18-Env-B5 Industrial & Hazardous Waste Management · May 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
Reference texts: Nemerow & Dasgupta, Industrial and Hazardous Waste Treatment, 2nd ed.; Metcalf & Eddy, Wastewater Engineering: Treatment and Resource Recovery, 5th ed.; Davis & Cornwell, Introduction to Environmental Engineering, 6th ed.; LaGrega, Buckingham & Evans, Hazardous Waste Management, 2nd ed.; CCME, Guidelines for the Management of Biomedical Waste in Canada (1992); Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), 1999; Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes (1989); Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) regulations on radioactive waste; provincial hazardous waste regulations (e.g. BC's Environmental Management Act and Hazardous Waste Regulation).
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
An industrial waste survey begins with a desk review of the plant's process flow diagrams, layout drawings and any existing water-use or discharge records, followed by a physical plant walk-through to trace every water and process line and confirm the records match actual practice (including off-shift or batch operations a daytime-only review would miss). Every significant source — continuous, batch and intermittent — is then identified and located, and flow-measured (weirs, flumes or in-line meters) to establish actual rates and their variability across a production cycle. A representative sampling program (flow-proportional composite sampling spanning a full cycle including all shifts, supplemented by field grab samples for pH and temperature) is then executed and the samples analyzed for BOD5, COD, TSS, pH, oil and grease and any process-specific toxic constituent identified from the process review. Finally, the measured flows and loads are reconciled into a water and mass balance against the plant's own production and water-use records to check internal consistency, and the findings are documented in a survey report.
The components of the survey are therefore: (1) records/process review, (2) plant walk-through, (3) source identification, (4) flow measurement, (5) sampling program, (6) laboratory analysis, and (7) mass-balance reconciliation and reporting.
