You are here

Waste

One more time; keep the City Clean

Freetown after Independence in 1961 up to the early seventies was a reasonably clean city. Local dump sites for garbage were strategically located all over the city and were regularly cleared out by either the City Council or the Ministry of Health. The City Council was then a vibrant entity focused on providing municipal services to the City. Drains were cleaned out regularly by Council or through the services of Contractors such as the late Ajibu Jalloh and others. Markets were washed through an arrangement with the Fire Force. 

 

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Study Indicates Ebola-Infected Sewage May Require Longer Holding Period

INFECTION CONTROL TODAY                                          March 11, 2015
Storing Ebola-infected sewage for a week at 86 degrees Fahrenheit or higher should allow enough time for more than 99.99 percent of the virus to die, though lower ambient temperatures may require a longer holding period, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University's School of Public Health.

The study co-authored by Lisa M. Casanova, assistant professor of environmental health, and Scott R. Weaver, research assistant professor in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, used bacteriophage Φ6, a type of virus, as a stand-in to study how long Ebola and similar viruses can survive in latrines and other systems for collecting and disposing of sewage. Bacteriophage Φ6 has a lipid envelope, meaning it has structural similarities to Ebola and several other types of virus, allowing for a safe study that did not require use of Ebola itself.

"The places hardest hit by Ebola are the places that often have the least infrastructure for safely disposing of sewage and are using things like pit latrines," says Casanova. "They need the answers to questions like this."

Read full article.

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola in Liberia: Keeping communities safe from contaminated waste

 WHO PRESS RELEASE                                                                                              Feb. 23, 2015

Every day, every bed in an Ebola treatment unit creates approximately 300 litres of liquid waste. Managing this waste has been a challenge in the Ebola outbreak in Liberia. WHO is working with partners to ensure this waste is effectively decontaminated and no longer poses a threat to health.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Field Deployable Hydrolysis System (FDHS)

submitted by Sarah Slaughter

      

The Field Deployable Hydrolysis System was designed, developed and fabricated by a government team to provide a transportable, high throughput neutralization system designed to convert chemical warfare materiel into compounds not usable as weapons.

defense.gov

The Field Deployable Hydrolysis System (FDHS) is a transportable, high-throughput modular demilitarization system designed to render chemical warfare materiel into compounds not usable as weapons. The system uses neutralization technology to destroy bulk chemical warfare agents and their precursors by heating and mixing with reagents, such as water, sodium hydroxide and sodium hypochlorite to facilitate chemical degradation resulting in a destruction efficiency of 99.9 percent. The neutralization process generates hazardous waste in volumes of five to 14 times the volume of chemical warfare materiel treated. This hazardous waste can then be commercially disposed of in accordance with host-nation environmental laws.

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

U.S. Hospitals Unprepared to Handle Ebola waste, Experts Say

      

As Emory was treating two US missionaries who were evacuated from West Africa in August, their waste hauler, Stericycle, initially refused to handle it. Photograph: Michael Duff/AP

REUTERS      September 24, 2014

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety experts said.

Waste management companies are refusing to haul away the soiled sheets and virus-spattered protective gear associated with treating the disease, citing federal guidelines that require Ebola-related waste to be handled in special packaging by people with hazardous materials training, infectious disease and biosafety experts told Reuters.

...

Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, an expert on public health preparedness at Pennsylvania State University, said there's "no way in the world" that U.S. hospitals are ready to treat patients with highly infectious diseases like Ebola.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Fracking Waste Disposal Fuels Opposition in U.S. and Abroad

In England, the government approved the injection of a million and a half gallons of potentially radioactive water under the North Moors National Park. Photo credit: SpinwatchAnastasia Pantsios | August 14, 2014 11:50 am

Spinwatch’s Andy Rowell reports:

The commercial success of the Ebberston Moor field depends on Third Energy being allowed to re-inject the potentially radioactive water that is produced with the gas back into what is known as the Sherwood Sandstone formation, which overlies the limestone where the gas will be extracted from. The sandstone lies 1400 metres below the ground. Notes of a meeting between Third Energy and the regulator involved, the Environment Agency, disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), reveals that “the success of the Ebberston Moor Field is dependent on the disposal of [produced] water to the Sherman Sandstone.”

http://ecowatch.com/2014/08/14/fracking-waste-disposal-opposition/2/

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Trash Concentration in Ocean as Dangerous as Climatic Change

      

timesofindia.indiatimes.com - June 17, 2014

SYDNEY: Large concentrations of trash in the oceans, also known as "plastic soups", are as dangerous as climatic change, one of the experts in the field, Mike Moore said, Australian media reported.

These high concentrations of ocean garbage "are currently killing a more animals than climate change", Moore said.

. . . "We are facing a new phenomenon. In fact, it is a new habitat which does not have precendents in the planet's history," Moore added.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - Tracking the garbage deserts of the ocean

RESEARCH - Origin, dynamics and evolution of ocean garbage patches from observed surface drifters

(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

China Says More Than Half of Its Groundwater is Polluted

      

A pipe discharges factory waste water from the Shenhua coal-to-liquid project into a stream in the hills in Ordos in the inner Mongolia. Photograph: Qiu Bo/Greenpeace

Number of groundwater sites of poor or extremely poor quality increases to 59.6%, Chinese government says

theguardian.com - by Jonathan Kaiman - April 23, 2014

Nearly 60% of China’s underground water is polluted, state media has reported, underscoring the severity of the country’s environmental woes.

The country’s land and resources ministry found that among 4,778 testing spots in 203 cities, 44% had “relatively poor” underground water quality; the groundwater in another 15.7% tested as “very poor”.

Water quality improved year-on-year at 647 spots, and worsened in 754 spots, the ministry said.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Toilet Tech Fair Tackles Global Sanitation Woes

submitted by Albert Gomez

      

In this Friday, March 21, 2014 photo, an exhibitor from Loughborough University demonstrates the use of a toilet during Reinvent The Toilet Fair in New Delhi, India. Scientists who accepted the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s challenge to reinvent the toilet showcased their inventions in the Indian capital Saturday. The primary goal: to sanitize waste, use minimal water or electricity, and produce a usable product at low cost. India is by far the worst culprit, with more than 640 million people defecating in the open and producing a stunning 72,000 tons of human waste each day - the equivalent weight of almost 10 Eiffel Towers or 1,800 humpback whales. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)

wirelessdesignmag.com - by Katy Daigle - March 24, 2014

New Delhi (AP) — Who would have expected a toilet to one day filter water, charge a cellphone or create charcoal to combat climate change?

These are lofty ambitions beyond what most of the world's 2.5 billion people with no access to modern sanitation would expect. Yet, scientists and toilet innovators around the world say these are exactly the sort of goals needed to improve global public health amid challenges such as poverty, water scarcity and urban growth.

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Waste
howdy folks