Sustainability Studies: Environmental and Energy Management

The growth and development of society on our planet has caused a great consumption of natural resources and, on the other hand, the production of waste and other substances harmful both to human health and to the ecosystem itself. With this way of life, man has moved away from nature. Consequently, a system that functions contrary to natural laws has been established. With the new way of production, it is necessary to return to natural processes and sustainable technologies, clean technologies, and the use of renewable energy sources. The projection of sustainability in the future must be based on resource use restriction, material reuse and other principles of economic and environmental sustainability. This chapter will discuss the new approach to production and the product itself through the consideration of several different possibilities such as circular economy, industrial ecology, ecological economy, blue economy, biomimicry, cradle to cradle, cleaner production and regenerative design. The above-mentioned possibilities in production, design and the product itself aim to ensure that man functions in accordance with natural laws, and that we need to leave nature and the environment in a much better condition than we inherited.

The fundamental and most essential components in building construction are materials. Good design along with the properties of materials (chemical, physical and mechanical) are accountable for a building’s material strength. The concept of sustainability in building materials revolves around the development and use of ecofriendly materials that have the same or enhanced properties as compared to that of conventional building materials. However, in the recent past, the use of conventional building materials in building construction has resulted in environmental degradation. Sustainability can be achieved by using industrial waste materials (by-products) and/or recycling and reusing the materials in building construction. Cost (manufacturing and transportation) has been a predominant factor considered while comparing related materials for the same purpose. This chapter discusses the need for alternative sustainable building materials with regard to energy and environmental impact caused by traditional or conventional building materials. Also, this chapter discusses sustainable initiatives carried out by researchers to discover low technology construction techniques. Further, this chapter discusses how alternative building materials can lessen the impact of environmental degradation, resulting in a healthier, cost-effective, and sustainably safe living environment.

The forecast of waste generation is an essential step for adequate waste management planning since it involves various factors that can affect waste trends. Due to over-population in urban areas, the rate of garbage production has been increasing rapidly. To simplify the process, a proposed solution for a smart solid waste management system has been implemented. The proposed smart bin has a faster and more intelligent separation process of the waste material.

Water has been considered one of the most valuable substances on earth for almost entire living organisms, from the largest mammal to the smallest microorganism. In addition, water is essential for the healthy life of human beings, animals, plants, etc. due to rapid, swift, and advanced industrialization, polluted water is discharged from different industries on many occasions. Among the different industrial pollutants, textile dyes and their effluents are the most predominant pollutants. Nearly 100,000 synthetic dyes are produced, and about one million tons of dyes are utilized for various dying purposes. About 10% of the dyes are unconfined into natural resources and the environment as waste, which spoils the aesthetic nature of the environment. These colored dyes are carcinogenic or mutagenic. These colored dyes are very fine particles in nature, and their concentrations of about 1 ppm are visible. These discharged color dyes cause grave intimidations with numerous problems; hence, these discharged color dyes as industrial waste have been considered as a major problem in the wastewater treatment process. In this chapter, various remediation techniques for the degradation of textile dyes effluents are discussed to maintain the sustainability of the environment. 

Municipal solid waste generation is exponentially increasing every year. Managing these solid wastes is highly complicated due to the generation of a plethora of waste. Since collecting and disposing of wastes in dumping sites cause severe environmental impacts, an alternative option is the need of the hour. Thus the technique used must be efficient and less in cost for agricultural applications. Composting is one such process where the decomposition and recycling of organic material into a humusrich soil take place naturally known as compost. Fruit waste is rich in moisture content, and thus possesses a unique property as a raw compost agent. The present study focuses on composting of fruit wastes for reducing the amount of solid waste being collected and dumped. If composting of fruit waste is carried out in backyards, then the amount of solid waste entering the dumping sites can be reduced substantially. 

Over the past few decades, the notion of Environmental Justice (EJ) in the United States has grown. Many empirical studies prove how low-income and minority neighborhoods are excessively exposed to environmental burdens. This chapter aims to present an approach to identifying EJ concerns facing minority and low-income populations in the metropolitan areas in Ohio by analyzing their distribution using EJSCREEN, a screening and mapping tool developed by the USEPA. Twelve metropolitan areas were considered to examine environmental and demographical information. The metropolitan areas are integrated geographic regions comprised of at least one city or urban area and adjacent communities. In assessing the demographic inequalities and environmental risk in the regions of the metropolitan areas, the EJSCREEN tool was used to generate EJ standard reports for all the zip codes in the metropolitan areas. Two-sample t-test results indicate that diesel PM, hazardous waste, RMP sites, lead paint, traffic proximity, respiratory hazard risk, and air toxic cancer risk are significantly higher in areas where a higher proportion of low-income and minority populations live than the areas with a lower proportion with low-income and minority populations. These environmental indicators are directly associated with air pollution.

One of the concerns in wastewater pollution is the presence of colored compounds, such as dyes. Acid violet 7 (AV7) and brilliant green (BG) are examples of synthetic dyes that have been used in various applications. In this work, a comparison of AV7 and BG dye adsorption was investigated using an adsorbent prepared from the mixture of rice husk ash (RHA) and coal fly ash (CFA). The attention was focused on the major batch adsorption parameters, which include adsorbent dosage, initial dye concentration, contact time, pH, shaking speed, and temperature. A lesser amount of RHA-CFA adsorbent was found to be used for adsorbing the same concentration of BG as compared to AV7. In contrast to AV7, the adsorption of BG rapidly attained equilibrium. The effective pH for BG removal is in the pH range of 6–8, while the highest AV7 removal was obtained at a low pH value. The adsorption removal for AV7 and BG increases with rising shaking speed and temperature. Scanning electron morphology (SEM) analysis showed the morphological porous structure on the RHA–CFA adsorbent surface. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated the presence of complex compounds containing cristobalite, quartz, and mullite compounds in the RHA–CFA adsorbent. The study revealed that RHA–CFA adsorbents can remove AV7 and BG from an aqueous medium.

The pollution prevention (P2) approach known as source reduction is being used worldwide to reduce the deleterious effects on human health and the environment due to the contaminants released from a variety of industrial sources. This chapter focuses on the concept of pollution prevention approaches undertaken by the U.S.EPA. P2 approach is discussed by applying the concept of energy efficiency, energy savings, greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reductions, waste reduction, and stormwater management to local schools, restaurants, hospitals, and the industrial sector in Ohio, USA. Several publicly available tools were used to analyze data collected during assessments. The major tools used are the Energy Assessment Spreadsheet tool (developed by Air Pollution Research Group at the College of Engineering, The University of Toledo, Ohio, USA) for the energy savings and Economic Input Life Cycle Assessment tool (developed by researchers at the Green Design Institute of Carnegie Mellon University) for the estimation of environmental emissions from industrial activities.These approaches result in the reduction of financial costs for waste management, cleanup, health problems, and environmental damage. Outcomes of pollution prevention activities are knowledge-based, behavioral, health-related, or environmental, which includes decreased exposure to toxins, conservation of natural resources, decreased release of toxins to the environment, and cost savings. The chapter presents case studies that focused on energy, greywater reuse, and food waste diversion from landfills.

Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is the main odor-causing, toxic, and corrosive chemical found in wastewater treatment operations. Bio-oxidation based processes for air pollutant removal have become more attractive to the industry and numerous wastewater treatment facilities have replaced conventional air treatment technologies such as adsorption and chemical scrubbing with bio-oxidation based processes such as biofilters. Of the three main types of air phase bioreactors, biofilter is used more commonly than the others due to its simple configuration, ease of operation, and economic benefits. This chapter addresses challenges in the industrial biofilter design for H2S removal from wastewater treatment facilities. Wastewater industry professionals, biofilter customers, biofilter vendors, and researchers who work in the field of odor and H2S emission control and biofilter design will find this chapter very useful.

In the present study, the groundwater quality was tested around the Gandhinagar sub-watershed covering a neighborhood of 53.63 sq. km, which lies between north latitudes 12°46′ and 13°58′ and east longitudes 77°21′ and 78°35′ within the state of Karnataka, India. For the study, data collection includes maps, toposheets, water quality data, well locations, village locations, etc. The above-said data has been collected from various government departments of Karnataka. After the data collection, the base map was prepared using ArcMap. The water samples have been tested and then used as an attribute database to design thematic maps showing various water quality parameters.

Focusing on the erstwhile Chengalpattu district, north-east agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu region, this research aimed to assess the changes in spatiotemporal patterns and trends of the extreme climatic events and aridity conditions during the period 1971-2000. The trend analysis of the observed climatic parameters was carried out using R software and Mann-Kendall non-parametric test. A statistically significant increasing trend was noted in the warm spell duration (wsdi) and heavy rainfall events (r20mm). The results revealed that Aridity Index (AI) has significant negative trends in northeast monsoon and winter seasons, indicating dryness, and positive trends in southwest monsoon seasons, indicating wet climate. The trends in MI were found to be mostly negative during the southwest monsoon season. The results of the trend analysis in PET revealed a significant increase annually and seasonally. Overall, spatial analysis characterized the western parts as semi-arid, whereas a dry sub-humid climate prevails in the eastern parts, covering the coastal areas. As per the outcome, there may be escalations of 19.5 to 25.7% in PE in the study area. Parts of Kancheepuram, Sriperumbudur, Chengalpattu, Thirukazhikundram, Maduranthakam, and the whole of Uthiramerur blocks are going to be severely impacted due to the rise of PE. This may further trigger an escalation of aridity processes in the future and pose threats to the sustainability of land resources.