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This work studied the methane gas production of the Aura landfill, the official destination of all Municipal Solid Waste of the Metropolitan Region of Belem (Brazil), operational until 2015. In 2007, the Aura Landfill was equipped with a landfill gas burning system in a CDM/UNFCCC project, with reported measured volumes of burned methane gas. These volumes were used to retrieve the methane generation potential (L0) and the decay rate (k) parameters of single-phase, first order landfill emission model, yielding L0=(61.0±6.6)mCH43/MgMSW and k=(0.25±0.07)yr-1. To model the Aura landfill, local gravimetric waste composition and local per capita waste production studies were collected, and the IPCC first order multiphase model was used. For the generation potential, observation and model are consistent, but for the decay rate, observations provide a 39% higher value, suggesting that the methane production from deposited MSW is occurring much faster than predicted by the IPCC model. Applying the retrieved parameters for the whole landfill's lifetime, the total produced methane is estimated to be 497 Gg (ranging from 444 Gg to 550 Gg), of this total 48% may have been emitted before the implementation of the collection system, indicating that it was implemented too late, and 81% may have been emitted before the closing date, with only 19% to be emitted after the end of operations. Subtracting the total methane volume burned in the CDM Activity, the Aura landfill may have emitted on total from 9.4 to 9.8 Tg of CO2 equivalent.

It has been estimated that Canadians waste $27 billion of food annually, and that half of that waste occurs at the household level (Gooch et al., 2010). There are social, environmental, and economic implications for this scale of food waste, and source separation of organic waste is an increasingly common municipal intervention. There is relatively little research that assesses the dynamics of household food waste (particularly in Canada). The purpose of this study is to combine observations of organic, recyclable, and garbage waste production rates to survey results of food waste-related beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours at the household level in the mid-sized municipality of Guelph, Ontario. Waste weights and surveys were obtained from 68 households in the summer of 2013. The results of this study indicate multiple relationships between food waste production and household shopping practices, food preparation behaviours, household waste management practices, and food-related attitudes, beliefs, and lifestyles. Notably, we observed that food awareness, waste awareness, family lifestyles, and convenience lifestyles were related to food waste production. We conclude that it is important to understand the diversity of factors that can influence food wasting behaviours at the household level in order to design waste management systems and policies to reduce food waste.

Dynamic annual flow models incorporating consumer discard and usage loss and featuring deterministic and stochastic end-of-cycle (EOC) return by the consumer are developed for reused or remanufactured products (multiple cycle products, MCPs), including fast and slow cycling, short and long-lived products. It is shown that internal flows (reuse and overall consumption) increase proportionally to the dimensionless internal cycle factor (ICF) which is related to environmental impact reduction factors. The combined reuse/recycle (or cycle) rate is shown capable for shortcut, albeit effective, monitoring of environmental performance in terms of waste production, virgin material extraction and manufacturing impacts of all MCPs, a task, which physical variables (lifetime, cycling frequency, mean or total number of return trips) and conventional rates, via which environmental policy has been officially implemented (e.g. recycling rate) cannot accomplish. The cycle rate is shown to be an increasing (hyperbolic) function of ICF. The impact of the stochastic EOC return characteristics on total reuse and consumption flows, as well as on eco-performance, is assessed: symmetric EOC return has a small, positive effect on performance compared to deterministic, while early shifted EOC return is more beneficial. In order to be efficient, environmental policy should set higher minimum reuse targets for higher trippage MCPs. The results may serve for monitoring, flow accounting and comparative eco-assessment of MCPs. They may be useful in identifying reachable and efficient reuse/recycle targets for consumer products and in planning return via appropriate labelling and digital coding for enhancing environmental performance, while satisfying consumer demand.

Algeria as other developing countries faces an array of challenges for healthcare waste management. The management of healthcare waste is of major importance due to its public health risks and potential environmental hazards. Many efforts have been made by the government authorities in order to better manage the waste from healthcare facilities. However most healthcare facilities do not comply with the principles stated in Algerian legislation. A data study was made on 95 hospitals across the country, and the three health sectors of Mostaganem department (Mostaganem, Ain Tédles, and Sidi Ali) were surveyed. The yearly production of infectious healthcare waste in this Algerian department is estimated at 92 tons, which is 1.38% of the national waste production. This represents an average of 0.15 kg/bed/day, which is lower than the national value of 0.72 kg/bed/day. The total healthcare waste by sector ranges from 0.7 to 1.22 kg/bed/day, and healthcare waste comprises 16% of total waste, which is equal to the national percentage.