Batch tests were carried out with sawdust obtained from oak (Quercus robur), maple (Acer platanoides), pine (Pinus sylvestris), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and wood chips from oak and pine. Leaching of organic compounds expressed as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in mg/kg of dry mass took place during the first 24 h. The following additional variables were analysed: pH, conductivity, colour, phenols, tannins and lignin, and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD7). When leachates obtained with oak wood chips and pine wood chips were compared, no significant difference was observed. However, in batch tests with sawdust, DOC released by oak (90 000 mg/kg) was significantly higher (P = 0.0001) than DOC released by pine (30 000 mg/kg). The results suggest that particle size is not the only variable affecting the leaching of organic compounds from wood. Regarding BOD, colour [platinum-cobalt (Pt-Co)], phenols, tannins and lignin, the leaching patterns differed among species, and oak was the species with the highest released values.

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The efficiency of biological treatment systems in degrading organic matter is affected by both the available nutrients and the efficiency of the microbial organisms that carry out the degradation. This study assesses whether a wetland treatment system treating stormwater from a wood industrial site faced nutrient deficiency or lacked efficient microbes, and whether addressing these possible problems could enhance the degradation of organic matter in the system. The stormwater was a mix of industrial stormwater, irrigation water and leachate from woodchip piles. The industry mainly processes pedunculate oak, which is known to create a leachate high in polyphenols. This water is currently treated in a pilot-scale wetland system and an aerated lagoon. To study whether the treatability could be enhanced by addition of nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen, micronutrients), headspace respirometry was used. The effect of adding microbes from a paper mill activated sludge system was also evaluated. Our results showed that all nutrient additions had a positive effect on the treatability of the stormwater. In particular, the addition of nitrogen showed a 12% rise in chemical oxygen demand reduction over 336 h. However, addition of paper mill activated sludge did not enhance the degradation of organic matter; instead, a toxic effect of the stormwater was shown.

The increasing quantity of solid waste is one of the serious environmental problems in Sagarmatha National Park trekking route. Tourists, trekkers and mountaineers litter the route with plastics, cans, bottles, papers etc. on trails. The lodges, hotels and restaurants also do not have better solutions. The trekking routes from Lukla to Everest Base Camp are littered by more than 30,000 visitors coming to the region within a year. The main reason is due to the concentration of the studies of solid waste mainly in urban areas, lack of environmental awareness and public as well as local participation, lack of understanding of the complex mountain ecosystem and negligence of long term impact to tourism industry.´There have been various initiatives and researches carried out by Sagarmatha National Park (SNP), Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), Ev-K2-CNR and various other agencies including NGOs despite which the situation still remains to be resolved and demand further improvement. This paper describes the observations study on SWM carried out during the trekking by Nepalese and Swedish researchers in April 2010 and recommendations drawn out from the study. The issues raised and the problems identified during the study would need to be properly addressed, which would be instrumental in finding way forward and augment the planning of the daunting tasks of Solid Waste Management in the region.

In the present study, we investigated the possibility of treating oak wood leachate with a combined ozone and biological treatment. Wood leachate is characterized by high amounts of organic carbon and is reported as being toxic to aquatic organisms. Ozone was used as a pre‐treatment before using aerobic degradation. The biological treatment was applied for seven days and evaluated using head‐space respirometry. Target pollutant in this investigation was polyphenols in combination with more general parameters, such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC) and colour. A custom made bubble column reactor was used, 1.5 L of wood leachate was exposed to 0–4 g/L of ozone, corresponding to a specific ozone dose between 0.7–7 g/L O3/g of initial COD. Oak wood leachate was found to be easily degraded by ozone, with >90% of polyphenols degraded. COD was degraded by 73%, TOC by 61% and colour by 97% by ozone. Furthermore, a positive correlation between biodegradation and ozone pre‐treatment was found.

Stormwater from urban, industrial and rural areas is very often discharged into recipient water bodies without any treatment. This is now changing in many parts of the word, especially in Europe due to The EU Water Framework Directive (European Union, 2000). According to the new policy, will probably stormwater that has often small concentrations but complex mix of different organic and inorganic pollutants has to be treated. Many different systems have been used, such as wetlands and soil infiltration trenches, among others. Sawdust has many times been reported as a good sorbent used for removing mostly toxic metals from wastewaters. However, in most cases, studies have been carried out with distilled water spiked with, for instance, 1-2 different toxic metals. Very few studies have used real wastewater and even less have studied removal of metals from stormwater using sorbent such as sawdust. Sawdust has also drawbacks, since it may release potentially hazardous substances as tannins & lignin, phenolic compounds, resin acids and overall high COD concentrations which results in oxygen depletion in the recipient water bodies. In this paper, the results of using sawdust as sorbent for removal of heavy metal from stormwater with different pollutants are presented.

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