Construction and Demolition Waste Management (CDWM) includes collecting, transporting, processing, and disposing construction and demolition (C&D) waste, where collection and transportation of bulky and voluminous C&D waste contribute significantly to economic and environmental impacts. Transfer station (TS) being a link between various waste management (WM) facilities plays a significant role in collection and transportation of waste. Thus, locating TS at suitable site can help in reducing the overall impacts. Employment of Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis tools in CDWM is a powerful strategy for site suitability study. A case study in Coimbatore, India, is presented in this study using GIS-based multi-criteria analysis for locating C&D waste TS. The criteria for site suitability analysis are chosen based on literature review, regulations, and experts\' opinions. Weights of the chosen criteria are estimated using analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the final suitability map is created by weighted overlay analysis (WOA) in GIS environment. Results provide first-hand information for local decision makers to locate C&D waste transfer station in the chosen study region and report that 12% of the entire area is \"highly suitable\" for transfer station location.

The waste transfer station (WTS) is an important link in the transfer of municipal solid waste (MSW) between the community and disposal terminals. While WTSs facilitate waste collection in communities, odorous gases and bioaerosols can escape from them, thereby negatively affecting their surroundings. In this study, the concentration, particle size distribution, pathogen population, and health risks of bioaerosols were analyzed at different locations in a transfer station. The results showed that the highest viable bacterial aerosol concentration was 10,353 ± 3701 CFU/m3, which was at 5 m from the disposal site. Fifty-three bacterial species, including pathogens, were detected. Of these, 39 were human pathogenic bacteria directly originating from the WTS. Furthermore, health risk assessments indicated unacceptable levels of non-carcinogenic risk for operational workers caused by bacterial aerosols of the WTS work area. In addition, bacterial aerosols may pose a severe health risk to children within a 15 m area of the WTS. The results of this study provide a scientific basis to control and reduce the risk associated with bioaerosol exposure in solid WTSs.

With the continuous progress of urbanization, municipal solid waste (MSW) transfer stations, which are key points for garbage collection and transportation, have moved to residential areas than before. The emission characteristics of gas-phase emerging contaminants should be comprehensively assessed in the assessment of health threats to workers and environmental risks. In this study, the emission characteristics of airborne microplastic particles (>50 μm) were analyzed on the roof vent and waste reception hall of four MSW transfer stations in Shanghai during different seasons. The average concentration of airborne microplastic particles was 2.5 ± 1.3 n/m3. The particle sizes of airborne microplastics at the four waste transfer stations were mainly in the range of 100 μm to 500 μm. Microplastics mainly occur as films and fibers. The dominant microplastic type was Rayon, which accounted for 69.4% of the total amount. The rate of microplastic particles emission into the environment for a single transfer station was estimated to be in the range of 41,297 to 82,593 n/h. Compared with the waste reception hall, the concentration of airborne microplastic particles in the roof vent decreased by 25%, which indicated that the odor treatment facility effectively reduces the concentration of microplastic particles.

Airborne microorganisms in the waste associated environments are more active and complex compared to other places. However, the diversity and structure of airborne bacteria in waste-associated environments are still not clearly understood. The purpose of this study was to assess airborne bacterial community in electronic waste dismantling site and a waste transfer station based on culture-dependent and culture-independent methods. A total of 229 isolates were obtained from four airborne sites collected from residential area, electronic industrial park, and office area in or near an electronic waste dismantling site and a waste transfer station in Southern China in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Most of the isolates were isolated from air for the first time and 14 potentially novel species were identified by Sanger sequencing. Bacterial communities in waste-associated bioaerosols were predominated by Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Abundant genera (>1%) included Paracaedibacteraceae (uncultured EF667926), Ralstonia, Chroococcidiopsis, Chitinophagaceae (uncultured FN428761), Sphingobium, and Heliimonas. One-third of the species in these genera were uncultured approximately. Differences community structure existed in airborne bacterial diversity among different sampling sites. These results showed that waste-associated environments have unique bacterial diversity. Further studies on such environments could provide new insights into bacterial community.

Collection, transfer and transport of municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the most challenging tasks of local municipalities and occupies a significant portion of the municipal expenses. Appropriately planned transfer stations (TSs) can increase system performance and reduce costs. Therefore, this study aims to develop a spatial modelling approach for investigating the optimum siting and economic impacts of MSW TSs. A geographic information system-based land suitability analysis was conducted to identify potential TS sites followed by a scenario analysis to determine optimum TS sites and waste collection routes for various collection vehicle capacities through vehicle routing problem modelling. The approach was implemented in the southeastern region of İzmir where a new landfill is to be built to serve three district municipalities. The addition of a TS in the study area reduced the collection time and number of shifts by 9%. Similarly, collection with large vehicles decreased the collection time and number of shifts by 25% and 17%, respectively. However, the unit cost of the system increased from 17.52 to 18.60 US$ metric tonnes-1 waste with the TS addition because of the additional costs of the TS. The results indicated that TS addition is not economically feasible in the study area because of the small collection vehicle fleet (eight collection vehicles), proximity of landfill to areas with high waste density and district level collection. On the other hand, TS addition resulted in lower fuel consumption which may help reduce fuel-induced air pollution.

BACKGROUND: The waste transfer stations (WTSs) is one of the most important factors affecting on environment and human health. This research is aimed to evaluate health risk of VOCs among WTS personnel and provide a model for dispersion of VOCs. The Air Pollution Model (TAPM) is able to simulate WTS emissions dispersion over each town.
RESULTS: GC-MS was used to analysis collected gas samples to detect and estimate carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic VOCs health risks. The total lifetime cancer risk values for the all personnel (3.30E-05), was more than acceptable limit (1.00E-06). Furthermore, hazard ratio (HR) of 1,2,3-trimethylbenzene, 1,3-dichloropropane, toluene, m,p-xylene and ethylbenzene were 3.7, 1.9 E-01, 4.4 E-03, 5.5 E-02 and 1.5 E-03, respectively, and total HR of the mentioned compounds were more than accepted limit (HR < 1.00). IOA is 0.85 and RMSE is 2.16 and TAPM has a good performance. The VOCs level is considerable in 1600 m far from the WTS particularly in summer that require more attention.
CONCLUSIONS: The exposure to VOCs was at a high level in WTS, and some controlling strategy should be used for decreasing the pollution and protecting the citizens and personnel against non-cancerous and cancerous risks.

The increase in the quantity of municipal solid waste generated as a result of population growth in most urban areas has resulted in the difficulty of locating suitable land areas to be used as landfills. To curb this, waste transfer stations are used. The Kumasi Metropolitan Area, even though it has an engineered landfill, is faced with the problem of waste collection from the generation centres to the final disposal site. Thus in this study, multi-criteria decision analysis incorporated into a geographic information system was used to determine potential waste transfer station sites. The key result established 11 sites located within six different sub-metros. This result can be used by decision makers for site selection of the waste transfer stations after taking into account other relevant ecological and economic factors.