W.J. Lacy – författare

This book covers a broad group of wastes, from biowaste to hazardous waste, but primarily the largest (by mass and volume) group of wastes that are not hazardous, but also are not inert, and are problematic for three major reasons: (1) they are difficult to manage because of their volume: usually they are used in civil engineering as a common fill etc., where they are exposed to environmental conditions almost the same way as at disposal sites; (2) they are not geochemically stable and in the different periods of environmental exposure undergo transformations that might add hazardous properties to the material that are not displayed when it is freshly generated; (3) many designers and researchers in different countries involved in waste management are often not aware of time-delayed adverse environmental impact of some large-volume waste, and also do not consider some positive properties that may extend the area of their environmentally beneficial application.

Chemistry for Protection of the Environment

The main theme of this symposium was the application of chemical methods for water and wastewater treatment and their effect on the environment. The participants represented many countries and many disciplines and, taken together, their papers provide a very interesting overview of the way in which chemical processes are used in different parts of the world. The contributions from the USA are mainly devoted to methods for reducing the environmental hazard of alternative energy sources such as oil shales and tar sands. A fresh interest in coal and lignite is also apparent in the papers from Canada and from western and eastern Europe. Many papers and discussions deal with the related technology of desulphurisation of coal and oil during combustion or in exhaust gases, much of the research in this area being inspired by the problems of acid rain and the damage to forests in the northern hemisphere.