830044
editorial2019
WMR 0010.1177/0734242X19830044Waste Management & ResearchEditorial
Editorial
A new issue in waste
management: Nanowaste
This special issue includes selected articles presented in 4th
EurAsia Waste Management Symposium that took place in
Istanbul, Turkey, between 2 and 4 May 2018. The symposium
hosted numerous articles from more than 30 countries,
including the management, treatment and disposal alternatives
of almost all types of waste including municipal, industrial,
hazardous and special wastes.
Nanotechnology is accepted to be one of the fourth industrial
revolution agenda and it is believed that this revolution (which
includes human-computer interaction, small-scale prototyping,
digitalisation and nanotechnology) will cause new by-products
and problems to be overcome like the previous three industrial
revolutions. The annual production of nanomaterials is
estimated to increase to 58,000 t in 2020 (Bolyard et al., 2013).
It is expected that this critical technology will complete its
development by 2025 and will be adopted in all areas of life.
Nanomaterials are being used in a wide variety of applications
and consumer products, such as personal care products, electron-
ics, textiles, pharmaceuticals, energy and environmental applica-
tions because of their unique properties in the last two decades
(Khan et al., 2013). As a result of the increased production of
consumer products containing nanoparticles, the concentrations of
these materials are expected to increase in the waste streams in the
near future. Although engineered nanoparticles paved the way for
major innovations in the fields of modern science and engineering,
there is a great concern about the potential unex-pected health and
environmental impacts. In addition, these newly developed
materials may lead to new problems by reveal-ing the inadequacy
of existing waste management systems.
Nanotechnology has launched a new era of miniaturisation of
industrial scale production. However, this has triggered the emer-
gence of a new waste group (wastes containing nanomaterials) that
could create difficulties in existing waste management prac-tices.
This new waste group is called ‘nanowaste’. Nano wastes include
waste groups containing nanomaterials; nanoscale syn-thetic by-
products produced during production, storage or distri-bution; end-
of-life nanotechnological materials or products; and materials
contaminated with nanomaterials, such as pipes, and protective
clothing. Depending on this definition, nanowaste can occur in four
forms.
1. Pure nanomaterials produced at production point.
2. Surfaces or substances contaminated by nanomaterials (con-
tainers, personal protective clothing, etc.).
Waste Management & Research
2019, Vol. 37(3) 197–198
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3. Liquid suspensions containing nanomaterials.
4. Solids containing nanomaterials.
Recent research studies show that nanomaterials are not inno-
cent to both humans and environmental systems as previously
estimated (Musee, 2011; Piotrowska et al., 2009). The useful
lifespan of the nanoparticles or nanoparticle containing prod-
ucts will last in landfills, wastewater treatment plants or waste
incineration plants (Gottschalk et al., 2010; Keller and
Lazareva, 2014). Although the amount of nanoparticles in solid
waste streams is growing very rapidly, there is a lack of
knowledge about the effect and behaviour of these pollutants in
waste pro-cessing and disposal techniques, such as biological
treatment, landfilling and incineration (Ratwani, 2018).
Difficulties and concerns about
nanowaste management
Although the priority in nanotechnology has been given to the
development of new products, there is a lack of information about
the amount of nanowaste generated during the production of new
materials. However, nanowastes are accepted to be the main source
of nanomaterials in the environment (Musee, 2011).
When nanowaste generation came into the agenda in the last
decade, it was thought that the existing technologies would be
sufficient for the effective removal of these tiny materials from
waste and water streams. However, recent research studies indi-
cated that the existing wastewater treatment systems are not ade-
quate for the removal of nanomaterials (Leppard et al., 2003).
To date, no data are available on nanotechnology-related
industrial processes or on the amount of nanowaste generated by
end users, except the results obtained from some modelling and
estimation studies. However, the wide spreading of
nanotechnol-ogy applications makes it very difficult for true
estimations about the amount of nanowaste.
Research on the treatment of nanomaterials in water and
sludge or their behaviour in wastewater treatment plants have
been studied recently. However, the available data and informa-
tion is not sufficient to determine the general designs required
for the treatment of nanowaste. This can be attributed to the lack
of an international classification that can be used to determine
the level of risks of nanowaste. In addition, the introduction of
nano-technology as a green technology in some cases is another
factor that slows down the efforts.
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Health hazards of nanomaterials
The advanced physicochemical properties of nanomaterials pro-
vide their commercialisation. However, there is big concern
about human and environmental health effects of these
materials. These nanoparticles may be more toxic and more
resistant than their micro and macro scale structures; they may
have negative effects on human and environmental health and
they may cause serious hazards owing to lack of these materials
in the regulations (Piotrowska et al., 2009).
Certain nanomaterials have already caused problems to
human health and the environment. For example, titanium diox-
ide nanoparticles were considered as non-toxic owing to their
chemical stability. However, in recent studies, it has been deter-
mined that the surface interactions cause genetic damage in the
organisms, and these small particles circulate freely within the
body, causing oxidative stress and cell death. Thus, TiO 2 has
been included in the ‘Group 2B: Carcinogen’ class by the
International Center for Cancer Research, an organisation of the
World Health Organization (Park et al., 2007).
Another great example is silver, owing to the antibacterial
effects in nanoscale. Research in the field clearly show that
silver nanoparticles, even at very low concentrations, have been
found to be toxic to microorganisms, and damage the cell
membrane and DNA (Hussain et al., 2005; Lok et al., 2006).
Many concerns are still remaining unclear or unknown related
to this rapidly growing field of technology. The possibility of nano-
particles transport through biologic barriers is still unclear. Also,
the behaviour of nanoparticles in the food chain is still unknown.
Action required
In order to determine the effects of nanotechnology on human and
environmental health, it is necessary to determine the current and
future sources and amounts of nanomaterials that will be dis-posed
to the environment. Also, the variations of the properties of
nanomaterials from the production stage to the waste disposal stage
should be determined. Accordingly, studies focusing on the
transport mechanisms, biochemical transformations and environ-
mental behaviours of nanomaterials should be done (Faunce and
Kolodziejczyk 2017).
The lack of standards and frameworks related to the use and
safe disposal, treatment and recycle of nanomaterials is clear. It is
expected and a need that international and national organisations,
Mehmet Sinan Bilgili
Environmental Engineering Department,
Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
Email: mbilgili@yildiz.edu.tr
Waste Management & Research 37(3)
research organisations, governments and environmental
agencies will study the development of comprehensive and
effective path-ways for safe disposal with the policy
developments for nano-waste in the near future.
WMR has published several articles on this important topics
of microplastics (Agamuthu, 2018; Fauziah et al., 2018; Jiajia
Wang et al., 2018) to highlight one aspect of the dire situation
we are facing.
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P Agamuthu
University of Malaya, Malaysia
Email: profagamuthu@gmail.com