The article presents a study conducted to compare energy use and environmental impacts of waste incineration and recycling. It states that the study drawn from the studies regarding the impact of waste management options and it is based on several Life-cycle assessments (LCA) for waste systems. The study discusses several materials including plastic, metal, and paper. It concludes that the recycling leads to reduce energy use in comparison to energy extraction.
The pyrolysis kinetics of cellulosic uncoated printing and writing paper, which is one of the principal materials contributing to the municipal solid waste (MSW) of Taiwan, was investigated with a thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) reaction system. The experiments were carried out in a nitrogen environment in the 450–850 K temperature range at various constant heating rates of 1, 2, and 5 K/min. The results indicated that there were two principal reactions in TGA curves as distinguished by the two significant and distinct mass changes over the experimental conditions. The pyrolysis of uncoated printing and writing paper can be adequately described by a two-reaction model. The corresponding activation energies, preexponential factors, and reaction orders were determined. The experimental results were satisfactorily fitted by the proposed chemical reaction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Marr, W. Allen, Ladd, Charles C., and Fox, Patrick J.
Subjects
*ACCESS to archives, *PAPER, *TECHNOLOGY, *GUIDELINES, *DOCUMENTATION, *CASE studies
Abstract
In this article the author discusses the rules for writing a case study paper. The author states that case study papers offers documentation of the investigation, analysis, and/or performance of a geotechnical project and it present information that will advance geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering practice.
A list of environmental research papers related to January 2007 issue of Journal of Environmental Engineering is presented. Names of the researchers, title of the paper with reference material are mentioned. Some of the papers of interest include "Hydrologic applications of minimal resource allocation network (MRAN) algorithm" by Amenu, G. G. and colleagues, "Higher-order moments of velocity fluctuations in an open channel flow with large bottom roughness" by Balachandar, R. and colleagues.
Small-scale model houses were built with different masonry products in order to investigate the environmental performance of sustainable construction materials. Three model houses were designed and developed as per the standards one with recycled paper mill waste (RPMW)-cement bricks, another with fly ash bricks and the third with ferrocement wall panels. In order to assess the indoor temperature for these particular sustainable building materials, the temperature inside the model houses was monitored over the study location for the period of a year. The economic viability for the developed model houses was also analyzed. Wall surface temperature readings on the exposed south facade were used to estimate thermal conduction of the wall assembly. Detailed analysis revealed that the developed RPMW-cement brick model house was more thermally resistant and economical than the fly ash brick and ferrocement wall panel model houses. Energy efficient building minimizes energy consumption through the reduction of indoor temperature, making the RPMW-cement brick model house the best choice for construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]