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. 2022 Jul 14:16:11786302221111872.
doi: 10.1177/11786302221111872. eCollection 2022.

A Study on Safety Management Plan for Recycling of Medium-Contact Wastes via Ecotoxicity Assessment

Soo-Yeon Hong  1 , Cheol-Woo Yoon  1   2 , Young-Sam Yoon  1 , Jang-Hyun Kang  1 , Tae-Wan Jeon  1
Affiliations

A Study on Safety Management Plan for Recycling of Medium-Contact Wastes via Ecotoxicity Assessment

Soo-Yeon Hong et al. Environ Health Insights. .

Abstract

In South Korea, hazardous characteristics of wastes to be recycled are managed through the "Environmental Impact Assessment of Recycling" system. The ecotoxicity of medium-contact recyclable wastes, that is, those in contact with soil, groundwater, surface water, etc., is managed according to this system and is determined based on whether or not they exceed an ecotoxicity value (TU) of 2.0. The ecotoxicity of wastes is tested and determined by using pretreated eluate samples according to the Official Wastes Test Standard and applying the Official Water Pollution Process Test Standard. However, no ecotoxicity management limits are stipulated for medium-contact recycling using wastes in numerous other countries. This study aims to evaluate applicability and safety of the ecotoxicity test for wastes used in medium-contact recycling and establish an efficient management plan for hazardous characteristic wastes. Target wastes for the survey were selected based on the Wastes Control Act in South Korea. Nine types of waste were selected, which are representative types of wastes to which ecotoxicity is applied. In order to secure the representativeness of the target samples, a total of 45 samples were collected by selecting 5 cases each of the 9 waste types in consideration of the type of industry and amount of waste generated. Limit exceedance was calculated for each category of hazardous substances (leaching, total content), pH, and ecotoxicity of a total of 45 samples, and was found to increase in the order of leaching 2.22% < pH 9.09% < content 31.11% < ecotoxicity 37.21%. This indicates that the limit exceedance was maximum in the ecotoxicity category. Therefore, the application of ecotoxicity limit is efficient for identifying and comprehensively managing the environmental impacts of various types of hazardous substances contained in wastes from the perspective of comprehensive toxicity.

Keywords: Hazardous characteristics; ecotoxicity; environmental impact assessment of recycling; hazardous waste; up-flow percolation method.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Waste ecotoxicity management system in South Korea.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Methods of analysis applicable for each item in the samples.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Schematic representation of the up-flow percolation process.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Procedure for Daphnia magna Straus toxicity test to obtain acute toxicity.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Results of leaching analysis.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Results of total content analysis.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Results of pH measurements (average values).
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Results of the ecotoxicity analysis.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Management system applying ecotoxicity in medium-contact recycling.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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