Biosafety in the Laboratory is a concise set of practical guidelines for handling and disposing of biohazardous material. The consensus of top experts in laboratory safety, this volume provides the information needed for immediate improvement of safety practices. It discusses high- and low-risk biological agents (including the highest-risk materials handled in labs today), presents the "seven basic rules of biosafety," addresses special issues such as the shipping of dangerous materials, covers waste disposal in detail, offers a checklist for administering laboratory safetyâ€"and more.

This is the second edition of the WHO handbook on the safe, sustainable and affordable management of health-care waste--commonly known as "the Blue Book". The original Blue Book was a comprehensive publication used widely in health-care centers and government agencies to assist in the adoption of national guidance. It also provided support to committed medical directors and managers to make improvements and presented practical information on waste-management techniques for medical staff and waste workers. It has been more than ten years since the first edition of the Blue Book. During the intervening period, the requirements on generators of health-care wastes have evolved and new methods have become available. Consequently, WHO recognized that it was an appropriate time to update the original text. The purpose of the second edition is to expand and update the practical information in the original Blue Book. The new Blue Book is designed to continue to be a source of impartial health-care information and guidance on safe waste-management practices. The editors' intention has been to keep the best of the original publication and supplement it with the latest relevant information. The audience for the Blue Book has expanded. Initially, the publication was intended for those directly involved in the creation and handling of health-care wastes: medical staff, health-care facility directors, ancillary health workers, infection-control officers and waste workers. This is no longer the situation. A wider range of people and organizations now have an active interest in the safe management of health-care wastes: regulators, policy-makers, development organizations, voluntary groups, environmental bodies, environmental health practitioners, advisers, researchers and students. They should also find the new Blue Book of benefit to their activities. Chapters 2 and 3 explain the various types of waste produced from health-care facilities, their typical characteristics and the hazards these wastes pose to patients, staff and the general environment. Chapters 4 and 5 introduce the guiding regulatory principles for developing local or national approaches to tackling health-care waste management and transposing these into practical plans for regions and individual health-care facilities. Specific methods and technologies are described for waste minimization, segregation and treatment of health-care wastes in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. These chapters introduce the basic features of each technology and the operational and environmental characteristics required to be achieved, followed by information on the potential advantages and disadvantages of each system. To reflect concerns about the difficulties of handling health-care wastewaters, Chapter 9 is an expanded chapter with new guidance on the various sources of wastewater and wastewater treatment options for places not connected to central sewerage systems. Further chapters address issues on economics (Chapter 10), occupational safety (Chapter 11), hygiene and infection control (Chapter 12), and staff training and public awareness (Chapter 13). A wider range of information has been incorporated into this edition of the Blue Book, with the addition of two new chapters on health-care waste management in emergencies (Chapter 14) and an overview of the emerging issues of pandemics, drug-resistant pathogens, climate change and technology advances in medical techniques that will have to be accommodated by health-care waste systems in the future (Chapter 15).

"There are several research papers in the scientific literature about specific waste streams, to quantify their effect on the environment in a wide range of fields. However, till now, no systematic efforts have been made to come out with a book which exclusively covers waste management principles and strategies in different fields and corresponding applications. We will try to club different types of waste and waste management strategies in this book so that a reader can look at the range of materials in a single book. The book chapters including results and case studies can be of reference for academicians, researchers and stakeholders for quantifying the comprehensive impacts and for planning integrated solid waste collection and treatment systems, for improving sustainability at a global level. The main objectives are: 1. To improve and manage solid waste systems through the application of modern management techniques. 2. To provide information about the application of waste management strategies in different interdisciplinary areas such as municipal solid waste, plastic waste, bio-medical wastes, hazardous wastes, e-wastes, soil remediation technologies, environmental impact assessment and many more. 3. To focus on the waste management strategies for a sustainable environment that have usually emerged in a decade or two. 4. To cover the content from basic fundamental to complex application logically for a better understanding of the reader. 5. To present the latest information on the increase in solid and hazardous wastes due to economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization. To discuss the main challenge for governments of different nations and international organizations to develop environment-friendly strategies for efficient waste management to save human beings and the environment from its adverse effects"--

Despite heavy municipal spending on solid waste management, most cities fail to provide efficient, reliable, universal collection services or environmentally safe disposal - at high costs to public health and the environment. Bank lending should emphasize strategic service planning, better institutional arrangements, more efficient management and finances, and environmental protection.

Waste Management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste. Society is increasingly aware of the need to establish better practices and safer solutions for waste disposal. This requires further investigation into disposal methods and recycling as well as new technologies to monitor landfills, industrial mining wastes and chemical and nuclear repositories. This creates a need for more research on current disposal methods such as landfills, incineration, chemical and effluent treatment, as well as recycling, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness and general education. Unfortunately, many of the policies adopted in the past were aimed at short term solutions without due regard to the long term implications on health and the environment, leading in many cases to the need to take difficult and expensive remedial action. The desired direction of Waste Management is towards sustainable strategies. The approach which has emerged as the most promising has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery are seen as the best actions. This largely decreases the volume of waste that needs final disposal. Recovery refers to the establishment of two new classifications, those of Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) and of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). They both relate to useful products obtained from waste and make a shift from the mere recycle or reuse – mostly seen as a way to reduce dumping – to the valuable employment of such matter within the production cycle. Another aspect of this revolution is happening subtly and gradually by people buying waste; particularly eWaste and some types of plastic, the so-called technical waste. This is happening due to the strong demand and high price of certain new materials and the possibility of sorting out waste in developing regions of the world. As a result, a market in Secondary Raw Materials (SRM) has developed. Covering various areas under the topic of Waste management, this volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 10th International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment.