Hui Wang, Longshuai Zheng, Qiuhong Xue, Xueqing Li
The Internet of Things (IoT) has brought unprecedented changes to the society and permeated our daily life. However, it has not been successfully applied in the area of medical waste regulation, where the recycling and disposal of medical waste have significant loopholes in the management of classification, transportation, disposal, supervision, and other links. The source, authenticity, and integrity of medical waste data lack guarantees, and there is a risk of data tampering and forgery. Although there are currently some medical waste supervision applications combined with IoT-based blockchain domestically and internationally to facilitate information sharing and transfer, no verifiable method is provided for the information privacy leakage of medical waste operators. To address this problem, we propose a blockchain-based medical waste supervision model, which connects participants involved in the process, introduces digital credentials to achieve the protection of operator information privacy, and ensures that the entire data process is authentic and credible. By building a decentralized system architecture and setting intelligent contracts, we integrate and record the medical waste disposal regulatory information in different phases on the blockchain to form the supervision of medical waste chain. In addition, we digitize the physical credentials and certificates using digital credentials to achieve cryptography security and privacy protection. The regulatory model designed in this paper can provide digital certificates of disposal tracking information to the health, environmental protection, and other administrative departments in China. It can provide authoritative evidence for the supervision and accountability of medical waste disposal and support the construction of a new generation of medical waste regulatory information systems in China.
Billions of dollars lost has been recorded over the past decade due to the overproduction and underconsumption of medical supplies. The overproducation and underconsumption are usually due to the lack of accountability, transparency, traceability, audit, assessment, security, and trust features in the current healthcare supply chain systems. It is required to ensure that everyone is getting a fair share of medical supplies without unnecessary waste. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution that ensures the commitment and accountability of all participants to prevent them from producing any unnecessary waste. We introduce five phases, such as registration, commitment, production, delivery, and consumption, to perform the waste assessment accurately and fairly. We develop four smart contracts that ensure data provenance, transparency, security, and accountability while recording all actions on an immutable ledger automatically. We utilize offchain decentralized storage to deal with the large data problem. We present five algorithms and discuss each phase of the proposed solution, along with their full implementation, testing, and validation details. We conduct the security analysis to ensure that our smart contracts are secure enough and they do not have vulnerabilities and flaws. The smart contracts code is made publicly available on GitHub.
Blockchain technology is emerging as a plausible disruptor of waste management practices that influence the governance of plastics. The interest among the waste management community in the potential and fundamental changes to complex resource management associated with blockchain adoption parallels recent research in other sectors, such as finance, health, public administration, etc. During any comparable period characterized by a step-change in positive coverage of an early-stage technology, it can be challenging for actors to access a grounded, evidence-based oversight of the current state of practice and make informed decisions about whether or how to adopt blockchain technology. The current absence of such a systematic overview of recent experiences with blockchain initiatives disrupting waste practices not only limits the visibility of these experimental efforts, but also limits the learning that can be shared across waste plastics researcher and practitioner communities. This paper contributes with a current overview of blockchain technology adoption in the waste management sector, giving particular attention to implications for the governance of plastics. Our study draws on both primary interview data and secondary documentation data to map the landscape of current blockchain initiatives in the global waste sector. We identify four areas of blockchain use that are beginning to change waste management practices (payment, recycling and reuse rewards, monitoring and tracking of waste, and smart contracts). We conclude by outlining five areas of significant blockchain uses, implications, and influences of relevance to the development of circular plastic waste governance in both research and practice.
Blockchain technology facilitates trust and transparency in the decision-making process and enables the transaction's verifiability by reading immutable distributed ledgers. It has been innovatively applied this technology in the E-waste optimization for the recovery of precious metals using microwave heat treatment. This present paper presents the maximum recovery of precious and base metals from E-waste with a numerical technique called surface response methodology, and was compared with the actual experimental results. The main goal of this paper is to recover the precious metals like copper and gold with its adjacent metals from unwanted and discarded printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, and standards connectors, with the input variables of microwave power, maximum temperature, and aqua leaching ratio. The obtained empirical information of recovered metals was recorded in immutable distributed ledgers so that every member of the blockchain network can be read and verified through the stored records. These records were also utilized to minimize the error and maximize the precious metal outcomes. The result with blockchain network also shows that identical resemblance between the experimental and statistical predicted data obtained with surface methodology. Further, Smart Contracts has been created and deployed to store and retrieve empirical records in the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain Platform and then measured the performance using Hyperledger Caliper Benchmark
Raja Wasim Ahmad, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Ibrar Yaqoob · 6 authors
The year 2020 has witnessed unprecedented levels of demand for COVID-19 medical equipment and supplies. However, most of today's systems, methods, and technologies leveraged for handling the forward supply chain of COVID-19 medical equipment and the waste that results from them after usage are inefficient. They fall short in providing traceability, reliability, operational transparency, security, and trust features. Also, they are centralized that can cause a single point of failure problem. In this paper, we propose a decentralized blockchain-based solution to automate forward supply chain processes for the COVID-19 medical equipment and enable information exchange among all the stakeholders involved in their waste management in a manner that is fully secure, transparent, traceable, and trustworthy. We integrate the Ethereum blockchain with decentralized storage of interplanetary file systems (IPFS) to securely fetch, store, and share the data related to the forward supply chain of COVID-19 medical equipment and their waste management. We develop algorithms to define interaction rules regarding COVID-19 waste handling and penalties to be imposed on the stakeholders in case of violations. We present system design along with its full implementation details. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution using cost analysis to show its affordability. We present the security analysis to verify the reliability of the smart contracts, and discuss our solution from the generalization and applicability point of view. Furthermore, we outline the limitations of our solution in form of open challenges that can act as future research directions. We make our smart contracts code publicly available on GitHub.
Raja Wasim Ahmad, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Ibrar Yaqoob · 5 authors
Smart cities have the potential to overcome environmental problems caused by improper waste disposal by improving human health, protecting the aquatic ecosystem, and reducing air pollution. However, today’s systems, approaches, and technologies leveraged for waste management are manual and centralized. This fact makes them vulnerable to manipulation and the single point of failure problem. Also, a large portion of the existing waste management systems within smart cities fall short in providing operational transparency, traceability, audit, security, and trusted data provenance features. In this paper, we explore the key role of blockchain technology in managing waste within smart cities as it can offer traceability, immutability, transparency, and audit features in a decentralized, trusted, and secure manner. We discuss the opportunities brought about by blockchain technology in various waste management use cases and application scenarios, including real-time tracing and tracking of waste, reliable channelization and compliance with waste treatment laws, efficient waste resources management, protection of waste management documentation, and fleet management. We introduce a framework that leverages blockchain-based smart contracts to automate the key services in terms of waste management of smart cities. We compare the existing blockchain-based waste management solutions based on important parameters. Furthermore, we present insightful discussions on several ongoing blockchain-based research projects and case studies to highlight the practicability of blockchain in waste management. Finally, we present open challenges that act as future research directions.
What drives growth becomes cancerous when it goes beyond limits. Contrary to this common sense, today, consumerism drives our economies and feeds our appetite for ever-growing wants. As a result, we are damaging our ecosystems and risking our very existence on Earth. Though too late, various efforts are promoted by governments and driven by industries to rapidly decarbonize our energy systems and sustainably consume and recycle raw materials. We have discussed two ongoing projects in the domain of energy transition and circular economy. The first one transforms industrial carbon emissions into green fuels and the second one helps in efficient and sustainable segregation and recycling of plastic waste using multi-sensor-driven AI and blockchain tools. These examples demonstrate how circular economy and energy transitions complement each other in the battle against climate change and pollution.
Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) enable the creation of digital databases stored across multiple locations. In the most-advanced design of DLTs, blockchains record and publish transactions through a peer-to-peer and tamper-proof block structure, and operate securely through a consensus-based algorithm. Increasingly, DLTs and blockchain-based initiatives are deployed in the mineral sector to address the problem of conflict minerals, ensure respect for due diligence standards, and improve supply chain management and traceability. The fast adoption of this technology for governing natural resources by creating immutable digital records of sourcing and geological information engenders new opportunities and risks for mining communities across Africa. These include the creation, ownership and access of digital data, the participatory role of upstream actors, and the effects of monitoring and traceability for informal miners and the future of sustainable development in mining communities.
Blockchain generation and the Internet of Things are two of the most famous technology these days. IoT is an interconnection of devices which have the usefulness to detect, degree, a strategy the country of natural markers just as themselves and incite dependent on the enter outfitted. It can help make astute arrangements which could enhance the best of ways of life of individuals. In like manner, blockchain is dispensed database structures that guarantee an extreme dimension of wellbeing and accessibility of actualities with least exchange overhead. In this proposal, we endeavor to convey together that two innovation to grow a Smart Waste Management System (SWMS). The SWMS is weight-based for example Clients need to pay for the utilization of administrations as indicated by the measure of waste they produce. Installments are made the use of a custom digital currency controlled by utilizing Smart Contracts and the total SWMS can be supported with the guide of a DAO through a totally computerized, observably secure strategy. Blockchain can help bring down the infiltration and supplier esteem which might be particularly valuable to developing countries in which governments are not exceptionally inventive. This paper tries to set up an evidence of concept thru size of performance and evaluation of the applicability of this type of device.
This paper presents two case studies for the delivery of wastewater servicing solutions: one in Ontario, Canada and the other in Gujarat State, India. In each case a decentralized small diameter gravity sewer wastewater collection and treatment system was implemented for servicing residential development—with some interesting differences and similarities. The first case is a small private mobile home park in Eastern Ontario under a Ministry of Environment Order to address failing on-site septic systems. The Municipality was obliged to take over operation of the on-site systems; however, there were not adequate funds available to rectify the failing systems. A group of local companies initiated the process to find and deliver a solution featuring a Design-Build-Operate-Finance model for a private communal sewage system showcasing advanced wastewater technology. The second case is a rural Indian village without wastewater servicing infrastructure, but with considerable political incentive to implement a new low-maintenance communal sewage system funded through a government-regulated corporate social responsibility program. The completion of the project will enable this village to be cited as the first open defecation free village in Gujarat State; however, success will ultimately be measured by long-term user buy-in. Each case study will discuss the project context; implementation of design, approvals and construction; financial and delivery model; and key success factors and lessons learned. Both case studies will highlight how using unconventional technology and innovative funding enabled the implementation of decentralized wastewater solutions in each situation
Solid waste, being a basic urban service, is invariably related to urbanization and economic development. In this article, we make an attempt to understand what explains solid waste management (SWM) coverage, a local public service problem, using cross-national data. Using regressions, we find that higher levels of income bring along with them the public awareness, institutional structure, and fiscal capacity to deliver better levels of public services not only in the city but also in the informal settlements. Hence, the objective should be to build awareness of the environmental and health consequences of poor SWM. Furthermore, we find that large cities and decentralized countries are in a better position to deliver SWM in the informal settlements because of the local nature of the service. We find that a major challenge foreseen in meeting the public service demands over the next decade, as it relates to SWM, is financing.