Search Results (22)

This study addresses the growing global concern regarding electronic waste (e-waste) management, focusing on the challenges and potential solutions within the Russian Federation. This study employs a systematic approach, statistical analysis, and comparative studies to evaluate the current state of e-waste management, including its collection, transportation, recycling, and disposal. Data from Rosprirodnadzor and other regulatory bodies were analyzed to assess the dynamics of e-waste generation, recycling rates, and the implementation of best available technologies (BATs) through integrated environmental permits (IEPs). The study findings reveal a significant increase in e-waste generation (from 87,832 tons in 2019 to 113,372 tons in 2022, but decreased to 82,965 tons in 2023), with only a fraction being properly recycled (the amount of waste processed has decreased significantly: from 79,616 tons in 2019 to 11,569 tons in 2023), and highlight the inefficiencies in existing regional waste management systems (including monopolistic operators and inefficient infrastructure, with just six certified e-waste recyclers operating nationally). This study concludes that a comprehensive, regionally tailored e-waste management system, supported by financial mechanisms such as parafiscal charges, is essential for improving recycling rates and reducing the environmental impacts of e-waste. Key recommendations include QR-code labeling for traceability, expanded collection networks, and BAT-aligned permits to meet the 65% collection target set by EU Directive 2012/19/EU. Our findings underscore the urgency of scaling recycling capacity—currently 481,935 tons/year nationally—to match annual e-waste generation (1.4 million tons). The proposed system emphasizes the prioritization of ecological over economic considerations, aiming to create an effective system for e-waste management in Russia. The proposed hypothesis includes an effective e-waste management system that can be established through BAT-based processes, financial incentives, and systemic regional integration—but it requires empirical validation under real-world conditions. To achieve this, it is necessary to conduct a pilot implementation in a selected region. A pilot with partial infrastructure exists in Moscow (e.g., Ecopolis Corporation’s facilities) and integrates disjointed processes (collection → sorting → recycling) while monitoring key metrics (e.g., volume processed, cost per ton, stakeholder compliance). A 3-year evaluation period would provide actionable data for a nationwide rollout. Full article

Energy system models or energy demand analysis, such as top-down and bottom-up models, provide energy consumption data in energy end-uses, energy carriers, and subsectors. A technical energy efficiency potential can be determined by applying the best available technology (BAT) values. This paper aims to take the consideration of the energy efficiency potential in an energy system model to a new level by including environmental and social aspects. Using the example of the tertiary sector, it is shown how to incorporate a quantification methodology for non-energy benefits (NEBs) together with the (avoided) environmental costs into the energy efficiency potential of an energy demand analysis. This leads to an overall environmental assessment of the tertiary sector and shows how integrating avoided environmental costs and NEBs increases the economic efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and profitability of energy efficiency measures. Assuming a price of 29.04 EUR-ct₂₀₂₀/kWh for the (avoided) environmental costs and a ratio of the total net savings to the net energy savings of 2.3 for the NEBs, all considered energy efficiency measures are economic. This paper shows that including environmental costs and considering NEBs could be important policy instruments. Full article

As urbanisation and infrastructure development continue to drive rising cement demand, the imperative to significantly reduce emissions from this emissions-intensive sector has become increasingly urgent, especially in the context of global climate goals such as achieving net zero emissions by 2050. This review examines the status, challenges and prospects of low-carbon cement technologies and mitigation strategies through the lens of the U.K. cement industry. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining structured literature searches across academic databases with analyses of industry reports, market data and technological roadmaps to ensure a comprehensive evaluation. Following an outline of cement production, resource flows and the sector’s landscape in the U.K., the review delves into an array of decarbonisation pathways. This includes deploying the best available technologies (BATs), fuel switching, carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), clinker substitution and low-carbon cement formulations. A critical assessment is provided on the technological readiness, costs, resource availability considerations and scalability aspects governing the widespread implementation prospects of these approaches within the U.K. cement industry. Furthermore, this study proposes a roadmap that considers priority avenues and policy needs essential for facilitating the transition towards sustainable cement production aligned with the U.K.’s net zero obligations by 2050. This evaluation contributes significantly to the ongoing decarbonisation discourse by holistically mapping technological solutions and strategic imperatives tailored to the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the U.K. cement sector. Full article

The recent tailings storage facility (TSF) dam failures recorded around the world have concerned society in general, forcing the mining industry to improve its operating standards, invest greater economic resources, and implement the best available technologies (BATs) to control TSFs for safety purposes and avoid spills, accidents, and collapses. In this context, and as the era of digitalization and Industry 4.0 continues, monitoring technologies based on sensors have become increasingly common in the mining industry. This article studies the state of the art of implementing sensor technologies to monitor structural health and safety management issues in TSFs, highlighting advances and experiences through a review of the scientific literature on the topic. The methodology applied in this article adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and utilizes scientific maps for data visualization. To do so, three steps were implemented: (i) a quantitative bibliometric analysis, (ii) a qualitative systematic review of the literature, and (iii) a mixed review to integrate the findings from (i) and (ii). As a result, this article presents the main advances, gaps, and future trends regarding the main characteristics of the sensor technologies applied to monitor TSF structural health and safety management in the era of digitalization. According to the results, the existing research predominantly investigates certain TSF sensor technologies, such as wireless real-time monitoring, remote sensors (RS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned survey vessels (USVs), artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing (CC), and Internet of Things (IoT) approaches, among others. These technologies stand out for their potential to improve the safety management monitoring of mine tailings, which is particularly significant in the context of climate change-related hazards, and to reduce the risk of TSF failures. They are recognized as emerging smart mining solutions with reliable, simple, scalable, secure, and competitive characteristics. Full article

Extractive waste (EW), including tailings, is produced in large quantities during mining activities. In recent years, the linear economic model (“take-use-and-throw” approach) has been replaced by a circular approach, emphasizing the sustainable use and recovery of EW. The development of innovative protocols, such as Best Available Techniques (BATs), which aim at the technological and process improvement of more sustainable mining activities and at the production of renewable, highly performing green materials, has led to technological advancements, expertise in sustainability, and a reduced ecological footprint, potentially causing positive economic and social impacts and reducing environmental ones. Extractive waste and tailings, if suitably characterized, can be used to improve and make sustainable the works connected to the management of mining activities. The qualitative–quantitative characterization of EW is essential for subsequent reuse and for assessing the risk to human health and the extent of environmental impacts in the various matrices. The application areas vary according to the type of waste and mining tailings, the morphological characteristics of the deposits, and the geological, geomorphological, and logistic context of the area. Integrated protocols for sustainable EW exploitation and positive impacts on the economic, environmental, and technological/social level are analyzed. The present paper aims at providing an overview of challenges and potentialities connected to extractive waste (EW) management and potential exploitation to recover raw materials (RM), critical raw materials (CRM), and secondary raw materials (SRM). Full article

Three workshops with representatives of stakeholders from academia, business, civil society and government in India were organized in Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai with the aim to identify and elaborate on key barriers to resource recovery in wastewater treatment (WWT). A structured questionnaire was designed to capture the views of participating stakeholders. Using a new Mathematica function, namely, Around, the responses of the representatives of each stakeholder were aggregated to an approximate number representing that stakeholder’s view. Overall, the stakeholder consensus on WWT technologies was rather conservative, with a focus on the functioning of WWT. Concerning the drivers and barriers for resource recovery and policies to support the implementation of recycling technologies in WWT, stakeholders expected government action to drive recycling. A social network analysis identified potential conflicts between the stakeholder groups. Full article

The increasing global demand for energy- and resource-efficient, environmentally friendly products has led the European Union (EU) to develop a sustainable product policy, incorporating ecodesign legislation and energy labeling as effective tools for promoting energy efficiency and sustainability. Recent European energy policies, such as the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Ecodesign Directive (EDD), have set new objectives for enhancing energy efficiency. This study focuses on the 2012 Lot 4: Industrial and Laboratory Furnaces and Ovens, Tasks 1–7 Final Report, which informed the European Commission’s 2014 working document for the Ecodesign Consultation Forum on industrial and laboratory furnaces and ovens. The working document proposed initial draft measures and requirements for this product group, aiming to achieve specific energy savings and related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. The findings of the investigations on energy consumption and GHG emissions are presented in this work, with draft calculations and projections serving as the foundation for discussions on future measures. The BAT (best available technologies) scenario would result in lower environmental impacts. The initial and indicative draft Lot 4 impact assessment predictions for energy savings demonstrate the positive influence of prospective ecodesign measures in reducing energy consumption. These deliberations will ultimately contribute to the formulation of an official mandatory regulation for industrial and laboratory furnaces and ovens, in line with the EU’s sustainable product policy objectives. Full article

There is a need to define mine tailings in a clear, precise, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and holistic manner, considering not only geotechnical and hydraulic concepts but also integrating environmental and geochemical aspects with implications for the sustainability of mining. This article corresponds to an independent study that answers questions concerning the definition of mine tailings and the socio-environmental risks linked with mine tailings chemical composition by examining the practical experience of industrial-scale copper and gold mining projects in Chile and Peru. Definitions of concepts and analysis of key aspects in the responsible management of mine tailings, such as characterization of metallic–metalloid components, non-metallic components, metallurgical reagents, and risk identification, among others, are presented. Implications of potential environmental impacts from the generation of acid rock drainage (ARD) in mine tailings are discussed. Finally, the article concludes that mine tailings are potentially toxic to both communities and the environment, and cannot be considered as inert and innocuous materials; thus, mine tailings require safe, controlled, and responsible management with the application of the most high management standards, use of the best available technologies (BATs), use of best applicable practices (BAPs), and implementation of the best environmental practices (BEPs) to avoid risk and potential socio-environmental impact due to accidents or failure of tailings storage facilities (TSFs). Full article

Increasing conditions of economic and social well-being have led to an increase in waste production. Among the waste products, a significant portion consists of plastic materials that are popular in the components of consumer goods. For this reason, the conversion of plastic to energy via controlled combustion and plastic to fuel via thermal/catalytic pyrolysis or gasification can be proposed to treat the residual heterogeneous mixed plastics that cannot be recovered as individual polymers. The quality and type of fuels that are possible to obtain from these processes are different, as is the quality of their emissions, which generally contain VOCs, PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, and heavy metals. In this work, we propose a methodology based on human health risk assessment to compare controlled combustion and catalytic pyrolysis. Many pathways are analyzed, and pollutant concentrations are computed in the atmosphere, water, vegetables, fish, and food. Exposure is evaluated for inhalation and ingestion routes by taking into account uncertainties. Our results show that the risk profile of catalytic pyrolysis is low. Controlled combustion remains an interesting process, but even if Best Available Technologies (BAT) are adopted, the cancer risk due to PAHs contained in particulate is around the threshold for people living near the plant if a long period of operation is considered. Full article

How mine tailings storage facilities (TSF) are managed reflects the history, regulatory framework, and environment of a country and locale of the mine. Despite many attempts to find an environmentally friendly strategy for tailings management and governance that balances the needs of society and the ecosystem, there is no worldwide agreement regarding the best practices for tailings management and governance. This article reviews the evolution of copper tailings management and governance in Chile, current practices, and changes that could be or may need to be made to improve practices in response to local environmental conditions and local tolerance for risk. The progress to date in developing a holistic tailings management strategy is summarized. This article also describes recent proposals for the best available technologies (BATs), case histories of Chilean TSF using conventional technology, thickened tailings, paste tailings, filtered tailings, water use reduction, tailings reprocessing to obtain rare earth elements (REEs), circular economy, submarine deep-sea tailings disposal, and ways to avoid failure in a seismic region. Finally, the Chilean tailings industry’s pending issues and future challenges in reducing the socioenvironmental impacts of tailings are presented, including advances made and lessons learned in developing more environmentally friendly solutions. Full article

The “Thickened Tailings Disposal” (TTD) technology produces a high density mine waste that allows for the storage of this material without the need to manage large slurry tailings storage facilities (TSFs) and large dams. TTD has been applied considering site specific conditions of Chile and Peru, such as extreme climatic conditions, seismic risks, water scarcity, community demands, and environmental constraints. This review highlights the contribution of several experiences in Chile and Peru, which have chosen TTD technology for reduction of negative environmental impacts, mainly focusing on the following issues: (i) increase of tailings water recovery, (ii) reduction of TSFs footprint (impacted areas), (iii) decrease the risk of physical instability, avoiding the construction of high dams, and (iv) decrease of TSFs seepages. Finally, the article describes the advantages (benefits) and disadvantages (aspects to improve) of TTD, where nowadays a high degree of dewatering of tailings is seen as a safe option, considering the occurrence of some TSF dam failures recently worldwide, which has resulted in severe environmental pollution. A better environmental perception about TTD of authorities and communities, considering that this technology allows to satisfy the needs of stable and safe TSFs, make the TTD be more acceptable, popular and one of the best available technologies (BATs) for operations with mine tailings. Full article

At the present stage one of the most important factors in the economic growth of Russian regions is the production processes modernization based on the best available technologies (hereinafter—BAT), ensuring the reduction of the negative impact on the environment in cost-effective ways. The most important conditions for the successful implementation of BAT at regional enterprises is the creation of general institutional conditions at the all-Russian level and the supply of enterprises with domestic technologies meeting the criteria of the best available technology. Over the past several years, large-scale work has been carried out in Russia to amend legislation, prepare BAT reference documents, and form the institutional conditions for their implementation. However, sustainable outcomes in specific regions will require the further development of regional innovation systems, consistent with the needs of local enterprises in BAT. The article proposes a general regional mechanism for managing the sustainable development of an innovation system based on BAT. For its successful implementation, a set of practical recommendations for the Rostov region has been formed. Within the framework of the innovation regional infrastructure it was proposed to create a new institute for the implementation of BAT—the Regional BAT competence center, priority areas for the development of potential and promising BAT in the region were identified, a general pattern of interaction of the Regional BAT competence center with other participants in the process was developed. Full article

This paper presents an algorithm for modeling electricity and natural gas consumption in a walking furnace with the use of artificial intelligence and simulation methods, depending on the length of the rolling campaign and the established rolling program. This algorithm is the basis for the development of a proposal for a set of minimum requirements characterizing the Best Available Techniques (BAT) for beam furnaces intended for hot rolling, taking into account the requirements set out in national regulations and the recommendations described in the BREF reference documents. This information should be taken into account when drawing up an application for an integrated permit, as well as when setting emission limit values. Based on the constructed algorithm, it was shown that depending on their type and technical specification, the analyzed projects will offer measurable economic benefits in the form of reducing the amount of energy consumed by 1,076,400 kWh during the implementation of 50 rolling campaigns to reduce gas by 14,625 GJ and environmental benefits in the form of reduction of pollutant emissions into the atmosphere 80–360 g/Mg. The constructed algorithm was validated in the Dosimis-3 program, based on a discrete event-driven simulation. Thanks to this representation of the model, its user can interactively participate in changes that take place in the model and thus evaluate its behavior. The model, verified in real conditions, can be the basic source of information for making effective operational technological decisions related to the preparation of production at the rolling mill as part of planning and long-term activities. Full article

Waste electrical and electronic equipment or e-waste generation has been skyrocketing over the last decades. This poses waste management and value recovery challenges, especially in developing countries. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are mainly employed in value recovery operations. Despite the high energy costs of generating crushed and milled particles of the order of several microns, those are employed in conventional hydrometallurgical techniques. Coarse PCB pieces (of order a few centimetres) based value recovery operations are not reported at the industrial scale as the complexities of the internal structure of PCBs limit efficient metal and non-metal separation. Since coarse PCB particles’ pre-treatment is of paramount importance to enhance metal and non-metal separations, thermal, mechanical, chemical and electrical pre-treatment techniques were extensively studied. It is quite evident that a single pre-treatment technique does not result in complete metal liberation and therefore several pre-treatment flowsheets were formulated for coarse PCB particles. Thermal, mechanical and chemical pre-treatments integrated flowsheets were derived and such flowsheets are seldom reported in the e-waste literature. The potential flowsheets need to be assessed considering socio-techno-economic considerations to yield the best available technologies (BAT). In the wider context, the results of this work could be useful for achieving the United Nations sustainable development goals. Full article

The tightened approach of the European Commission to the issue of meeting the levels of pollutant emissions to the environment, inextricably connected with the level of technology used, is a serious financial challenge for many European coke producers, therefore the main aim of the article is to develop an algorithm of conduct that allows a selection of the best available emission abatement techniques from the coking plant in conditions with multiple emission sources, taking into account technological, environmental, and economic criteria. This algorithm can be used as a universal tool supporting production managers in planning investments limiting the environmental impact of the coking plant in the most economically advantageous way, while using BAT techniques. In the development of the algorithm, a multi-criteria analysis and a scenario method were used, as well as a number of typical methods for measuring and reducing the level of emissions in the coke production process. Its demonstration and verification were carried out within ten investment scenarios prepared for a selected coking plant. The presented method of selecting the optimal scenario is universal and allows for a flexible selection of weights for the criteria depending on the needs and limits of the investor at a given time or to long term plans to adapt to the increasingly tightening environmental requirements. This method can also be used in discussions with the authorities issuing integrated permits as regards the deadlines for adapting to legal requirements. Full article