Innovative Waste Management
The research program
The Waste Management Research program, working out of the Department of Engineering on the Agricultural Campus, focuses on environmental sustainability and value-addition approaches to agricultural and non-agricultural by-products.Ìý
Atlantic Canada’s agricultural and aquaculture sectors are highly diversified but face economic challenges as both world markets and government environmental policies continue to shift.ÌýWaste management research takes advantage of state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation to evaluate the environmental impacts of agricultural wastes.ÌýGraduate and undergraduate students join a collaborative network of researchers at the Faculty of Agriculture and around the globe to tackle the challenges of managing organic wastes.
Recent research initiatives have examined
- the impact of livestock manure storage conditions on greenhouse gas emissions;
- the monitoring of pharmaceuticals in soils and water from land applied municipal bio-solids;
- and the composting of agricultural and non-agricultural organic by-products.
Additional areas of emphasis include exploring value-added opportunities for organic wastes through conversion into biomass fuels; the use of composts as containment systems for oil spills; and the development of commercial bio-fertilizers for use in organic agriculture.