The population growth and urbanisation in low-income countries bring issues of poor living standards and miserable sanitation conditions onto the agenda. If well-functioning waste management systems were developed, this could master some of the problems. The already existing local informal waste handling system that is common in many low-income countries, needs to be developed with proper sorting and Composting solutions to decrease the environmental burden and improve the overall situation in the dense cities. This master?s thesis project is performed with the intention of developing functional decentralised waste management units in the city of Pune, India.

To achieve the Government's milestones for 2018, which means that 50 % of food waste shall be separated from household waste and undergo biological treatment (Composting or anaerobic digestion).   Hultsfred, Högsby and Vimmerby are three adjacent municipalities of Kalmar, county Småland. During 2012 and 2013 analyzes were performed on their household waste to determine its composition. The household waste is currently collected in one fraction. The work, examines how much food waste the household waste contains. From the amount of food waste, the biogas potential is examined - how much food waste biogas generates and how much energy it corresponds to.   Food waste is broken down by microorganisms under anaerobic conditions (anaerobic digestion) in a biogas plant.

In the low-income countries of the world, rapid urbanization and decaying infrastructure results in an increasingly unsustainable situation when it comes to solid waste management. Often, the solution tends to focus on introducing technical advanced interventions based on the conditions of the high-income world. However, this thesis aims to ?nd site-speci?c solutions on solid waste management at a local scale. By taking in consideration of local conditions a customized approach is possible where the solution is not dependent on expensive structural changes.

This work of examination describes an environmentally oriented product development aimed to develop new packaging with improved environmental and sale aspects of the products from Primus Sweden AB. The report covers the design process from the first collection of facts to the final results with a description of all methods involved in the work. The focus has been on a clear environmental awareness and the report contains a deepening of the concept life cycle assessment (LCA) for product development. In the process, the consumers? opinions of the brand Primus and environmental profiling formed the basis for the packaging to communicate the right values such as quality, technology, environmental awareness and adventurer?s first choice.The deepening of the life cycle analysis shows that Composting and other alternative treatment of the biological cycle is not possible to implement in a satisfactory way in the design process.The work results in two final concepts.

Hemkompostering är fördelaktigt bland annat därför att det kan leda till minskade transporter av sopor och därmed koldioxidutsläpp, samt att den färdiga komposten kan användas som näringstillskott för växter. Kompostering av matavfall innebär dock en risk för bildning av metan och lustgas, vilka är starka växthusgaser. Även ammoniak, med försurande och övergödande effekter, kan släppas ut från komposten under vissa förhållanden. Det här arbetet syftar till att undersöka utsläppen av dessa ämnen, samt öka kunskapen om hur skötseln av komposten påverkar utsläppen. Vid tre tillfällen under juni och juli 2010 utfördes mätningar på 20 komposter i Uppsala.  Temperaturen mättes i komposten, prov togs av gasen i kompostoch prover av materialet togs även för analys av vattenhalt, pH och askhalt. Hushållen förde också protokoll över sin skötsel av komposten under tiden för mätningarna.

Bringing back the nutrients from the city to the country is becoming increasingly important, as the world?s stores of nutrients get more exhausted. Sewage sludge is an unapplied resource, rich in plant nutrients, which could replace parts of the commercial fertilizers used in Sweden today. Sewage sludge may contain large amounts of pathogens, such as Campylobacter and Salmonella, why use can cause severe spreading of infections, both to animals and humans. These pathogens have the ability to survive for a long time in soil and water and therefore some sort of treatment of the sludge is recommended before use.

The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication that largely is due to nutrient leaching from farmland within the catchment area. To solve this problem the surrounding countries cooperate within various configurations such as HELCOM and the EU-financed project Baltic Compass. Poor manure management in Russia has been discussed frequently the last couple of years. A literature review of different types of reports and legal acts is the core of this degree project which has been performed in connection to two ongoing research projects financed by EU (Baltic Compass) and SIDA. It is supplemented with interviews with Swedish agricultural consultants and travel reports from two occasions when I had the opportunity to discuss with Russians active within the agricultural sector. Different hypotheses were investigated and discussed. The environmental debate in Russia is quiet and there is a widespread approach that economic profit always trumps environmental concern ? a Soviet heritage that influence the Russian agriculture considerably. The Russian legal acts on stable manure management focus mainly on sanitary questions and only secondary on nutrient leaching.

The aim with this thesis was to investigate what characterises an English Arts and Crafts garden how they could be modernised in Sweden. My research was limited to 20 weeks of full-time writing and worth 30 ECTS. Through literature studies, interviews and site visits I could analyse my findings which resulted in a concrete garden design project. The Arts and Crafts was a movement that started in England during the 1880?s and evolved as a reaction towards the industrialisation. The influence came from the writings and practices of John Ruskin (1819-1900) and William Morris (1834-1896) who advocated the importance of craftsmanship. The Arts and Crafts movement also became a ?recipe for life? and was associated with a healthy and morally pure way of living.