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The article offers information on the congress on the management of radioactive wastes from fuel reprocessing. About 240 delegates from 26 countries and eight international organizations attended a meeting organized by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for European Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Paris, France in late November 1972. During the meeting, it was identified that no uniform policy of nuclear waste management exists. Added to this is the varying contention that high level waste in one country may be taken only as an intermediate level waste by another.

The article discusses a report based on a research by R. Stephen and Margaret F. Fells of the Chemistry Department at the University of Chicago about the energy cost of automobiles in the United States. The research aims to provide the Institute of Environmental Quality of State of Illinois with aid in making decisions on the disposal of automobile hulks and of solid waste in general. It also analyzes one aspect of how to use materials and energy from a thermodynamic perspective. The study concludes that recycling junked automobiles and reusing the scrap in the manufacture of new ones would realize reductions in total power consumption.

The recycling of solid wastes is a major ecological goal. Although recycling is technologically feasible, reversing the flow of materials in the channels of distribution -- marketing trash through a "backward" channel -- presents a challenge. Existing backward channels are primitive, and financial incentives are inadequate. The consumer must be motivated to undergo a role change and become a producer -- the initiating force in the reverse distribution process. INSET: A New Business Competitor Abroad.... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the Study of Critical Environmental Problems (SCEP) conducted by scientists and professionals on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The study focuses on the consequences of pollution in terms of changes in climate, ocean ecology and large, terrestrial ecosystems. The pollutants considered in the study were those arising chiefly from the chemical processes and waste disposal practices of civilization. Also, SCEP produced an authoritative and thoughtful report which may be used as a launching platform for national and international programs of pollution control.

The article discuses issues and topics related to the polluted streams and rivers that have flowed with the refuse of industrial and urban growth in the U.S. Proposals on how water resources might better be managed is presented, including a radical approach to halting water pollution. The authors in this paper report on a plan for obtaining enough water for North America's growing needs, professionally engaged in studies of environmental health and described the effects of foaming detergents in our waste water. INSET: WHAT THE PENDING FEDERAL BILL WOULD DO.

The article discusses issues concerning soil and water conservation which is said to have required harmony between private and public goals in the U.S. The two long-term goals of the national public in soil and water conservation is that firstly, they want continued economic growth on which the efficiency of resource use bears directly, secondly, they realizes the importance of avoiding waste of the renewable resources. Private agencies have also traditionally taken part on the scientific research, education, and technical assistance on soil and water use handled by cooperating national, state, and local public agencies. It is believed that application of science to soil and water conservation fall in the field of art which calls the relation of things to people.

The article presents information on legal developments in marketing relative to the regulation of product characteristics. The article presents two advisory opinions from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding the labeling of organic municipal waste and the use of "Danish" or "Danish Modern" in the marketing of furniture. Additionally, the article discusses the Report of the National Advisory Committee of the Department of Commerce on Flammability Standards Procedure, as well as the Department of Commerce's directives on Flammability Standards of Carpets and Rugs. Additional discussion of other cases is provided.

Solid waste disposal differs greatly from air pollution and water pollution control because of its involvement with management. The article examines various methods used presently in the United States which have proved to be successful, as well as plans for solid waste management which look promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a transfer station arriving trucks dump collected refuse, and larger capacity trucks haul the refuse to a final disposal point. Transfer of refuse from collection to haul trucks is direct at some such facilities, while at others a storage area serves as a buffer into which refuse is dumped and from which it is loaded for shipment. A (single) deterministic queuing model is formulated for idealized forms of both direct and indirect transfer. The model takes into account a time-dependent arrival rate of refuse, the number of haul trucks, the hauling time, the number of collection loads per haul load, the storage capacity, numbers of dumping and loading channels, and dumping and loading times. Arrivals and departures of both types of vehicles are treated as fluid flows. Mathematical relations that describe physical behavior are derived, and interpreted graphically. Quantities represented graphically include storage level, and queues and delays of both kinds of vehicles. Optimal haul schedules are obtained for 'typical' examples. The San Francisco (indirect) and Orange County (direct) transfer stations are discussed, based on direct observation. The model is applied directly to the former facility; a variation of the model is outlined for the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes how companies in the U.S. can develop and manage their waste control programs. Need for U.S. executives to respond to the increase in official environmental actions; Definition of company's waste stream; Tasks of a vice-president of environmental affairs; On-site treatment facilities; Regional waste treatment center; Treatment alternatives.

Federal and state legislation is increasingly making solid waste management an important service provided by rural communities and planning regions. Few systems have been designed for rural areas, and few studies have included data on spatial effects of collection density and transfer distances to disposal sites. Models are given estimating quantity of solid waste generated and costs per ton of solid waste collected, transferred, and disposed for different service areas and alternative technologies. The data can be used to project quantities of solid waste for collection and disposal and to determine optimum site location of disposal facilities in rural regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently initiated national, regional, and global efforts to control ocean dumping rely on prohibition and regulation by permit. The paper proposes and examines an alternative control instrument, an international tax to regulate ocean dumping. Section I provides a brief overview of ocean dumping and existing control instruments. Section II builds the rationale for the proposed tax scheme. The first supporting argument is couched in terms of the efficient allocation of environmental resources. Following a necessary digression on the economic nature of common property resources, the paper demonstrates that a tax scheme can lead to a significant improvement in resource allocation, permitting higher environmental standards at lower real cost. The second supporting argument views the assimilative capacity of the oceans as an economic resource from which rent could be extracted by the international community. A tax would alter the current situation in which the rent is appropriated by ocean dumpers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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waste disposal in the textile industry are reviewed. No simple economical treatment is yet available to handle removal of color, BOD, COD, phosphates, and other wastes. Each waste seems to demand a tailored solution requiring a combination of methods. Biological treatment alone does not remove enough color, COD and nutrients to be used alone but is the most economical of the methods. Reverse osmosis or use of adsorptive resins for removal of dissolved organics and color must be preceded by chemical flocculation, sedimentation or some other type of filtration. Success of a carbon adsorption method depends on the dyes used and the nature of the liquid to be filtered, and can also require chemical treatment prior to use. Hyperfiltration as a method of upgrading effluent is promising, If cost can be competitive. Gamma irradiation of textile waste effluents degrades refractory dye colors which most conventional treatments do not reduce. The use of an adsorbent to concentrate the organic fraction prior to irradiation is another possiblity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textile sizes applied to warp yarns to facilitate weaving must be removed from the fabric (desizing) before finishing and therefore contribute significantly to the pollution problems of the textile finishing industry. One of the most widely used of the synthetic sizing agents, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), is not easily biodegraded, which makes the job of designing suitable waste disposal methods for this polymer particularly difficult. A study of the utilization of low temperature plasma, an electrically excited form of gases at low pressure, for the removal of PVA size from fabrics was therefore undertaken. It was found that PVA is oxidatively degraded by both oxygen and air plasnias. A significant portion of the PVA is oxidized directly to carbon dioxide and water during plasma exposure, thus minimizing problems associated with the desizing operation. Fiber degradation due to this treatment is minimal, and adverse effects on fabric properties were not observed. Further research into this process can yield an economical desizing method which will contribute significantly toward meeting the requirements of zero discharge specified by the Clean Water Act of 1972. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The waste load, which is the sum of all of the different wastes present, determines water quality. An expression for the waste load is derived in terms of five major factors - the number of people living in the watershed, the per capita waste generation, the waste treatment efficiency, the distribution of wastes and the capacity of the receiving water to waste load are determined by examining the means of reducing each of these factors. The algebraic expression obtained for the waste load shows the relationship between changes in the different control options and the resulting change in water quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The important uses of the coastal zone: tourism, fisheries, industrial development and waste disposal, require that planning for its rational use be in small units because the various functions are not all reconcilable in the same place, and important ecological processes occur on a small scale. For example, we argue that concentrating organic waste disposal into a few widely spaced zones will produce more productive fisheries in those places while leaving the rest of the coast more for tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses efforts by companies to solve the world waste problem. Magnitude of global waste; Pollution control in long-range planning; Call for government help in unproductive waste control facilities; Appointment of environmental directors; Investment by U.S. firms in pollution control; Reclamation efforts; Idea of edible food wrappers; Public relations campaigns.

A report is presented on the role of a county health department in handling the disposal of solid waste. Although not directly involved in actual disposal, it cooperates with the agencies that are, acting as a consultant and clearinghouse for information, providing training courses, and developing a public information and relations program in connection with the problem of wastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey revealed that waste water from 30 textile plants in Alabama and West Georgia is discharged principally to city sewers with some prior treatment. Flowrates vary from 0.03 to 7.00 million gallons per day with BOD rates as high as 40,000 lbs a day. Using estimation methods for BOD based on cloth production and processing operations, construction costs (excluding land) are estimated for trickling filter, activated sludge and mechanically aerated treatment units. The costs are for waste water flowrates from 0.25 to 6.00 million gallons a day with BOD parameters of 300, 450 and 700 ppm. Mechanical aeration offers the lowest cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread introduction of electronic data processing at every level of government operation has brought very great, and as yet incomplete, changes in organizational procedures and structure. Already, more sophisticated tools of management science are being utilized in public ad- ministration; operations research, systems analysis, and simulation, the quantitative methods, which have demonstrated their effectiveness in aerospace endeavors, are being applied to matters of public concern. The author here presents preliminary findings on an ongoing research study of the State of California's experience in the application of systems analysis to five designated problem areas-crime, transportation, waste management, information-handling, and welfare. Al- though the potential advantages and limitations of these techniques cannot be predicted at this early stage, it is apparent that new patterns of intergovernmental relationships are evolving, that new kinds of staff capability must be developed, and that management in the Space Age calls for a new order of competence, viability, and innovativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the breakdown of confined and non-confined oak litter. Several methods have been used to estimate rates of breakdown of dead organic matter. This breakdown is an important process for maintaining cycles of nutrients in ecological systems. Rates of breakdown of forest litter influence the rates at which nutrient elements in litter become available for renewed uptake by the vegetation and the amounts of litter and thus of nutrients which accumulate in the forest floor. The rates of breakdown of leaf litter have been estimated from weight loss of leaves in mesh bags, and of leaves that were not confined. The article introduces a new method to recover specific leaves, which are not confined, except by strings attached to petioles. Comparing results from this method with those from bagged leaves in the same forests helps to interpret both the process of breakdown and the methods of investigating it. Confinement of litter in bags allows observation of known amounts of leaves of known history and recovery of all material except for some of the fragments smaller than the mesh size and dissolved matter removed by gravity, water, or soil fauna.

Presents a waste accumulation model and provide criteria for deciding the amount of resources to devote to disposal. Steady-state solution; How to achieve optimality through taxation; Nature of the changes in the steady-state solution.

Environmental health services, especially refuse collection and sewage disposal, though relatively small in terms of outlays compared to other urban government services, have played a major role in the rapid urbanization of society. Residential refuse collection service involves the regularly scheduled pickup, collection and disposition by a sanitary agency of solid waste materials resulting from the operation and maintenance of households. Its main components are garbage, ashes and rubbish. Unlike residences, commercial and industrial establishments vary greatly in the amount of refuse they produce, and many large industrial firms provide their own collection and sometimes even disposal service. In this article, an ideal residential refuse collection cost model is presented. There are a variety of physical, human, legal, and political factors, all of which can bear on the difficulties encountered in providing residential refuse collection services. One such variable is density. A further factor is the average distance to the disposal site. Collection and disposal technologies undergo changes over the years. While they have been comparatively slow in the past, the future could conceivably produce breakthroughs in disposal technology, as of February 1965. Their use would likely be expensive at the outset, becoming economical after a time.

The article focuses on the dynamics of recycling, using a rudimentary model emphasizing only those elements essential to the recycling problem. The author views the problem of waste accumulation as the joint result of household and firm decisions to litter, let waste degrade by natural biological and chemical processes, instead of recycling waste into production. The author remarks that in a decentralized competitive economic organization, no market will exist to reflect the social cost of public pollution to household and firm decision makers. A pollution free environment is unattainable except through some mechanism for internalizing the public opportunity cost of waste production. A pure waste or pollution reduction model is obtained in this article as a special case of the model expressed in conditions. It provides a simple control model of the economics of waste recycling. The optimal control solution requires a price to be associated with waste discharge, depending upon the accumulated stock of waste, the interest rate, and the rate at which waste decomposes in nature.

This paper discusses the problems faced by the Solid Waste Management Office (formerly the Bureau of Solid Waste Management) in evaluating competing environmental health alternatives, given a set of decision criteria. The concepts of scoring models are reviewed. Techniques for the implementation of a linear scoring model are critically examined; and a new method, termed DARE, is discussed as it is presently applied in this Office. The DARE method is a rational, orderly procedure that minimizes the number of decisions required of the decisionmaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a speech delivered by John O. Fish, deputy director of the U.S. Environmental Health and Safety, at the 49th annual meeting of the American College Health Association on April 28, 1971. Problems with campus waste management; Developments in the waste control strategy at the University of Washington; Notions about campus waste disposal.

The article discusses waste disposal as an environmental issue that has not kept pace with the industrialization and consumer society development that produced it. German initiatives and regulations are described intended to deal with household trash, factory and auto emissions, unserviceable vehicles, recyclable materials, and the singular problem of plastics.

Discusses disposing of solid waste or disposables. Role of recycling; Approaches to food service waste disposal; Basis for planning more effective waste disposal systems. INSET: CANS AND GLASS CONTAINERS.