Hazardous Waste Transportation: an Overview

Increasing industrialization and globalization has spawned the unprecedented generation of environmental toxic and hazardous wastes. The existence of publicly known hazardous waste problems such as toxic spills, and river pollution that pose serious and very real threats to human health puts extensive pressure on the government to take an aggressive role in hazardous waste control and transportation. The main objective of hazardous waste transportation is public safety. Each government has the responsibility to ensure that hazardous materials should be transported safely for the social and economic good of the country. Hazardous waste management is now a major and urgent global concern. Various techniques, models, and guidelines for the perception of risks associated with the transport of the hazardous materials are developed. Database of the accident data are developed by transportation agencies to be used for the development of models to improve safety of hazardous waste transportation. Based on the available risk perception models, accident models, the type of hazardous material, origin/destination, and the availability of emergency response routes for their transport are properly designed. Advanced technologies, automated vehicle location system (AVL) and geographical information system (GIS) are also used for the analysis and modeling for the safe transport of hazardous materials. The purpose of this project is to present a literature review of hazardous waste materials and their impact on human health, regulations to control the movement of hazardous materials, Basel Convention and its effectiveness, treatment and disposal of hazardous materials, model developments for risk perception and management and the use of advanced technologies for safe transportation of hazardous wastes. Based on the literature review, the conclusions and future recommendations for possible improvement of the models and techniques used for safe transportation of hazardous wastes are presented.