Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2

Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 1 Edinburgh, November 2020
Environmental Engineering and
Sustainability 2
Assessing environmental impacts and
sustainability issues of a landfill site
The University of
Edinburgh
School of Engineering
This is a fictional brief, and you should not contact any of the organisations mentioned in the
brief, or any of the businesses in the area.
This project explores the use of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) methodology as a tool
to find the best available location for a new facility. The key requirement is to assess environmental
impacts and mitigation solutions for a hypothetical new landfill site. Based on this, the selection of
the best available location for the landfill site should be clearly justified.
In this project you will work in groups.
Background
 You work in the fictional organisation, Environmental Engineers Without Borders (EEWB),
which is based in Edinburgh. The aim of EEWB is to promote sustainable engineering, and
provide creative, innovative and socially responsible engineering solutions to make our world
fairer, greener, and safer.
 The City of Edinburgh Council has decided to build a new landfill site, where solid wastes
coming from Edinburgh city and the surrounding areas will be disposed of. The capacity of the
new landfill facility will be 100,000 tn/year and its estimated life expectancy will be 30 years.
 EdiDesigners is the company that carries out the design of the new landfill facility. The project is
now at the licencing stage and for this reason a draft EIA document has been submitted to
Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and has been made available for public
consultation.
 EdiDesigners has asked from EEWB to act as a non-statutory consultee and provide advice on
the planned new facility.
 EEWB has formed a multidisciplinary environmental team, who took over the role to develop a
formal document advising on the planned new landfill facility.
 EdiDesigners have considered three different sites (A, B and C) to build the new landfill facility.
Attached is a map with sites A, B, and C.
 The City of Edinburgh Council is on negotiations with Scottish Borders, Midlothian, and West
Lothian Councils about compensation fees. Here you can see the Councils’ boundaries.
 Landfill site selection is the most important decision that should be made when planning a
landfill. Natural, social, political, economic and technical factors should be taken into account to
decide on the best available site. Therefore, site selection is usually made by a multidisciplinary
team of experts with advice from various consultees. Amongst others, the following issues
should be taken into account when selecting a landfill site [1, 2]:
o Distance from protected areas
Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 2 Edinburgh, November 2020
o Distance from residential areas
o Distance from water resources
o Distance from roads
o Land use
o Recommendations of local authorities, e.g. inter-municipal corporation agreements
 After careful consideration, EdiDesigners concluded that site C is the most preferable option to
build the new landfill site.
The Brief
 You are required to prepare a document in order to advise SEPA (and the general public) on the
environmental sustainability of the new landfill site.
 Answers to the following issues should be included in the document:
1. Explain whether and how the new landfill facility will contribute to sustainable development
of the city of Edinburgh and the surrounding area.
2. Identify the stages of the life cycle of the new landfill site facility.
3. Assess the environmental impacts of the planned facility.
4. Suggest solutions to mitigate environmental impacts.
5. Evaluate whether the proposed site C is the best available location to build the landfill site.
Feel free to suggest another site (e.g. site A or B or a new one) that you think would be more
suitable to build the landfill site. Consider the “do nothing” scenario. Justify your answers.
The Submission
Each group will submit its project on Learn (submission deadline: Thursday 3rd of December at 2
pm).
Working arrangements/suggestions
You should first contact your groupmates and make sure that you all read and understand the
project brief. Following this, you should start drafting your project submission (i.e. read and
research about landfill site facilities, think about sustainability issues, identify environmental
impacts and ways to mitigate them, make decisions, clearly justify and communicate your
decisions).
References
[1] Y. Rezaeisabzevar, A. Bazargan, B. Zohourian. Landfill site selection using multi criteria decision making:
Influential factors for comparing locations. Journal of Environmental Sciences 93 (2020) 170–184.
[2] H. Asefi, Y. Zhang, S. Lim, M. Maghrebi, S. Shahparvari. A multi-criteria decision support framework for
municipal solid waste landfill siting: a case study of New South Wales (Australia). Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment (2020) 192:682.
Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 3 Edinburgh, November 2020
Assessment
Table 1: Assessment Criteria
Assessment
Criteria
Minimum requirement for
Pass (D) 40%
Minimum requirement for
Excellent (A3) 70%
Understanding of
sustainability
concepts
The submission demonstrates basic
understanding of concepts, such as
sustainable development, life cycle
assessment (LCA), and environmental
impact assessment (EIA). Main
sustainability issues have been identified,
but some others were not taken into
account.
Ability to identify interactions between
sustainability issues and how these
apply in real-world problems. The
submission clearly identifies all issues
related to environmental sustainability,
as well as how these can be affected by
other social and economic parameters.
Feasibility of the
proposed solutions
and decision
making
The solution(s) is(are) technically
feasible: the submission demonstrates
that the solution(s) provided and
decisions made are viable (e.g. according
to current regulations, and key design
considerations have been made), and the
new facility is possible to be built.
However, the submission does not take
into account all technical considerations,
and the solutions are no more than
sufficient.
The solution(s) is(are) not only feasible,
but is(are) elegant, efficient, innovative
and appropriate. For example, the
submission will not only provide
feasible solutions to minimize
environmental impacts, but ones that
will also minimise safety hazards during
construction and operation. The
solutions presented in the document are
unambiguous, realistic, and
professional. They do not leave the
reader with unanswered questions about
the decisions made. Solutions provided
and decisions made are properly
supported by evidence (e.g. by literature
or calculations if any).
Quality of
communication
Basic communication that can be
understood, but which lacks clarity. For
example, the submission may not cover
all required issues, or it might be a
collection of individual perspectives that
have not been unified into the submission
document, possibly containing conflicting
information.
Every aspect of the submission is easily
understood. The document is wellstructured and easy to follow. Figures,
tables, graphs, etc. are extensively and
properly used to communicate the
project’s findings. There is a consistent
writing style, which uses appropriate
order and referencing to lead an
unfamiliar reader through the
document.
Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 4 Edinburgh, November 2020
Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 5 Edinburgh, November 2020
Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2 6 Edinburgh, November 2020

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