Training Programme on Application of En vironmental T echnology A ssessment (EnTA)

1. Training Programme on Application of Environmental Technology Assessment (EnTA)

2. Workshop Objective • To equip you with the understanding and methods, a tool and other resources related to EnTA, thereby ensuring that you are able to: • conduct an EnTA in a competent manner and • transfer this understanding of, and competency in, EnTA to other individuals and organisations.

3. Outcomes of an EnTA • Consensus rather than conflict • Improved decision making regarding selection of environmentally sound technologies • Facilitate sustainable development

4. Programme • Getting Started – including introductions • EnTA – methodology, information requirements, support materials and tools • Training Case Study • National/Region Case Studies • “Learning by Doing” – group work on case studies • Reporting Back • Developing National Capacity in EnTA • Evaluation and Close

5. Case Studies • Training Case Study • Polyethylene Production – based on imaginary country of Udanax • National/Regional Case Studies

6. Key Objectives of Session • This section of the training package is designed to give you an overview of the nature and purpose of Environmental Technology Assessment (EnTA). • By the end of this session you will have an understanding of: • the key terms, potential users and applications of EnTA; • the key concepts, characteristics and procedures of an EnTA.

7. Brainstorming Session • Identify the limitations of Environmental Impact Assessment

8. EnTA is a systematic procedure whereby a proposed technology investment is described and appraised in terms of its potential influence on the environment, the implications for sustainable development and the likely cultural and socio-economic consequences. Definition of EnTA

9. Potential Users of EnTA • Decision makers and managers in industry. • Development planners and other governmental officials. • Community and other non-governmental organisations. • All individuals and groups with a commitment to sustainable development.

10. The Need for EnTA • EnTA helps identify environmentally sound technologies. • EnTA helps improve the quality of decision making to ensure the most appropriate decisions are made on the technology choice. • EnTA helps build consensus among stakeholders.

11. Terminology Environmentally Sound Technologies Generic and Global Environmental Technologies Production & Consumption Technologies Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Environmental Verification of Technologies (EVT) Specific and Local Environmental Technology Assessment (EnTA)

12. The Basics of EnTA

13. Objective of EnTA • To provide an evaluation of the environmental consequences of different technology options This includes assessing the effects a technology has on the health and welfare of the community, natural ecosystems and on the sustainability of resource use

14. Characteristics of EnTA Summary • technology focused • focused at enterprise level rather than national policy level • considers alternatives • simplifying, largely qualitative and subjective • involves and reflects interests of multiple stakeholders • scoping tool - to be used at the “idea stage”, rather than after development of a formal/full proposal (then use EIA) • proactive environmental management tool • multidisciplinary • comprehensive and integrated - with respect to the broad implications of the technology system • identifies if more sophisticated assessment tools should be used • voluntary

15. EnTA Approach EnTA examines the total technological process over its entire lifecycle: • identification of need, problem, opportunity • choice of alternatives • selection of sites and technologies • design • obtaining appropriate rights and approvals • construction • operation and maintenance; inputs & outputs • repairs, upgrading, expansion • abandonment, decommissioning, disposal, replacement

16. Supporting Technologies Resource Use Wastes & Products Human Resources Infrastructure Components of a Technological System

17. Scope of the Assessment • In practical terms the scope of the assessment is likely to be determined by such factors as: • Time horizon • Political considerations • Expert judgement • Resource limitations • Technology options and applications • Given considerations of these factors it is possible to define the scope of the assessment.

18. Steps in EnTA The EnTA Process is NOT linear

19. Evaluating Environmental Consequences

20. Factors that Determine Environmental Consequences Step 2: Identify Environmental Pressures • The characteristics of the pressures (e.g. the nature and quantity of the resources consumed and wastes released). • The nature of the pathways. • The characteristics of the receiving environment (e.g. community values, hazard pathways, number of people or animals exposed, and sensitivity of the receiving environment.

21. Relationships between DICE and the EnTA process.

22. Relationships between DICE and the EnTA process.

23. Relationships between DICE and the EnTA process.

24. Relationships between DICE and the EnTA process.

25. Sources of Environmental Pressures • Resource use • Wastes and hazardous products • Human resources requirements • Infrastructure requirements • Requirements for supporting technologies

26. Outcome Categories (= “Endpoints”) • Human Health and Safety • Local natural environment • Global environment • Scarce/non-renewable resource use • Social systems

27. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA Technical resources: • If the assessment is being undertaken in relation to a process technology a number of technical documents can help ensure adequacy of the information available to the assessment team. • These include documents that describe the process, a process diagram, simplified materials and energy balances, the amounts and physical and chemical forms of raw materials, products and wastes, costs, conceptual basic engineering information and details of the critical points where decisions have to be made on environmental, economic and social grounds.

28. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Resource use: • Information should be available for all the material, water, energy, and land resources required to establish the technology and to produce the desired outputs (e.g. services or products). This includes all of the inputs to a process, as well as the support requirements (e.g. buildings, and land). Particular attention should be paid to identification of all toxic, non-renewable and scarce materials used by the technology.

29. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Wastes and products: • All of the gaseous, liquid and solid wastes, and noise, produced by the technology should be described. These are often the major source of environmental pressures. There is a need to identify the products produced by the technology, with attention being given to those that have the potential to cause significant pressures on environmental systems – for instance toxic substances (e.g. pesticides that have the potential for accidental release into the environment during storage or transportation).

30. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Infrastructure: • All of the supporting facilities, services and utilities needed by the technology should be described. This might include roads, public transportation services and sewers

31. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Supporting technologies: • Technology interventions often require other supporting technologies in order to operate effectively. Examples include storage facilities and waste treatment plants. These supporting technologies place additional demands on the environment, due to such effects as resource consumption and waste emissions. As with infrastructure, it is especially important to identify the supporting technologies that will be introduced or used as a direct consequence of the proposed technology intervention.

32. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Human resources: • It is important to describe all the labour requirements needed to build, maintain, operate and eventually decommission the technology. Of special interest in this category is the number of people that may need to be recruited from outside the locality where the technology will be used. A large influx of labour can make significant demands upon the environment, resources, infrastructure, and social cohesion, and on support services, especially in a small community.

33. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Human health: • This information category focuses on the potential impacts of a technology on the health, safety and well being of the community and workers. Impacts may be associated with injury, discomfort or death. There are three main impact pathways that need to be considered in the assessment of human health and safety: • Communicable Diseases - Vector borne diseases (e.g. malaria), sanitary hygiene diseases, risk associated with handing of infectious wastes; • Injury - Risk of accidents from traffic, explosions, falls, heat stress, operation of machinery, handling of physically hazardous wastes and resources (e.g. sharps), loss of hearing; and • Exposure to hazardous chemicals - Inhalation (e.g. air pollution), dermal contact, ingestion of contaminated food and water (e.g. pesticide residue) of hazardous chemicals and of radioactive material.

34. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Local natural environment • This category focuses on the effects a technology may have on organisms, their habitats, the life supporting capacity of natural ecosystems, and on biodiversity. Of particular concern is the loss of endangered and rare plant and animal species, and destruction of endangered and limited habitats. Three principal impact pathways should be considered when assessing impacts in this category: • Habitat loss or alteration through land clearance (e.g. as a consequence of raw material demand or development of a site); • Physical disruption of habitat; for example, the construction of pipelines that inhibit the migration of animals; and • The chemical contamination of the environment through the release of wastes that have a direct toxic effect on flora and fauna (e.g. pesticides) or that alter the functionality of an ecosystem through such processes as eutrophication (e.g. the discharge of nutrients or other chemicals with high biological oxygen demand (BOD)) and acidification.

35. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Resource sustainability • This impact category relates to the effect that the technology has upon the continued existence and availability of valued and scare resources. There are two principal ways a technology can affect resource sustainability: • By consuming a resource at a rate greater than it is replenished or greater than the rate at which it may be continually supplied over the lifetime of the technology; and • By contaminating a resource that is either used by the technology operators or by other parties, but which has no direct link to the technology (e.g. contamination of groundwater by an industrial manufacturing process). • In general, three basic resource categories should be considered in the assessment: • Living Resources: Consumption or destruction of flora and fauna resources such as crops, forests (e.g. tropical rainforests), and fisheries; • Non-living resources: Mineral and chemical resources such as the fossil fuels used in energy generation or the materials used in production, and also the consumption or contamination of water resources; and • Land resources: The land required by the industrial site, wastes, and by supporting infrastructures and services which may reduce its potential for later use.

36. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Global environment • This category is concerned with the impact of the technology at a global scale, typically as a cumulative impact. These impacts may or may not be associated with a significant effect on a given local ecosystem or community. Particular emphasis is placed on the release of substances that: • Enhance global warming (i.e. greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides); and those that • Deplete the stratospheric ozone layer, for example chloroflurocarbons

37. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Social and cultural • This category is related to the effects of a technology on a community’s values, social services and social cohesion. These impacts are in addition to those related to human health, safety and well being. There are many ways in which a technology may affect the social structure and well being of a community, but the EnTA process will normally focus on three principal concerns: • Cultural resources and values • Social disruption to the community • Equity issues

38. Information Required to Conduct an EnTA (cont.) Critical cost elements • Cost elements of a technology element that are subject to significant change (i.e. “volatility”) under certain conditions. • For example, in the case of lead acid battery recycling, scrap batteries account for about 60% of production costs. In other processes, energy or labour might be significant cost factors.

39. Support Materials and Tools • EnTA Manual • Worksheets • Case Studies • Conventional Training Package • EnTA Online (plus user’s guide)

40. Discussion When is an impact significant?

41. Discussion

42. The Training Case Study • Overview of Case Study Technology • Application and Operating Environment of Case Study Technology

43. Case Study Technology • Polyethylene Production • Ethylene monomer is transformed into solid polyethylene particles • In current process, as the ethylene is polymerized, the reactive mixture is scrubbed with dilute aqueous caustic solutions • Leads to high volume pollutants in the wastewater stream • The discharge is sulphitic and non-recoverable • Proposal is to use a neutralisation and steam stripping technology for the treatment of the spent caustic

44. Case Study Technology (cont.) A CP Alternative? • Fluidized Bed Polymerization Process • Using a highly active metallic catalyst makes the process continuous, with no requirement for scrubbing and solvents • Thus no water-based effluents • Hydrocarbon waste can be collected and incinerated

45. Case Study Technology (cont.) Assessment Task: • Assess the environmental and related performances of the proposed technology and two plausible alternatives • Prepare a well documented recommendation as to which technology is preferable

46. Operating Environment • Ana Plastics manufactures solid poly-ethylene particles, with the product delivered to various manufacturers of plastic products • Udanax City is introducing new effluent discharge regulations and the existing plant will be non-compliant • Current plan is to install a wastewater treatment plant to neutralise the spent caustic waste • Alternative is to change the production process and eliminate the discharge of liquid wastes

47. Overview of Udanax (cont.)

48. Overview of Udanax (cont.)

49. Location of Ana Plastics Ana Plastics

50. National/Regional Case Studies