Waste sanitary landfilling is generally opposed by public opinion as responsible of aquifer contamination even when other possible contaminating sources exist in the area. A new tool based on time-spatial evaluation of groundwater contamination is presented, capable of appreciating the direct responsibilities of a MSW sanitary landfill when the aquifer becomes polluted. A successful application of the tool to the case of a medium-size Italian city is discussed.
Energy production by combustion of S-containing non-renewable fuels requires huge consumption of limestone for the necessary Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) treatment in order to meet stringent SO2 emission limits. FGD (wet, dry or semi-dry) is an expensive, energy intensive, process due to its overall poor efficiency and to the need of using finely micronized CaCO3. Wet FGD laboratory tests with dolomite slurry have shown that up to ≈ 50% higher performance and faster SO2 uptake occur if the mineral is micronized by high energy mill, yielding mechanochemical activation of the solid. Further benefits arise from the use of dolomite which consistently contains Mg carbonate.
An extended investigation carried out after the discovery of excess occurrence of dioxins and PCB in sheep and goat freely grazing around Europe's largest integrated iron and steel (I&S) factory in Taranto industrial area revealed an ubiquitous recent (by dioxins) and historic (by PCB) contamination. Experimental results, including fingerprint and PCA comparison, excluded single-point emission by the I&S factory as well as by other nearby industrial chimneys, pointing out to fugitive diffuse emission escaping from the I&S sinter plant as the contamination source. The occurrence of two routes of environment contamination and their overlapping toxicity effects through the food chain were demonstrated, due primarily to such diffuse emission and secondarily to PCB present in top soil around the industrial area.
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