Consequences of the application of municipal sewage sludge with risk elements content for the agricultural utilization

Gábor GULYÁS^a, József RÁDI^b, Viktória PITÁS^a, Endre DOMOKOS^a, Árpád KÁRPÁTI^a
aUniversity of Pannonia, Institute of Environmental Engineering Egyetem 10, 8200 Veszprém, Hungary, e-mail: g.gulyas.up@gmail.com, domokos.endre@uni-pannon.hu, pitas.viktoria@mk.uni-pannon.hu, karpatia@almos.uni-pannon.hu
^bELGOSCAR-2000 Llc., Soroksári 164, 1095 Budapest, Hungary, e-mail: radijozsef@gmail.com

The activated sludge process results in a large amount of sewage sludge. Proper disposal or recovery of this sludge is a major challenge for operators. With the application of conventional activated sludge processes, most of the components coming from the wastewater get into the sludge. Therefore, sludge can contain also multifarious risk element components that can limit its disposal and utilization. The aim of our research was to determine the risk element content of municipal sewage sludge and to establish how the risk element content limits their agricultural utilization. In addition to our analytical measurements, we used the background soil contamination of risk elements found in the international literature and provided by a specialist. The sludge samples came from a Hungarian municipal wastewater treatment plant. Agricultural utilization of sludge was assessed using the Hungarian legal limits and the allowable concentrations stipulated by the European Union. Our results show that, when sewage sludge is disposed of in accordance with the law (quantity and quality compliance), the soil is declared contaminated as per current legislation if it is exposed to a great extent to risk elements for decades or even centuries. Moreover, it may become more questionable whether, in the current intensive crop production practice, the supply of micronutrients to agricultural soils can only be ensured by the utilization of sewage sludge. Based on our calculations and according to our current knowledge, careful use of municipal sewage sludge in agriculture is a good solution, although to clarify this it is now necessary to determine the content of other micro-contaminants.

Keywords: risk elements, wastewater, sludge, soil, agriculture

Assessment of some indices of environmental sustainability of transport in Tashkent

Maria RADKEVICH ^a*, Kamila SHIPILOVA ^a, Natalia MYAGKOVA ^a, Malokhat ABDUKODIROVA ^a, Abdusamin GAPIROV ^b
a - Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers, 39 Kary-Niyoziy str., 100000 Tashkent, Uzbekistan, * e-mail: maria7878@mail.ru
^b - Tashkent Institute of Design, Construction & Maintenance of Automotive Roads, 20 Amir Temur str., 100000 Tashkent, Uzbekistan

The aim of the study is to find an answer to the question of environmental sustainability of transport in Tashkent by 2030. The OECD targets for 2030, which establish an allowable increase in emissions compared with 1990, are accepted as evaluation criteria. The analysis of changes in the structure of public transport, level of its electrification, growth rate of personal cars is carried out.  Official data examination shows that, in general, the environment-friendly class of vehicles has increased. At the same time, calculations show that toxic and greenhouse gases emissions have increased and continue to grow due to an increase in total number of cars and poor electrification of vehicles (31% for public transport). Compared with the 1990 level, total emissions of automobile transport in Tashkent increased by 541.4%, greenhouse gas emissions by 436%. Studies have shown that the current state of the Tashkent transport system is not sustainable. To achieve sustainability, the transport system of the city needs major changes, in particular, the development and electrification of public transport.

Keywords: transport sustainability, automobile transport, environmental indices, air pollution

System improvement of protection of employees against ionizing radiation from orphan sources in scrap metal collection facilities

Martin JAKUBČÍK ^a, Eleonóra BENČÍKOVÁ ^b, Júlia MIHOKOVÁ Jakubčeková ^c, Miroslav TomeK ^{a *
a} Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Faculty of Logistics and Crisis Management, Studentské nám. 1532, 686 01 Uherské Hradiště, Czech republic, e-mail: m_jakubcik@utb.cz, tomek@utb.cz
^b Central Military Hospital – Teachind Hospital, Generala Milosa Vesela 21, 034 26 Ruzomberok, Slovak republic, e-mail: enona@centrum.sk
^c University of Zilina, Faculty of Security Engineering, Univerzitna 1, 010 26 Zilina, Slovak republic, e-mail: mihoková@fbi.uniza.sk^*
* correspondent author

Ensuring the safety and health of employees working in scrap metal collection facilities is one of the basic duties of each founder. It must assess all risk factors. One of the risk factors is the ionizing radiation from orphan sources when capturing and handling scrap metal. The operator of the facility for collecting scrap metal must accept the means that are optimal for its operation. The measures taken should be chosen based on a differentiated approach according to the character of the operation. Organizational, technical and system measures can be included in these funds. These measures are the subject of that article.

Keywords: contamination, employee, metal, protection, radiation, waste

Identification of illegal dumps by remote sensing methods

Zdeněk SUCHÁNEK, Jiří VALTA, Jaroslav ŘEŘICHA, Jan KRHOVSKÝ
Czech Environmental Information Agency (CENIA)

Knowledge of potentially contaminated sites territorial distribution resulted from the mapping using remote sensing methods. The mapping was conducted in the whole territory of the Czech Republic in 2018 – 2019. Of the 14 types of contaminated site clues in a total number of 17011 clues, 5 types of 10315 clues refer to various illegal dumps. “Waste” clues are described, illustrated and characterized in terms of their distribution. The factors affecting occurrence of the clues are assigned to each type. Mutual correlations of changes in density of individual types of clues in the territory of each municipality with extended competence (ORP) with the type of landscape, population and total municipal waste production in individual ORP resulted in the division of clues into three groups: clues linked to industrial activities, clues linked to agricultural activities and clues of suspected illegal waste disposal. Due to several other factors that the existence of contaminated sites, respectively of the illegal waste disposal sites affect (e.g. the consistency of local authority supervision or the social composition of the population), the correlation coefficients, with some exceptions, are not particularly high. Nevertheless, they point out well enough to the justification of grouping. The correlation coefficients of density of “waste” types of clues with population density have a similar value as the rate of correlation with total municipal waste production.

Keywords: waste, illegal dumps, landfills, clues of contaminated site, contaminated sites inventory, remote sensing