Agricultural Organic Waste Recycling to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) using membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology have been considered a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study chose a small-scale wastewater treatment plant using MBR technology to estimate its potential for GHG emissions. The total GHG emissions from this wastewater treatment plant ranged from 2,802 to 11,946kg CO2 -eq/month within the 4-year study period, and they were mainly attributable to electricity consumption (79.94%) followed by chemical usages (17.13%) and on-site GHG emissions (2.93%). The on-site GHG emissions varied monthly, but most of them ranged from 80 to 160kg CO2 -eq/month. The aeration tank was an important operating unit for GHG emissions. Off-site GHG emissions mainly came from carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions resulting from electricity consumption. The results of this study provide useful information about the potential of GHG emissions from WWTPs using MBR technology and indicate that WWTPs can be sustainably managed. PRACTITIONER POINTS: Wastewater treatment plants have been considered a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Total greenhouse gas emissions from the wastewater treatment plants using membrane bioreactor were mainly attributable to electricity consumption. On-site greenhouse gas emissions were relatively insignificant in this study.

Modeling greenhouse gas emissions from biological wastewater treatment process with experimental verification: A case study of paper mill

A BIM-Based construction and demolition waste information management system for greenhouse gas quantification and reduction

Analyzing and mapping agricultural waste recycling research: An integrative review for conceptual framework and future directions

Trade-offs between crop production and GHG emissions following organic material inputs in wheat-maize systems.

Municipal water and wastewater services have complicated sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and quantifying their roles is critical for tackling global environmental challenges. In this study we provide a systematic review of the state‐of‐the‐art on GHG emission characterizations of China's urban water infrastructure with the aim of shedding light on global implications for sustainable development. We started by synthesizing a framework on GHG emissions associated with water and wastewater infrastructure. Then we analyzed the different sources of GHG emissions in drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. In drinking water services, electricity consumption is the largest source of GHG emissions. A particular concern in China is the common use of secondary pumping for high‐rise buildings. Optimized pressure management with an efficient pumping system should be prioritized. In wastewater services, non‐CO2 emissions such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are substantial, but vary greatly depending on regional and technological differences. Further research directions may include GHG inventory development for urban water systems at the plant level, quantifications of GHG emissions from sewer systems, emission reduction measures via water reclamation, renewable energy recovery, energy efficiency improvement, cost–benefit analyses, and characterizations of Scope 3 emissions.This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Engineering Water > Planning Water

Livestock farming constitutes a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, presenting a challenge to the fulfilment of regional and international climate change mitigation. However, research on the mitigation of livestock emissions remains underrepresented in environmental legal scholarship. The current exploratory study aims to bridge this gap by systematically addressing law research focused on reducing GHG emissions from livestock. Given the distinct characteristics of various regional contexts, this work places a particular emphasis on the European Union (EU). Indeed, while maintaining ambitious climate change mitigation obligations, the EU records unhealthily high levels of animal food production and consumption. Furthermore, considering both its strong enforcement powers and the central role it plays as one of the main producers and consumers of animal food products worldwide, the EU is in a privileged position for conditioning global animal food systems. The article begins by outlining the scale and features of livestock’s impact on climate change. It then reviews the existing legal literature on the mitigation of livestock emissions, with a special focus on EU-specific analyses. After highlighting insights from current legal scholarship, assessing its alignment with scientific evidence, and identifying research gaps, the article proposes the development of a research agenda focused on the EU mitigation of livestock GHG emissions, informed by four preliminary observations. The observations clarify that: 1-the livestock sector has traditionally been neglected in climate change law and policy documents; 2-there is shortage of legal research on the mitigation of livestock emissions at the EU level; 3- curbing livestock related GHG emissions will have a major role to play for the EU to meet international and regional climate change mitigation obligations; 4- at the EU level, there is no possibility to decouple livestock production and consumption from GHG emissions.

Accelerating Green Steel in the EU

Driving factors of direct greenhouse gas emissions from China’s pig industry from 1976 to 2016

The dairy Carbon Offset Scenario Tool (COST) was developed to explore the influence of various abatement strategies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Australian dairy farms. COST is a static spreadsheet-based tool that uses Australian GHG inventory methodologies, algorithms and emission factors to estimate carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions of a dairy farm system. One of the key differences between COST and other inventory-based dairy GHG emissions calculators is the ability to explore the effect of reducing total farm emissions on farm income, assuming the strategy was compliant with Kyoto rules for carbon offsets. COST provides ten abatement strategies across the four broad theme areas of diet manipulation, herd and breeding management, feedbase management and waste management. Each abatement strategy contains four sections; two sections for data entry (baseline farm data specific to the strategy explored and strategy-specific variables) and two sections for results (milk production results and GHG/economic-related results). Key sensitive variables for each strategy, identified from prior research, and prices for milk production and carbon offsets are adjusted through up/down buttons, which allows users to quickly explore the impact of these variables on farm emissions and profitability. For example, if the cost to implement an abatement strategy is doubled, what carbon offset income would be required to negate this additional cost? Results are presented as changes in carbon offset income, strategy implementation cost, additional milk production income and net farm income on a per annum and on a per GHG emissions intensity of milk production basis. COST currently contains a comprehensive range of strategies for GHG abatement, although some strategies are still in development. As new technologies or farm management practices leading to a reduction in GHG emission become available, these too will be incorporated into COST. To date, two dairy-specific abatement methodologies have been legislated as part of Australia’s commitment to reducing on-farm GHG emissions through it’s the carbon offset scheme, the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) and are incorporated into COST. These are the ‘Destruction of methane generated from dairy manure in covered anaerobic ponds’ and the ‘Methodology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in milking cows through feeding dietary additives’. As an example, we explored the mitigation option Replace supplements with a source of dietary fats (reflecting the second above-mentioned CFI legislated abatement strategy) as feeding a diet higher in dietary fats has been shown to reduce enteric methane emissions per unit of feed intake. A 400 milking herd was fed a baseline diet of 2.6% dietary fat. By replacing grain with hominy meal, at a rate of 5.0 kg dry matter/ cow per day for 90 days during the 3 summer months, the summer diet fat concentration was increased to 6.4%. Enteric methane emissions were reduced by 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (t CO 2 e) per annum for the farm. Waste methane and nitrous oxide emissions were also reduced by 0.5 and 1.6 t CO 2 e/annum, respectively. However, as reductions from these two sources of GHG emissions do not qualify for payment with this CFI methodology, their reduction could not be included as an offset income. At a carbon price of $20/ t CO 2 e, the reduction in enteric methane emissions was valued at $800/farm. The implementation cost of replacing grain with hominy was valued at $18,000/farm due to the hominy meal costing an additional $100/t dry matter compared to the grain. However, the additional milk production achieved due to the higher energy concentration of the diet resulted in an additional 70,200 litres and based on a summer milk price of $0.38/ litre, this equated to an additional income from milk valued at $26,676/farm. The overall result was a net increase in farm profit of $9,476/farm when paid on a reduction in total GHG emissions. COST can quickly allow users to ascertain the level of GHG emission reduction possible with various mitigation options and explore the sensitivity of key variables on GHG emissions and farm profitability.

(Micro)plastic crisis: Un-ignorable contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change

In the context of agricultural waste recycling perspectives, the article addresses the issues of its structure, approaches to classification, determining its volumes and generation processes, and waste generation coverage in statistical observations. The author offers the consideration of three classification groups of agricultural waste: crop, animal, and agrochemical waste. The low level of agricultural waste representation in official domestic statistical reports is emphasized. The methodological approaches to calculating the crop and animal waste are suggested, and agricultural waste in Ukrainian regions is calculated and mapped. The calculations show that the annual volume of agricultural waste generation in Ukraine amounts to 177.5 million tons, and only about 5 percent of them are represented in statistical reports. This situation almost eliminates the creation of an efficient public waste management system that would secure the inclusion of tens of millions of tons of crop and animal origin resources in economic turnover through waste recycling and complicates the implementation of business projects in the reuse and processing of agricultural waste. The article outlines the directions, technological forms, and reserves of primary and secondary agricultural waste recycling. It also defines three possible ways to use primary crop waste: to secure animal breeding needs, for energy purposes, and as a fertilizer. Most animal wastes are safe and low-hazard, and can be used as secondary material or energy resources. Manure plays a special role in agricultural animal waste recycling. Biologically cleaned, disinfected, or biothermally processes manure is a valuable organic fertilizer. Energy is considered to be a perspective direction of the manure use in Ukraine. The article emphasizes the importance of taking into account the competitiveness of agricultural waste recycling directions based on the general economic and environmental reasonability.

The paper assesses fugitive emissions of greenhouse gases from the petroleum and coal industries of the Novosibirsk region. The authors compiled a database for calculations and justified the choice of conversion factors for greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources. The dynamics analysis of production, primary processing and transportation of raw materials in oil and gas and coal industries of the Novosibirsk region was carried out, location map of the main industrial facilities and pipelines was compiled, the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions were identified, and the uncertainty ranges of calculations were presented. It is shown that the main source of fugitive emissions in the region is an open-pit coal mining and its subsequent transportation. Moreover, a significant amount of emissions is created during gas transportation via main pipelines and gas distribution.

Mitigating Curtailment and Carbon Emissions through Load Migration between Data Centers

Different environmental and social concerns can arise due to the generation of gaseous emissions during the treatment of urban wastewater. However, there is not an extensive knowledge about which are the main potential odour and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission sources in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and their variability. In this study, a multipoint characterization of the gaseous emissions generated in a full-scale municipal WWTP located in Barcelona was conducted, aiming at identifying the main odour and GHG emission sources. The WWTP under study treats an average inlet flow of 33,000 m3 d−1 using a Ludzack-Ettinger system with Membrane BioReactor (MBR) technology, and it has installed a gas caption and treatment system consisting of a biotrickling filter followed by a conventional biofilter to treat part of the off-gases produced during the wastewater treatment. For this work, gaseous emissions characterization campaigns were conducted to assess the proper performance of the gas treatment unit and to estimate the emission factors referred to odorants and GHGs for the different emission sources and to assess the proper performance of the gas treatment system. Besides, a chemical characterization of the different volatile organic compounds (VOC) present in the gaseous emissions was performed through TD-GC/MS. The main potential odour sources were the reception tank, the barscreens building and the primary settler, where odour concentrations were in the range of 1300 and 2600 ou·m−3. Moreover, GHG emissions were found during the primary treatment and in the MBR units, ranging from 2.21 to 68,217.13 mg CO2eq·m−3. Different VOCs such as aromatic hydrocarbons, alkanes and ketones were found in the gaseous emissions with a high variability among all the emission sources. The results obtained are valuable indicators that can be used to develop odour and GHG mitigation strategies in WWTPs and to estimate the environmental impact of these facilities.