Sustainable Engineering

Drivers, Metrics, Tools, and Applications

Krishna R. Reddy, Claudio Cameselle, Jeffrey A. Adams

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119493945
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Environmental Management
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Comprehensively covers the definition, methodology, and current applications of the principles of sustainability and resiliency in every engineering discipline

This book contains detailed information about sustainability and resiliency principles and applications in engineering practice, and provides information on how to use scientific tools for sustainability assessment that help engineers select the best alternative for each project or activity. Logically organized around the three pillars of sustainability—environment, economy, and society—it is a primary resource for students and professionals alike.

Sustainable Engineering: Drivers, Metrics, Tools, and Applications offers numerous ways to help engineers contribute towards global sustainable development while solving some of the grand challenges the world is facing today. The first part of the book covers the environmental, economic, and social impacts associated with project/product development as well as society as a whole. This is followed by a section devoted to sustainability metrics and assessment tools, which includes material flow analysis and material budget, carbon footprint analysis, life cycle assessment, environmental health risk assessment, and more. Next comes an in-depth examination of sustainable engineering practices, including sustainable energy engineering, sustainable waste management, and green and sustainable buildings. The book concludes with a look at how sustainable engineering may be applied to different engineering (i.e. environmental, chemical, civil, materials, infrastructure) projects.

Some of the key features of this book include the following:

• Provides a complete and sensible understanding of the important concepts of sustainability, resiliency, and sustainable engineering
• Offers detailed explanations of sustainable engineering practices in waste management and remediation of contaminated sites, civil construction and infrastructure, and climate geoengineering
• Presents a set of case studies across different engineering disciplines such as bio/chemical, environmental, materials, construction, and infrastructure engineering that demonstrate the practical applicability of sustainability assessment tools to diverse projects
• Includes questions at the end of each chapter as well as a solutions manual for academic adopters

The depth of coverage found in Sustainable Engineering: Drivers, Metrics, Tools, and Applications makes it an ideal textbook for graduate students across all engineering disciplines and a handy resource for active professionals.

Section IV
Sustainable Engineering Applications

20
Environmental and Chemical Engineering Projects

20.1 Introduction

As demonstrated in previous chapters, comprehensive sustainability assessments incorporating environmental, economic, and social aspects can be applied to a range of projects and products. This chapter presents several examples of detailed sustainability assessments of environmental and chemical engineering projects. These examples show the methodology, tools, and general interpretation of the results for sustainability assessment. It should be noted that sustainability assessment results depend on site‐specific conditions; therefore, the conclusions from each example cannot be generalized. Similar methodologies could be adopted to assess sustainability of any specific environmental and chemical engineering projects.

20.2 Food Scrap Landfilling Versus Composting

The USEPA has identified food waste recovery as an issue of concern and a key opportunity for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The USEPA's Food Recovery Hierarchy “prioritizes actions that the organizations can take to prevent and divert wasted food.” The options include source reduction, alternative uses of food waste as feed or industrial inputs, and processing options such as composting and digestion. Landfilling and incinerating food waste are the least preferable disposal scenarios, from the USEPA's standpoint.

USEPA has collected and reported the generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) from 1960. MSW has been growing from 88.1 million tons in 1960 to 251 million tons in 2012, with an average generation of 4.38 pounds per person per day. Total MSW recovery in 2012 was almost 87 million tons, but food waste accounts for only 2% (Figure 20.1) of it. After MSW recovery through recycling and composting, 164 million tons of MSW were discarded in 2012. Food waste is the largest component of the discards at 21%.

Figure 20.1 Municipal solid waste in the US in 2012 (USEPA 2017a).

In this study, the last two options on the USEPA's hierarchy, composting and landfilling, are analyzed and compared for the environmental, economic, and social impacts with an objective of selecting the most sustainable option for food waste management.

20.2.1 Background

MSW facilities must meet certain environmental, design, monitoring, and safety standards, as outlined by the US Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). As noted by the USEPA, “Modern landfills are well‐engineered facilities that are located, designed, operated, and monitored to ensure compliance with the federal regulations.” Even in landfill facilities that meet the RCRA requirements, two primary limitations or concerns exist: greenhouse gas emissions and material efficiency.

Organic materials ...