Processes, mechanics and management of wastes

随着负责任地管理地球资源的必要性日益被接受并载入新的立法，废物管理正在迅速发生变化。理想情况下，法律、法规和实践的变化将以科学为主导；但是，在这样一个动态的环境中，科学理解和工程技术有时难以提供支持，其结果是，推动变革的立法和财政因素的潜在后果可能没有得到充分考虑。例如，欧盟垃圾填埋指令的制定主要是为了减少垃圾填埋场的逸散性温室气体排放，但它的实施与目前的处理方案可能会产生相反的效果。平台赠款的目的是为南安普顿大学废物管理研究小组提供探索研究新方向所需的稳定性和灵活性，为废物行业提供可持续应对金融、监管和社会驱动因素所需的科学和工程，并将解决以前废物管理实践中未解决的遗留问题。发展的重点领域是：1)实地规模实施目前的研究-当合适的研究地点出现时，能够迅速作出反应：我们已经发展了工业所需的科学，通过各种补救技术，包括冲洗和原位好氧处理，减少垃圾填埋场的长期污染。虽然取得了很好的进展，但从实验室到现场的升级仍存在主要的不确定性。这将在未来的研究中得到解决，我们计划在城市生活垃圾填埋场的离散边界区域内进行试验，以实地规模调查冲洗和曝气，目的是显着减少废物的长期污染潜力。2)资源回收-从有机废物和填埋后处理的第二代生物基产品和能源载体：政府政策和战略废物规划强调了能源和商品级资源回收在英国废物管理实践中的重要作用。促进这一目标的基础设施已经形成，通过来源分离收集系统、不断增长的回收产品市场和鼓励可再生能源生产的定价结构（例如ROC和上网电价）。然而，这项技术仍处于起步阶段，迫切需要基础研究来支持工艺工程设计，适应现有技术，并开发利用废物作为生物炼制和固体回收燃料原料的潜力。这将在一个整体的能源、物料和产品回收框架内进行，包括没有实行源头隔离的都市固体废物处理作业，以及填埋后的废物，以减少其长期污染的可能性，并创造额外的空隙空间。3)将最近和正在进行的研究应用于新形式的废物-确定关键的协同作用：将我们目前的研究成果转化为新领域的潜力巨大，特别是在低水平和极低水平放射性废物的表征和近场污染物传输模型方面。4)发展/推广可持续废物/资源管理论坛，包括决策支持系统（决策支持系统）-建立专业知识和利益相关者的参与，并最大限度地发挥影响：决策支持系统将使小组的研究成果更容易为用户使用，鼓励知识转移和最大限度地发挥影响。尽管一些人已经认识到潜在的好处，但为废物工业开发DSS的工作很少。发展支助事务还将促进就现有的复杂技术和过程选择作出政策和业务决定

Waste management is changing rapidly as the need to manage the earth's resources responsibly becomes increasingly accepted and enshrined in new legislation. Ideally, changes to the law, regulation and practice would be science-led; but in such a dynamic environment, scientific understanding and engineering know-how sometimes struggle to provide support with the result that the potential consequences of legislative and financial drivers for change may not be fully thought-through. For example, the EU Landfill Directive was enacted mainly to reduce fugitive greenhouse gas emissions from landfills, but its implementation with current treatment options could have the opposite effect. The aim of the Platform Grant is to provide the University of Southampton Waste Management Research Group with the stability and flexibility needed to explore new directions for its research that will provide the waste industry with the science and engineering needed for sustainable response to financial, regulatory and social drivers, and will address the legacy of unsolved problems arising from previous waste management practices. Key areas for development are:1) Field scale implementation of current research - enabling a rapid response when suitable study sites arise: We have developed the science needed by industry to reduce the long term pollution liability of landfills by a variety of remediation techniques, including flushing and in situ aerobic treatment. While excellent progress has been made, major uncertainties remain in upscaling from the laboratory to the field. This will be addressed in future research, in which we plan to investigate flushing and aeration at the field scale by running trials within discrete, bounded areas of MSW landfill(s) with the aim of significantly reducing the long term polluting potential of the wastes. 2) Resource recovery - second generation bio-based products and energy carriers from organic wastes and post-landfill processing: Government policy and strategic waste planning has highlighted a vital role for energy and commodity grade resource recovery in UK waste management practice. The infrastructure to facilitate this is already taking shape, through source segregated collection systems, growing markets for recovered products and pricing structures (e.g. ROC and feed-in tariffs) to encourage renewable energy production. The technology, however, is still in its infancy and underpinning research is urgently needed to support process engineering design, adapt existing technologies and exploit the potential for using waste as a raw material for biorefineries and solid recovered fuels. This will be done within an overall energy, materials and product recovery framework to include MSW processing operations where source segregation is not practised and also post-land filled wastes to reduce their long-term pollution potential and to create additional void space. 3) Application of recent and ongoing research to new forms of wastes - identifying key synergies: There is immense potential for translating the results of our current research into new areas, in particular in characterisation and near field contaminant transport modelling of low and very low level radioactive wastes.4) Development/promotion of a Sustainable Waste/Resource Management Forum including decision support systems (DSS - establishing expertise and stakeholder engagement, and maximising impact: DSS will make the results of the Group's research more readily available to users, encouraging knowledge transfer and maximising impact. Little work has been done to develop DSS for the waste industry, although the potential benefits have been recognised by some. DSS will also facilitate policy and operational decisions on the complex technology and process options available