Universitas Indonesia Faculty of Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

ASSIGNMENT AS MID-TERM TEST COURSE: POLLUTION PREVENTION S8/2013; 2 SKS Lecturer: El Khobar M. Nazech Assignment should be collected in CD or DVD format, on Tuesday March 26, 2013

BE HONEST TO YOURSELF.
Part A (50%) 1. Waste can be defined as a resource out of place examine the contents of your home trash and determine the potential uses for the material discarded. How difficult would it be to recycle/reuse these materials? What fraction of your waste is potentially recyclable/reusable? 2. The quantities of waste generated by almost all activities can generally be reduced. Consider a typical business office, such as your university engineering department office. What are the sources of waste in the office and how could they be reduced. Consider all waste sources 3. Using the Internet, find a few corporation tose have established the corporate environmental ethics policy and describe and critique the main component of the policy. 4. You are an engineer for a large manufacturing facility. One of your responsibilities is to evaluate pollution emissions at your plant and to suggest ways to minimize them. The company previously produced and emitted large quantities of a toxic chemical from one of its process but in order to reduce emissions they recently replaced the process with a new system that produced only negigible quantities of the chemical. You are told that, since this is a new low polluting process, you do not need to investigate it. However, during your enquires into another process line, you discover that the new process is emitting another potentially harmfull compound. This compound has not yet been proven harmful and is not on any Goverment Environmental Impact Agency lists, but recent literature you have read indicates that it may be potential endocine dsirupter. Should you report this to your supervisor?.

The process cost millions of dollars to install and its shut down would cause irreparable damage to the company. If you do report it and your supervisor tells you to ignore it until there is firm evidence as to its harmfulness, what you should you then do? 5. For the scenario presented in problem no. 4, the company is appealing a fine for violations due to its previous process, based on the fact that the company has already spent millions of dollars to install a new, non polluting process. You called on to describe the merits of the new process before Goverment Regulation Agency, and to state that the process is environmentally benign. You are instructed by your upper management to say nothing about your concerns realtive to the new chemical being emitted. What do you do? If you do testify as instructed, and are asked about the new chemical by a Goverment Environmental Impcat Angency officer, what do you say? 6. Highway run-off used to contain high concentrations of lead due to the lead in gasoline used to power automobiles. Since lead gasoline was substantially rediced in the late 1990s, these concentartions have substantially decreased. But, lead is still found in highway run-off because of lead pollution associated with automotive use. What are some of these? 7. An industry burns large quantities of fossil fuels for its manufacturing processes. Its boilers are old and not very efficient. Consequently, they emit more unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide than they should. The company is contemplating istalling more efficient burners that will operate at much higher temparatures and with excess oxygen, which should greatly reduce these emissions. However, this will probably increase the emissions of another criteria pollutant. Which one is it? Would you recommed modifying the equipment as proposed? Why? 8. a. Many business receive goods and materials on wooden pallts. There are usually discarded after use. List ways that this significant source of industrial solid wastes could be minimized? b. Evaluate, quantity and list all of the solid waste that you generate over a seven day period. How much of this material is potentially recyclable? What and how much of it could have been reduced by improved packaging? c. using the internet, determine the current prices for recycled: alluminium cans, ferrous metal, copper, brass, newsprint, paper board and plastic bottles 9. We generally think of sulfur emissions and acid rain when we think of coal burning power plants. However, there are several other environmental problems associated with coal burning. Descibe three of them. There is considerable debate as to the role of CO2 emissions on global warming. One

side of the debate says that the CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect and will soon lead to increased global temperatures. The other side says that the oceans serve as a sink for atmospheric CO2 and will maderate any increases in atmospheric CO2 in the long term. Research and analyze these two sides of the debate. What is your opinion on the subject? 10. How is human health harmed by air pollution? What are the harmful effects of air pollutants on materilas? Hoe are plants damages by air pollution? 11. What is being done to reduce ozone depletion? What factors influence the formation of photochemical and industrial smog? What should be done to reduce air pollution? 12. Explain how atmospheric warming might affect each of the following: a. Food production; b. Water supplies; c. Forrests; d. Biodiversity; e. Sea level and coastal area; f. Weather extremes; g. Human health and i. Developing countries. List some of beneficial effect of global warming for peolple and other forms of life in some areas. 13. Explain why you support or oppose requiring that: a. All beverage containers be reuseable; b all households and businesses put recyclable materials into separate containers for curbside pick-up; c. Garbage collecting systems implement the pay-asyou-throw approach; d. Consumers pay for plastic or paper bags at grocery and other stores to encourage the use of reusable hopping bags. 14. Give your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing, with each of the following proposals for dealing with hazardous waste: a. Reducing the production of hazardous waste and encouraging recycling and reuse of hazardous materials by charging producers a tax or fee for each unit of waste generated. b. Banning all land dsiposal and inceneration of hazardous waste to encourage recycling, reuse and treatment and to protect air, water, and soil from contamination. c. Providing low-interest loans, tax breaks, and other financial incentives to encourage industries producing hazardous waste to reduce, recycle, reuse, treat, and destroy such waste. d. Banning the shipmentof hazardous waste from one country to another. 15. Global Environmental Policy: What progress has been made in developing International Environmental Cooperation and Policy? (start from 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden . . and so on . .) 16. Using internet finds Bellagio Principle Explain what it is. What related to Pollution

Prevention? Give your idea to implemnt the Bellagio Principle in your daily activities. 17. Search information @ internet, review and explain those related to the civil & environmental engineering (back-ground, problems, implementations) give your opinions and sugesstions to solve the problems, if any: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. Design for Environment; Life Cycle Analysis; Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production; Eco Efficiency; Green Building; Total Quality Management; Sustainable Consumption and Production; Environment Friendly Technologies; Environmental Management System ; Green Design/Green Manufacturing

Part B (50%) 1. A manufacturer is considering changing its process in order to reduce pollution emissions. Production will remain the same. The current process has an annual operating cost of $850,000 and an annual waste disposal cost of $150,000. The new process would have an annual operating cost of $700,000 and a waste disposal cost of $85,000. It will cost $300,000 to modify the existing process line to effect these changes. Based on present worth and assuming an 8 percent discount rate and a five year life, does it make economic sense to make the process line changes?

2. A standard 100W light bulb costs $1.00 and has a life of 750 hours. New energy efficient light bulbs, costing the same, require only 90W for the same light output and for the same light. A hotel has 1800 light fixtures that use this type bulb. It is estimated that the average bulb has been used for 375 hours. The hotel is planning to switch to the energy saving bulbs to save on electricity charges, currently running at 8 cents per kWh. a. if this change is made, how much would the hotel save in electricity charges in the first year, assuming that the light bulbs are on for an average of 6 hour per day? b. should all of the bulbs be changed now, or should the conversion be done when a bulb burn out? Ignore the cost of bulb installation.

3. A metal plating operator is considering installing an ion exchange unit to recover and reuse metals currently lost in the rinse waters from the plating line. The company presently pays a sewer use fee equivalent to $4.00 per kg of metal sent to City Wastewater Treatment Plant. The ion exchanger can recover 98 percent of this metal. The remainder is small enough that the company will not subject to the sewer user fee. The ion exchange unit will cost of $50,000 to install; and $12,000 per year to operate. The platter is currently discharging 1,000 kg/year of the metal to the sewer. The metal costs the company $120 per kilogram to purchase. a. what is present worth of the project, assuming a discount rate of the 10 percent and an expected equipment life of 10 years? b. what is the annualized cost for the system? c. what is the pay-back period for this project? d. should the platter install the ion exchange?

4. A manufacturer receives components those go into products, in cardboard boxes. The company is currently paying a fee of $16,000 per year to have the discarded boxes pickedup and hauled away to a landfill for disposal. A local paperboard recycler is willing to pay the company $4,000 per year for the cardboard, but they will not pick-up the cardboard at the plant. The manufacturer estimates that it would cost them $12,000 per year to haul the cardboard to the recycler, which means they would only break even, but if they installed a compactor for the boxes, the hauling cost would drop to $5,000 per year. The compactor will cost $14,000 to install and $1,000 per year to operate. Which option is the best investment, based on internal rate of return? Assume a five-year life for the compactor and a 10 percent discount rate.

5. The manufacturer in problem 4 above is discussing an arrangement with its parts supplier whereby the boxes would be shipped back to supplier for reuse, rather than disposing of them. The supplier would rebate the company $5,000 per year for the returned boxes. The manufacturer estimates that it will cost $14,000 per year to ship back the flattened (noncompacted) boxes for reuse. Now, which is the best option?

f:el-khobar/pp/March 2013