Healthy Pathways
Indoor Environment Vulnerability of Middle-Income Group in Mega-city Kolkata, India: Winter Assessment of Indoor Air Quality in Naturally Ventilated Dwellings View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tanya Kaur Bedi
The living environment is dynamic in nature and over years, the interventions with our surroundings have had severe implications for example air pollution. The vulnerability and level of impact crucially depend upon the economic status of society and individuals. The sustainability of human settlement plays a key role in this matter. According to a report by the Energy Policy Institution, Indian residents, exposed to the highest levels of air pollution in the world, lose about 6 years of life due to air pollution and yet have numerous dwellings dependent on natural ventilation. The middle-income group constitutes the major share of the population in India, where air conditioning/purification is not likely. The urban population spends 90% of their time indoors, raising concerns for occupant health. The challenge is to integrate the outdoor/indoor environment, economy, and society to create a liveable setting. This study attempts to demonstrate the relationship between indoor pollution and related aspects. Detailed indoor air quality audits were conducted in residential buildings in Kolkata, the second most polluted mega-city in India after Delhi. The monitoring was conducted in winter considering environmental factors and major pollution contributors like traffic and road dust. The measured parameters include temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde, and benzene. The audit selectively targeted the most dominant middle-income group in the urban area of the metropolitan which is natural ventilation dependent. The study assesses indoor air pollution levels and their determining factors with a discussion on possible interventions for improvement.
Implications of Organic Waste Diversion and Policies: Evaluating the Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability Using Life Cycle Modeling and Policy Analysis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brooke Marten
Regulations requiring the diversion of rapidly degrading organic waste from landfills (i.e., organics diversion) are becoming abundant globally to achieve global warming potential (GWP) reduction. Policies must be financially attainable and consider other environmental and social impacts to avoid burden shifting. The environmental impacts (ISO 14040 life cycle assessment standards), life cycle costs (present worth analysis), and environmental damage costs (CE Delft’s method) associated with managing 1 kg municipal solid waste over 20 years were quantified. Scenario analysis included multiple technologies (landfilling, composting, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis) and sorting strategies (separating all organics, only food, only yard waste). Breakeven analysis evaluated the impact of different policy interventions (i.e., carbon tax, renewable energy credits, biochar subsidies). Overall, organics diversion policies focused on climate change will only be effective if they divert food waste; relative to landfilling, diverting food waste to composting, pyrolysis, or anaerobic digestion decreases GWP by 63%, 70%, and 74%, respectively, whereas diverting yard waste only decreases GWP by 12%, 24%, and 14%, respectively. There is a large economic cost associated with these GWP decreases; diverting organics to composting, pyrolysis, or anaerobic digestion increases costs by 13%, 95%, and 147%, respectively. Policy interventions could be implemented to make organics diversion economically competitive with landfilling; for example, pyrolysis could be competitive with an 18 USD/tCO2e carbon tax, a 34 USD/MWh renewable energy credit, and a 0.78 USD/kg biochar selling price. Ultimately, this work’s policy analysis identifies realistic avenues for navigating the economic and environmental tradeoffs associated with waste management.
The Great Lakes Compact: Sustainable Exceptions in the Time of Climate Change View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kathryn Rowberg
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Water Basin Resources Compact is a ratified agreement between eight US Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces to regulate diversion of water from the Great Lakes basin. Exceptions for diversions of water from the Watershed may apply to 1) a community that is located partially in the Great Lakes basin or 2) a community that is located within a county that is partially in the basin. The first test case was Waukesha, Wisconsin which met the second location requirement. Waukesha completed an application according to standards of the Compact in 2016. Although the eight Great Lakes states approved Waukesha's diversion request in 2016, Waukesha only began supplying Great Lakes water to residents in October 2023. This paper explores select hypothetical scenarios to test the feasibility of exceptions due to sustainability issues regarding water management and climate change.
An Evaluation of the Policies, Strategies and Legal Framework for Sustainable Waste Management in Mauritius View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Noushra Amode, Pratima Devi Jeetah, Prakash (Sanju) Deenapanray
This study assesses the degree of adequacy of the national policies, strategies and legal framework in relation with sustainable waste management for Mauritius. To attain this aim, the Wasteaware Benchmark Indicator ‘Adequacy of national framework for solid waste management’ is analysed through a critical evaluation of data from formal sources. The results demonstrate a MEDIUM compliance level, with an overall score of 54% for the afore-stated indicator. The main strengths engendering this score comprise the presence of well-defined government-approved national strategies for waste management aligned with the concept of circularity and sustainability, whose implementation fall within the responsibility of a dedicated National entity, and adequate enforcement of the currently applicable legislations related to waste management. However, major weaknesses which hinder a higher score from being achieved are the lack of a legislative framework dedicated solely to waste management that has already moved to implementation, the absence of enactments which reflect all of the planned waste management undertakings as per the current strategies, the lack of implementable regulations for Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship and the absence of a regulatory framework to ensure that waste management sites are constructed while considering the aspects of environmental justice and equity in view of avoiding the siting of such facilities solely in lower income areas. The main enhancements recommended are drafting of waste-dedicated regulations to reflect the current national strategies and driving the implementation of such regulations through sensitization and incentives.
