerous, such as explosiveness, flammability, spontaneous combustion, reactivity, toxicity and corrosiveness. The lack of information about their generation and composition hinders the creation of special programs for their collection and treatment, making these wastes a potential threat to human health and the environment. We attempted to quantify the levels of hazardous household waste (HHW) generated in Mexicali, Mexico. The analysis considered three socioeconomic strata and eight categories. The sampling was undertaken on a house-by-house basis, and hypothesis testing was based on differences between two proportions for each of the eight categories. In this study, HHW comprised 3.49% of the total generated waste, which exceeded that reported in previous studies in Mexico. The greatest quantity of HHW was generated by the middle stratum; in the upper stratum, most packages were discarded with their contents remaining. Cleaning products represent 45.86% of the HHW generated. Statistical differences were not observed for only two categories among the three social strata. The scarcity of studies on HHW generation limits direct comparisons. Any decrease in waste generation within the middle social stratum will have a large effect on the total amount of waste generated, and decrease their impact on environmental and human health.

APLICACIÓN DE LA METODOLOGÍA DE ANÁLISIS DE CICLO DE VIDA PARA EVALUAR EL DESEMPEÑO AMBIENTAL DE SISTEMAS DE GESTIÓN DE RESIDUOS EN IBEROAMERICA

The Life Cycle Assessment methodology is the most appropriate technique for evaluating municipal solid waste management systems. In recent times, its implementation has been spreading in different Latin American countries. So, this paper presents five applications of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology with the aim of evaluating the environmental performance of: a selective collection system for household waste in Spain; a waste electrical and electronic equipment management system, mainly focused on mobile phone devices, in Mexico; a construction and demolition waste management system in Argentina; the incorporation of selective collection in a municipal solid waste management system in Brazil; and finally, a municipal solid waste management system for household in Colombia. For each case study it has been made an inventory, identifying as a main handicap, the lack of inventory data in commercial databases adapted to different countries, different factions and different treatments of waste management. To solve this problem, inventory modeling has been performed as a combination of primary and secondary data. Finally, the contribution to different impact categories of stage of each life cycle waste management system has been obtained. Results provide a starting point for the selection and implementation of measures to promote the environmental improvement of waste management systems.

Electronic Waste in Mexico – Challenges for Sustainable Management

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the situation of the management of electronic waste in Mexico; it has been organized into four sections. In the first, a brief description of the problem of electronic waste based on the world vision presents the situation of transboundary movements of electronic waste from developed countries to developing countries or emerging stands out, in which it is done an incipient and inadequate man‐ agement without concern about pollution, and health damage caused. In the second, the law applied to waste management in this country, concerning international, regional and national framework is presented. The third section, an analysis of the actors involved in the production, marketing, use, handling and disposal of electronic waste is presented; highlighting the role currently performed. A conceptual model of the life cycle of electri‐ cal-electronic equipment as a starting point for handling electronic waste and the model of management electronic that is now operating in Mexico, in which the actors involved in the value chain of electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE’s), is presented. In the last section, efforts that Mexican environmental authorities have done on the manage‐ ment of electronic waste, and WEEE s generation data are analyzed, a generic model is presented enhance the WEEE s in Mexico as a first phase to move from an emerging elec‐ tronic waste management to a management model.