Environmental Impact Assessment for Waste Treatment Options

1
Environmental Impact Assessment for Waste
Treatment Options

• Seung
  Hoon LEE

2
Objectives and Structures

• To overview the waste management system
• To introduce Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for
  evaluation of waste management options
• To compare the potential impact assessment by
  IWM-2 Model
• To predict the assessing impacts which may be
  significant in relation to waste management
  options

3
Waste Management System

• Waste is an inevitable part of our daily life
• NIMBY, PIMFY, BANANA Syndrome
• Waste Management Hierarchy
• No scientific/ technical basis
• No economic assessment
• No environmental/ economic
• comparisons between each other

4
Life Cycle Assessment for Waste Management

• Four stages in LCA

Impact Assessment
Improvement Assessment
Goal and scoping
Inventory Analysis
Source SETAC 1999
5
Waste Management Facility Life-Cycle

• Design and Planning
• Permission and Licensing
• Construction
• Commission and Operation
• Closure or Decommissioning
• Post-Closure Monitoring

6
Waste Management Options Definition in
EIA

• Is there a need for the facility?
• What management or disposal processes are in
  demand relative to the waste arising?
• What is the current management and disposal
  capacity?
• What size would the facility need to be, and does
  this represent an acceptable economic scale of
  activity?
• Where would the facility best be located, in
  market terms?

7
Waste Management Facility Site Selection

• To maximize conformance of the site
  characteristics with the project specification
• To minimize environmental impacts
• To maximize acceptability of the project by the
  local community
• To minimize the cost of the development

8
Factors Influencing Waste Management Options
9
Sustainability Indicators for Waste Management
Short term Long term
Economic Aspects Investment cost, net operation, total net cost per collected ton, net annual total cost Long term viability of collection and sorting operations and final disposal
Environmental Aspects Quantity, quality of material recovered, local and regional health effects, residues, pollution, noise, landfill usage, natural resources used Global impact bio-diversity, global warning, acid rain landscape, electricity consumption, waste produced, water usage
Social Aspects Public acceptance, participation, employment Welfare, natural resources availability
Technical Aspects Scale, flexibility, market potential Potential for future development
10
Environmental Impact Assessment Stages

• Screening regulatory authority to identify the
  need of EIA
• Scooping identified key issues from a board
  range of
• potential concerns
• Assessing direct, indirect, secondary,
  cumulative, short
• and long term, permanent,
  temporary, positive,
• and negative
• Mitigation reduce the undesirable impacts of a
  proposed
• action
• Monitoring environmental compliance with local
• regulations/effectivenes
  s of the mitigation
• measures
• Reporting preparation of reporting
• Reviewing reviewing before approval

11
Significance of Impacts for Different Options
Landfill Incineration Biological Treatment
Odour ooo oo ooo
Health Risk (Inhalation) ooo oooo o
Landfill Gases oooo - -
Leachate oooo - -
Traffic oooo oo o
Noise oooo ooo o
Visual Effect oooo oooo oo
Dust oooo o o
Accidents ooo o o
O Increasing significance, - Negligible
significance
12
Scoping of the Environmental Impact on Waste
Management facilities
Potential issues Impacts on the environment
Population Perceived and actual public health risks nuisance
Transport Traffic generated during construction, operation and restoration
Noise and vibration Increased noise levels during construction, traffic noise including reversing alarms
Ecology Loss of habitat and protected species from restoration of minerals workings
Land and soils Land contamination, temporary loss of agricultural land
Water Leachate from landfill pollution of surface or groundwaters
Air and climate Landfill gas, odour, dust and particulates, pollutants from incomplete combustion
Cultural heritage Loss of heritage features
Landscape Change or loss of valued landscape
13
Public Health

• No human activity is risk-free
• Potential risks to the public
• Accidental emissions and discharges to air, water
  and land
• Emissions and discharges during routine operation
  by poor design or operational practices
• High level of noise, high dust level during
  constructing of waste management facilities
• Appropriate management systems prevention plans,
  emergency plans, regular inspection
• Open management of waste management facilities
  disclose emissions data, discuss operations,
  encourage site visits, respond promptly to
  complaints

14
Transport

• Significantly increase road traffic nuisance to
  residents and road users (noise, fear)
• Risks of an accident involving hazardous wastes
• Air pollution vehicle exhausts, dust/dirty from
  vehicle carrying dusty waste/residues such as ash
• Mitigation of Transport
• - No transport routes through residential areas
• - Appropriate road condition for a significant
  increase in heavy vehicle traffic
• - Speed restrictions on vehicles entering and
  leaving the site

15
Monitoring and Auditing

• Monitoring for noise, dust and odour issues
• Water quality of leachate, surface water and
  groundwater
• Traffic management plan
• Air monitoring at source
• Visual impact, ecology, land restoration
• Any relevant public health indicators
• Any kind of social impacts

16
Public Consultation

• Environmental awareness
• Understanding of environmental issues associated
  with waste management options
• Critical to open decision-making and should begin
  as early as possible in the EIA process
• Faithful public consultation process (conference
  format rather than domenstration format)
• NIMBYY syndrome (concern over property value,
  visual impact)
• Emissions long term health effects

17
Conclusions

• EIA needs to be fully understood and taken into
  account in order to prevent or minimize potential
  impacts on the environment.
• EIA is quite comprehensive assessment because it
  requires possibly all kind of future impacts in
  the environment to be reviewed, mitigated, and
  monitored by professional expert.
• Without proper implementing of EIA for waste
  management project, the future is unlikely to
  stray far from the common social syndrome known
  as NOT IN MY BACKYARD.