The anaerobic treatment of wastewater from the household and personal products industry was studied using a 16.3 L hybrid reactor (UASB and biofilter). The top of the UASB reactor was filled with coconut shells to act as the support material for the biofilter. The wastewater was characterized in terms of pH (1.0 - 12.0), COD (1,000 - 5,000 mg/L), BOD5 (700 - 1,500 mg/L), chloride (55 - 850 mg/L), ammonia nitrogen (0.4 - 0.9 mg/L), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (22.1 - 34.0 mg/L), phosphorus (2.0 - 2.5 mg/L), anionic surfactants (100 - 600 mg/L), turbidity (115 - 300 NTU) and total suspended solids (450 - 1,440 mg/L). The bioreactor was operated continuously for 120 days at room temperature (26 ± 5ºC) with hydraulic retention times of 50, 40 and 60 h. COD and BOD removals and biogas production were evaluated in order to analyze process efficiency. The average removal efficiencies for COD (77%, 72% and 80%) and BOD5 (approximately 90%) were obtained with HRTs of 50, 40 and 60 h, respectively. The average specific biogas production was 0.32 L/g COD (at standard temperature and pressure) for the three experimental runs. These data indicate good reactor efficiency and suggest the possibility of using this system to treat wastewater generated by the household and personal products industry

This paper aims to evaluate the suitability of the Brazilian solid waste policy (BSWP) with global Agenda 21 and the challenges of implementing the BSWP in municipalities. For this, a review of the principles that guided the creation of this policy was performed to demonstrate that international pressures were important in determining its effectiveness. The contradictory relationship between the satisfactory legal framework that established the Brazilian waste management policy and its weakened implementation in the municipalities is also examined . To illustrate the difficulties faced at the local level, a case study involving municipalities that compose the state of Espírito Santowe was undertaken. In this state, the municipalities signed terms of environmental commitment with supervisory agencies who undertook, within a pre-established schedule, to implement a set of actions to shape the proper management of solid waste, adapted to the requirements of national policy and the guidelines of Agenda 21. Finally, the various difficulties in meeting the requirements are discussed. It is necessary and urgent that Brazil finds a way to coordinate the mechanisms of an innovative and well formulated legal instrument to ensure the successful implementation of solid waste management at the local level to achieve the environmental, economic and social objectives

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The permeability is a physical property related to porous structures. It is a physical quantity that quantifies the resistance that a permeable matrix has to the flow of a particular fluid. Knowledge of the permeability of a filter media is important for the design, optimization and operation of various equipment, such as fabric filters, sedimentary, filtering hydrocyclones and others. There is the routine that the experimental determination of permeability of a filter medium is not made during the operation of industrial equipment, because they require a specific instrumentation or because it not presents a flat filtration. Therefore the experimental determination of permeability occurs out the industrial, in testing of laboratory by flat filtration. The two different times (industrial and laboratory) increase operation costs for the user by requiring uninstalling or fragmentation of the equipment to take it the laboratory. This work aimed to present a methodology (experiments combined with CFD techniques) in which it is possible to determine the permeability of a filter media (non-flat geometry) in their own manufacturing plant. According to the main results achieved, the proposed methodology was satisfactory, eliminating the need for characterization of filter media in the laboratory.