Conference Papers

The paper presents different aspects of interest found during hazards pre-assessments of priority dangerous substances discharged in sewage system by different economic agents and the way their discahrges should be regulated. The used methodology is based on sustainable development approach principles such are: "polluter pays principle", "precautionary principle", and "intergenerational equity principle". It is designed as a site examination of activities, raw materials, products and services and analytical test reports of the sewage-discharged wastewaters. The obtained results are used to evaluate hazards. An expert value judgement multi-criteria approach substantiates the evaluating process. In those screenings, we found heavy metlas in ranges of tens of µg/L. We compared the obtained values with the stated limits in different legal regulatory documents and critically discussed some challenges in applying the law for permit purposes in order to find a possible optimal course of action in managing the risk of water bodies of not having the required quality. The new methodology is of practical use being successfully tested at different economic agents discharging in a municipal sewage system.

The objective of the study is to offer methodological instruments using multiple criteria for hazard waste assessment that will allow reproducibility of value judgments made by experts/specialists in the field when making such decisions based on harmonized national, European, and international legislation. In the hazard waste assessment world practice exist different methods. We will present the practice of decisional logical schemes and decisional rules derivation using multiple criteria in order to make transparent the decisional act of assessment/classification in each jurisdiction to harmonize the waste management and eventually to make possible some actions to be automated for speeding up the final decision. The proposed methodologies developed by INCD-ECOIND respond to the current legislation requirements and address the needs of scientific waste assessment and management with intend to valorize the results in the form of advanced environmental services. The proposed methodologies are based on relevant criteria like hazardous properties by waste’s origin (i.e. waste existing on relevant waste lists - coming from different specific technological processes etc.) and hazardous properties by waste’s composition (i.e. based on results of relevant performed tests revealing hazardous properties for certain components of the analyzed waste from beneficiaries). Information about the analyzed waste has been obtained from beneficiaries, from literature and from INCD-ECOIND performed analytical determinations (over 12 relevant indicators). The classification results are finally presented. The proposed multiple criteria type of methodologies offer efficient, short, logic, and mathematical algorithms for data reduction and discovery of relevant decision rules within the available data information. They offer easy interpretation of the obtained results, revealing the quality of classification, allowing the automation of some actions but also manual (pre)processing of data depending on situation, in order to support the final classification decision.

The paper presents the methodology for environmental risk assessment using RST that analysis the probability and the gravity of consequences of exposure of natural environmental components (air, surface water, soil, sub-soil, ground water) when the hazard of significant pollution act on them considered as targets. The basic elements of the RST are presented in relation with their potential use in environmental impact/risk assessment for the continual improvement of the environmental performance to any organization. The new proposed methodology for site environmental impact/risk assessment brings a new RST based decision table with a set of certain and transparent decision rules in order to conform the current environmental legislation and to allow classification of possible environmental pollution states in the analyzed site named observations/events in nine risk classes scored increasingly from 1 to 9. Each risk class is characterized in order to be user friendly in practical cases where this decision table can serve as reference.

This paper presents a recent study regarding choosing and optimizing of the appropriate test methods to characterization and analysis of used oils from different sectors of activity, in order to evaluate the heavy metal content. In the first step, the samples preparation stage for metal analysis, a number of preparation methods have been tested and finally chosen as optimal, a microwave digestion method. For comparison the metals were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). The results obtained by the two methods are comparative and indicate in all analyzed samples the presence of heavy metals such as Fe, Ni, Zn, Cr and Mn. The methods used have been demonstrated to be appropriate by use of the certified reference material for metals in lubricating oils. From the results obtained it is found that the methods of characterization and analysis can be used as optimal and good methods for evaluation of the content of metals in used oils.

The paper presents a commented comparison of different standard limits for chemical substances including the priority/priority hazardous substances in order to protect the good and very good quality of drinking water as the Water Frame Directive requires for preserving population health and safety. A short review of the regulation efforts is presented underlying the scientific evidences behind keeping those standards updated with the latest research in the field. Example of Romanian legislation requirements for keeping under control the water bodies’ discharges of priority/priority hazardous substances and comments related to the necessity of a mature judgment in applying it are presented in conjunction with the European and international practices.