Environmental application of gamma technology: Update on the Canadian sludge irradiator

✍ Scribed by Jean F. Swinwood; Frank M. Fraser

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 344 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0969-806X
• DOI: 10.1016/0969-806x(93)90352-u

✦ Synopsis

Waste treatment and disposal technologies have recently been subjected to increasing public and regulatoiy scrutiny. Concern for the environment and a heightened awareness of potential health hazards that could result from insufficient or inappropriate waste handling methods have combined to push waste generators in their search for new treatment alternatives. Gamma technology can offer a new option for the treatment of potentially infectious wastes, including municipal sewage sludge.

Sewagesludge contains beneficial plant nutrients and a high organic component that make it ideal as a soil conditioning agent or fertilizer bulking material. It also carries potentially infectious microorganisms which limit opportunities for beneficial recycling of sludges. Gamma irradiation-disinfection ofthese sludges offers a reliable, fast and efficient method for safe sludge recycling. Nordion International's Market Development Division was created in 1987 as part of a broad corporate reorganization. It was given an exclusive mandate to develop new applications of gamma irradiation technology and markets for these new applications. Nordion has since explored anddeveloped opportunities in food irradiation, pharmaceutical/cosmetic products irradiation, biomedicalwaste sterilization, airline waste disinfection, and sludge disinfection for recycling. This paper focuses on the last of these -a proposed sludge recycling facility that incorporates a cobalt 60 sludge irradiator.