Hazardous chemical waste management : development of process technology, economics and system selection methodology

A general methodology is developed for the solution of many hazardous waste problems which accounts for technical, economic, and social considerations. The methodology includes five phases involving information base development, identifying alternatives using an expert system, consultation concerning the social aspects, a ranking of the results and development of preferential solutions.

The IBM Expert System Environment is the shell utilized to develop the expert program. This study presents three main steps in developing the expert program: Strategy for Problem Solving, Expert System Development Environment, and the Consultation Environment. The expert program is developed for the solution of hazardous waste problems derived from the insecticide industrial sector. An important phase of the methodology involved the interaction with a panel of experts to account for the social and political impacts of the solutions, in addition to the economic and technical aspects. The methodology is applied to an existing problem in the pesticide industry and results are presented.