An overview of the sustainability of solid waste management at military installations

Abstract

Sustainable municipal solid waste management at military solutions necessitates a combined approach that includes waste reduction, alternative disposal techniques, and increased recycling. Military installations are unique because they often represent large employers in the region in which they are located, thereby making any practices they employ impact overall waste management strategies of the region. Solutions for waste sustainability will be dependent on operational directives and base location, availability of resources such as water and energy, and size of population. Presented in this paper are descriptions of available waste strategies that can be used to support sustainable waste management. Results presented indicate source reduction and recycling to be the most sustainable solutions. However, new waste-to-energy plants and composting have potential to improve on these well proven techniques and allow military installations to achieve sustainable waste management.

Uptake and release of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) from macro and microplastics

“…For instance, military bases, a known common point source of AFFF deposition in the environment, 42,43 also pose specic concerns regarding solid waste management. 67 Considering the urbanized atmosphere of military facilities and their historical use of AFFFs on-site, it is plausible that both microplastic pollutants and PFCAs could be concentrated in the same areas. The potential coexistence of microplastic pollutants and PFCAs at AFFF impacted sites warrants further investigation in the eld, to fully comprehend their interplay.…”

Socio-technical systems analysis of waste to energy from municipal solid waste in developing economies: a case for Nigeria

“…In proposing MSW technologies for any environment, many factors are considered. Borglin et al [16] mentioned some of the factors for consideration to include; feasibility, ease of use (social acceptance), education requirement, infrastructure needs, economics, a potential for pollution, GHG emissions, land use requirements and technology needs for further development.…”

Optimizing the Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Remote Community Infrastructure

“…A number of studies have been conducted that (1) quantify the environmental impact of infrastructure; (2) identify tradeoffs between the environmental and economic impact of infrastructure alternatives; and (3) optimize tradeoffs between sustainability objectives for remote communities. First, various research efforts have quantified the environmental sustainability of infrastructure, including power production methods [9][10][11]; water production methods [12,13]; wastewater management systems [14,15]; and solid-waste management systems [16][17][18]. These efforts quantified environmental sustainability through various indicators, such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, pollution emissions, energy consumption, embodied emissions, and global warming potential.…”