Landfills and disaster waste management

Printed proceedings of abstractsDisasters can generate large volumes of waste and debris (EPA 2008). In some cases, many years worth of waste can be generated in a single event – often overwhelming local solid waste management facilities and personnel, refer Figure 1. The availability and suitability of disposal sites can affect the efficiency of a disaster waste management programme and overall disaster recovery effort. Disaster waste impacts almost every aspect of an emergency response and recovery effort. Debris can impede rescuers and emergency services reaching survivors; inhibit provision of lifeline support; pose a public and environmental health hazard; and hinder the social and economic recovery of the affected area (Johnston, Dolan et al. 2009). Poor management of a clean-up effort can exacerbate these problems, and can result in a slow and costly recovery which is potentially risky to public and environmental health in both the short and long term. Landfills are an integral part of any disaster waste management strategy. Landfills are an efficient and, if constructed and operated appropriately, effective means of managing disaster waste. However, available airspace in existing landfills is often limited so disaster waste managers must consider 1) expanding existing facilities (in terms of size and waste acceptance) (Luther 2008), 2) constructing new facilities, or 3) reducing waste to landfill by recycling and reuse. Landfill operators may also change health and safety management procedures to facilitate faster management of the waste. All these options has social, environmental and economic impacts, and their consideration is an integral part of both the emergency response/recovery and solid waste management systems. Figure 2 shows the conceptual framework used by the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management for all recovery works of which debris will be managed within. So what are the decisions facing landfill and disaster waste managers? What is the best way to manage a landfill in a disaster situation? Is it appropriate to reduce environmental and health and safety standards to increase landfill capacity? How do you appropriately site a new landfill without time to assess the environmental impact? What are the acceptable risks in a disaster situation and who carries the liability (Luther 2008)? In the poster the challenge of landfill and disaster waste managers will be introduced. An overview of the social, environmental and economic issues facing landfill managers is presented and we ask the question - if you were in charge – what would you do

Should waste management be considered a lifeline in New Zealand?

Called Resilient Organisations Research Report 2010/01 at http://www.resorgs.org.nz/pubs/Resilient%20Organisations%20Lifeline%20report_250110.pdfExecutive Summary Lifelines (also referred to as Critical Infrastructure) provide the essential services that support the life of our community. Maintaining provision of these services in an emergency response situation is critical to the recovery of a community. In New Zealand regional lifeline groups have been established to promote planning, resource sharing and coordination between lifeline service providers. In addition to this, New Zealand emergency law has provision for certain designated Lifeline Utilities to act as necessary to restore services in an emergency situation. However, solid waste management is not included in either the planning process nor is it provided for under the emergency legislation. A qualitative assessment of the importance of waste management to a community recovery effort and semi quantitative assessment on the impact of waste management on other lifeline provisions has been carried out. In a recovery, it is shown that waste management has the potential to pose health and safety hazards such as disease and environmental pollution. Waste management is also shown to be important to the provision of many lifelines. Given this importance and dependence, great benefit would be gained from including waste management activities in lifeline planning and coordination to facilitate more effective resource planning and prioritisation. From a legal perspective, the complexity of the waste management system would make it difficult to legislate as a Lifeline Utility. Not only are there multiple components to a solid waste system (disposal, treatment, recycling and collection), pre-disaster solid waste capacities would need to be significantly augmented to cater for the disaster generated waste and often this would entail the operation of organisations not normally involved in solid waste management. However, there would be benefits in providing legislation to require and give regulatory flexibility to pre-disaster solid waste operators and facilities to restore pre-disaster services following a disaster. This allowance would facilitate the first stage of the clean-up effort before an integrated disaster waste management system could be implemented

Disaster Waste Law : An analysis of the implications of existing legislation on disaster waste management in New Zealand

In the recovery following a disaster, disaster waste managers are restricted by existing legislation. In many cases, emergency legislation is available to waive peace-time requirements to reduce threats to life, property and the environment. But disaster waste management sits in a grey area between an immediate hazard and a longer term threat to the economic, social and environmental recovery of a disaster struck area. Emergency laws are not often written with disaster recovery in mind. Legal waivers were used effectively and ineffectively during the waste management processes following both Hurricane Katrina, 2005 and the Victorian Bushfires, 2009. In both these examples it was clear that the main driver behind use of the legal waivers was to expedite the clean-up process. New Zealand law applicable to disaster waste is complex with a plethora of legislations and regulatory authorities associated with it. In general, current laws have adequate provisions to cope with the likely needs of disaster waste management, however, the complexity of responsibilities, stakeholders and unclear statutory precedence may result in slow or ineffectual decision-making. One potential bottle neck identified is the restrictions on transportation of hazardous goods by road and by sea. Complex licencing and permitting structures may be extremely restrictive. The consultative, effects based nature of the Resource Management Act in New Zealand is also a potential hurdle to long-term disaster waste management. While there are effective emergency mechanisms to commence activities quickly, medium to long-term continuation of activities will be dependent on resource consent approval. The uncertainties associated with consent approvals may dis-empower the decision-maker. A pre-established, regulatory approved, assessment process which balances social restoration and environmental protection would be a useful tool to support the decision maker.I n general, disaster waste management laws needs to: allow for flexibility for adaptation to any situation; be bounded enough to provide support and confidence in outcomes for decision-makers; be effectively communicated with the public both pre and post disaster; and provide stream-lining of waste management organisational structures including decision-making authority

Peer Review Panel: A New Zealand approach to regulatory compliance of landfills

New Zealand is increasingly using a Peer Review Panel (PRP) system for regulatory compliance of complex and contentious environmental infrastructure facilities, such as landfills. The PRP is a set of experts who serve as an advisor to the operator and the regulator, and are responsible to both parties for independent assessments. The PRP for the Kate Valley landfill facility is presented as a case study in the motivation for, and operation of, a PRP. The use of the PRP arises partly from the effects-based environmental legislation in New Zealand, which leads to a lack of standardization in construction/operation and unique permit conditions at each site. The PRP meets with operators on a regular basis, conducts site visits, receives relevant documentation, and prepares an annual report for regulatory authorities. The PRP is able to examine and discuss safety, financial, and operational issues with the operators while maintaining confidentiality. This allows for open discussions of these issues where they might impact on environmental performance. The PRP also assists operators by providing them with technical information and experience from outside the operator’s business environment. The PRP is a valuable option for regulatory bodies and project proponents to consider when developing permits for any one-off, complex facility with potentially large environmental impacts, and with great public concern

Capacity Gaps in Post Disaster Waste Management: Case Study in Sri Lanka

Disaster waste is one of the major consequences aftermath of any disaster, impacts on public and environment, rescue and emergency services, provision of lifeline support and socio-economic recovery of affected areas. Thus, management of wastes created by disasters has become an increasingly important issue to be addressed in responding to a disaster. This chapter intends to present the prevailing gaps in disaster waste management and approaches to minimize the impacts on disaster management at developing countries with special emphasis to Sri Lankan context. Findings revealed that, unavailability of single point responsibility and provisions for disaster waste in existing policies and capacity constraints of the prevailing peace time solid waste management practices as major capacity gaps. Establishment of a regulatory body and enforceable rules and regulations with necessary levels of capacities were identified with seven areas for capacity building for post disaster waste management. The research enabled to attain sustainable post disaster waste management for future resilience

Reconstruction of magma chamber processes preserved in olivine-phlogopite micro-ijolites from the Oldoinyo Lengai, Tanzania

A detailed petrographic and mineralogical investigation of olivine-phlogopite micro-ijolite xenoliths from Oldoinyo Lengai, Tanzania indicates a complex evolutional history. These xenoliths consist of diverse textural subdomains characterized by minerals ranging from early-formed olivine, through diopside-hosted perovskite and phlogopite, to evolved aegirine-augite and titanite. Thermometry and mineral compositions in the subdomains suggest crystallization temperatures from 1070–970 °C to 850–700 °C at plutonic pressures and SiO2-activities controlled by perovskite-titanite equilibria. Double coronas are a characteristic textural feature of the olivine-phlogopite micro-ijolite, consisting of olivine cores surrounded by an inner clinopyroxene corona and an outer phlogopite corona. These double coronas might have formed during early magma chamber processes, including magma movement to a subsequent chamber resulting in dissolution of olivine with subsequent crystallization and accumulation of diopside and phlogopite. Diopside−aegirine-augite compositional zonation indicates several magma injections followed by cooling periods, during the formation of micro-ijolite groundmass. Mg# (80–83) and Ca (0.1–0.3 in wt%) contents of olivine together with the presence of primary melt inclusions in clinopyroxene, phlogopite, and nepheline indicate a magmatic origin from a possible parental olivine-nephelinite melt. There is evidence for subsolidus, or near-solidus, re-equilibration processes as indicated by the reaction of olivine with titanite forming symplectitic textures of ilmenite and diopside with minor zirconolite. Ti-exchange between phlogopite phenocrysts and other Ti-bearing minerals (perovskite, titanite, magnetite) resulted in ∼750 °C equilibrium temperatures for phlogopite, which are much lower than mafic magmatic (>900 °C) conditions. Calculated subsolidus temperatures suggest crystallization of olivine-phlogopite micro-ijolites over a 10–20 km depth interval

Erioflorin stabilizes the tumor suppressor Pdcd4 by inhibiting its interaction with the E3-ligase β-TrCP1

Loss of the tumor suppressor Pdcd4 was reported for various tumor entities and proposed as a prognostic marker in tumorigenesis. We previously characterized decreased Pdcd4 protein stability in response to mitogenic stimuli, which resulted from p70S6K1-dependent protein phosphorylation, β-TrCP1-mediated ubiquitination, and proteasomal destruction. Following high-throughput screening of natural product extract libraries using a luciferase-based reporter assay to monitor phosphorylation-dependent proteasomal degradation of the tumor suppressor Pdcd4, we succeeded in showing that a crude extract from Eriophyllum lanatum stabilized Pdcd4 from TPA-induced degradation. Erioflorin was identified as the active component and inhibited not only degradation of the Pdcd4-luciferase-based reporter but also of endogenous Pdcd4 at low micromolar concentrations. Mechanistically, erioflorin interfered with the interaction between the E3-ubiquitin ligase β-TrCP1 and Pdcd4 in cell culture and in in vitro binding assays, consequently decreasing ubiquitination and degradation of Pdcd4. Interestingly, while erioflorin stabilized additional β-TrCP-targets (such as IκBα and β-catenin), it did not prevent the degradation of targets of other E3-ubiquitin ligases such as p21 (a Skp2-target) and HIF-1α (a pVHL-target), implying selectivity for β-TrCP. Moreover, erioflorin inhibited the tumor-associated activity of known Pdcd4- and IκBα-regulated αtranscription factors, that is, AP-1 and NF-κB, altered cell cycle progression and suppressed proliferation of various cancer cell lines. Our studies succeeded in identifying erioflorin as a novel Pdcd4 stabilizer that inhibits the interaction of Pdcd4 with the E3-ubiquitin ligase β-TrCP1. Inhibition of E3-ligase/target-protein interactions may offer the possibility to target degradation of specific proteins only as compared to general proteasome inhibition

Dissecting the knee - Air shower measurements with KASCADE

Recent results of the KASCADE air shower experiment are presented in order to shed some light on the astrophysics of cosmic rays in the region of the knee in the energy spectrum. The results include investigations of high-energy interactions in the atmosphere, the analysis of the arrival directions of cosmic rays, the determination of the mean logarithmic mass, and the unfolding of energy spectra for elemental groups

Driving Big Data – Integration and Synchronization of Data Sources for Artificial Intelligence Applications with the Example of Truck Driver Work Stress and Strain Analysis

This paper contributes to the issue of big data analysis and data quality with the specific field of time synchronization. As a highly relevant use case, big data analysis of work stress and strain factors for driving professions is outlined. Drivers experience work stress and strain due to trends like traffic congestion, time pressure or worsening work conditions. Although a large professional group with 2.5 million (US) and 3.5 million (EU) truck drivers, scientific analysis of work stress and strain factors is scarce. Driver shortage is growing into a large-scale economic and societal challenge, especially for small businesses. Empirical investigations require big data approaches with sources like physiological and truck, traffic, weather, planning or accident data. For such challenges, accurate data is required, especially regarding time synchronization. Awareness among researchers and practitioners is key and first solution approaches are provided, connecting to many further Machine Learning and big data applications