Journal of Environmental Health and Sustainable Development
Volume:1 Issue: 3, Dec 2016

As far as application of chemicals as disinfectants may have side effects on human health and causes drug resistance, the topic of herbal and natural products has been investigated in recent researches. Nevertheless, application of medicinal smokes in the treatment of many diseases, including bacterial and infectious diseases has long been popular in Iran. Smoke from the burning of Peganumharmala (Espand) and female donkey dung (Anbarnasa) are among these smokes which effects on ambient air fungi was investigated in the current study.
In this analytical research, the smoking was conducted with different masses of Espand and Anbarnasa in the room space. Before and after smoking, air fungal sampling was performed with Anderson method. After three to five days, the composed fungal colonies were counted. Data were analyzed through the SPSS Software (Vs. 18) and Microsoft Excel (2007).
The indoor fungal removal percent by Espand smoke in 1, 3, and 5 minutes after smoking were 52.75%, 64.72%, and 77.28%, respectively; and for the Anbarnasa smoke at these times were 54.6%, 59.4%, and 74%. Increase in smoking time caused a significant increase(p Smoking with Espand and Anbarnasa as well as duration of smoking can decrease the building's ambient air fungi burden significantly. Of course it is better to perform smoking in enclosed spaces especially in toilets and without the presence of the person.

Organic fertilizers are beneficial to maintain and improve structure of the soil nutrients; however, in case of presence of pathogenic microbial agents and pathogens inside them, it will result in health problems and disease transmission. Therefore, present study aimed to determine microbial quality of produced vermicomposts in Yazd city.
This study was a descriptive-analytical work where 10% of vermicomposts production centers which were using cow manure were randomly selected in Yazd city and sampling was conducted in spring. In doing so, the desired microbial indices were measured and ultimately compared to the standard A of Iranian compost. Three samples were prepared from each center and in each sampling, 50g of sample was picked. Finally, total number of taken samples was 30. The tests included determination of the probable number of fecal coliform bacteria and parasite eggs.
According to the results of present study, the mean fecal coliform and parasite eggs for all centers were 1272 in confidence interval of 95% (441-2102) and 0.73 in confidence interval of 95% (0.32-1.13), respectively. Therefore, the mean fecal coliform and parasite eggs in derived vermicomposts were in class A standards range of Iranian compost.
Production of vermicompostsby animal fertilizers in Yazd city not only decreases these wastes but also gives rise to manufacture a strategic and valuable product which is in range of determined standards and is suitable for soil improvement and fertility.

The Powdered Activated Carbon Treatment (PACT) has been proposed as an alternative in wastewater treatment and wastewater biomass protection against toxic substances. This study aims to evaluate PACT performance in treating dyes, acid orange, and remazol brilliant reactive blue.
This empirical- applied research was carried out in pilot scale in which different dye removal systems were tested: activated sludge, PAC, and the combined activated carbon–biomass system. The degradability of selected dyes was evaluated through Zahn-Wellens method. Also, tests continued by adding different concentrations of powdered activated carbon and its effect on activated sludge in different operating conditions was investigated. American Dye Manufacture Institute (ADMI) method was utilized for determination of dye removal in samples.
Results revealed that dye removal in combined carbon–biomass system was faster and more efficient than activated sludge individually. So, in the wastewater with the dye concentration of 100 ppm, the dye removals through biological process alone were equal to 60% and 12.5 % for acidic and reactive dyes, respectively. The best PAC efficiency in activated sludge process was obtained in 1500 mg/L PAC concentration. Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT) and the optimum temperature of dye's removal were determined 28 hours and 30°C, orderly; in these conditions the dye removal efficiency of 98.18 % was obtained. Also the dye removal using activated carbon–biomass system was adequately described by combining the kinetic equations.
PACT could be considered as an acceptable and highly efficient method for removal of different dyes in textile industry.

Countries around the world are looking for an appropriate, stable, and affordable replacement for the natural energies. Therefore, the waste is considered as an available resource to produce energy, which by controlling, its effects on the environment could be minimized.
To conduct this review article, all the scientific data related to the topic were gathered from scientific databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Elsevier, Scopus, Springer, Magiran, and SID using waste to energy, Biogas, Incinerator, landfill, and Pyrolysis as the keywords. In addition, 53 articles were used for this research (from 1993 until 2016).
The results indicated that from a technical point of view, according to Iran’s current environment and the properties of the produced waste, most methods mentioned in the study are applicable. However, the important issue is to choose the best technologies with the best functionality in Iran, based on the composition of the municipal solid waste, proved technologies, and the municipal solid waste management strategies.
This study recommends construction of incineration plants with an appropriate location for processing municipal, household, and industrial hazardous wastes, as well as energy recovery. In addition, promoting application of household biogas reservoirs in villages and use of pyrolysis for some industries to converse industrial waste into fuel, are further suggested.

The modeling aims to simulate or optimize a process in physical, chemical or biological environments and the derived model will provide a considerable assistance to generate data and predict unknown condition, in case of sufficient suitability. Unsuitable disposal and elimination of waste tires have polluted the environment and human life areas, it also have caused removal of a huge amount of recyclable materials and energy. Besides, attached growth biological processes of wastewater treatment are faced with very high costs of the beds used in such methods. Thus, this study targeted at the following topics: reuse of waste tires, reduction of the costs associated with preparation of biological wastewater treatment system beds, and increased productivity of refineries.
the current experimental study was conducted in pilot scale, in which ability of Fixed Bed Sequence Batch Reactor (FBSBR) and Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) were evaluated by synthetic wastewater in diverse loadings. Ultimately, the derived data were analyzed using the statistical software packages SPSS and MS Excel.
The maximum removal efficiencies of dissolved chemical oxygen demand for FBSBR and SBR reactors were 98.3% and 97.9%, respectively. In addition, Stover-Kincannon model provided a very suitable fitness (R2>0.99) for loading the bioreactor FBSBR.
According to the results, not only waste tires can be reused, but also these wastes can be employed as a proper biological bed in wastewater refineries to improve their efficiency.

Detergents lead to many environmental problems. The main aim of this study was to evaluate sequencing batch reactor (SBR) efficiency on Linear alkyl benzene sulfonate (LAS) removal.
In this experimental study, to investigate the removal efficiency of LAS, a SBR reactor was used. A roughly 12-hour operating cycle was chosen which included the discharge time (30 min), the filling time (60 min), and sedimentation (1 hr), while the remaining time was devoted to aerating. In this research 48 samples were taken and analized. Sampling and testing were performed according to the standard methods of water and wastewater examination.
The results showed that minimum and maximum removal efficiencies of LAS in SBR reactor were 92% and 99.5%, respectively. The average removal of COD was 92%. It was observed that 1 mg/l used surfactants produced 2.3 ± 0.3 mg COD.
It can be concluded that SBR reactor is capable of removing LAS to meet desirable environmental standards.

The presence of pathogenic microbial agents and pathogens in organic fertilizers causes health problems and disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of vermicomposting process in improve the microbial quality of the compost produced.
This experimental study was conducted as a pilot-scale one, in the laboratory of school of Health. In order to produce vermicompost, some perishable domestic waste were mixed whit sludge of wastewater treatment plant in a reactor. Tests to determine the microbial quality of the product were carried out at an early stage, during the process of production, and on the final product. The worms used for the production of vermicompost were Eiseniafotida worms.
According to the results of this study, a significant decrease was observed in the number of fecal coliforms in Sludge- domestic waste; as the number of fecal coliforms reduced from 7500000 (MPN / g), in the raw sample, to 1500 (MPN/g), eight weeks after the outset.Removal efficiency of fecal coliforms was 99:98 percent. Moreover, according to the obtained results, the mixture of Sludge and domestic waste had some parasite eggs (22 number/gr) in the raw samples. This amount was fully removed by the process of vermicomposting, during the forth week.
The results showed that earthworms are a great ability to remove pathogens but to reach the standard set in mixed microbial treatment sludge - waste can not be sure.