Faculty of Agriculture

Innovative Waste Management

The research program

The Waste Management Research program, working out of the Department of Engineering on the Agricultural Campus, focuses on environmental sustainability and value-addition approaches to agricultural and non-agricultural by-products. 

Atlantic Canada’s agricultural and aquaculture sectors are highly diversified but face economic challenges as both world markets and government environmental policies continue to shift. Waste management research takes advantage of state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation to evaluate the environmental impacts of agricultural wastes. Graduate and undergraduate students join a collaborative network of researchers at the Faculty of Agriculture and around the globe to tackle the challenges of managing organic wastes.

Recent research initiatives have examined

  • the impact of livestock manure storage conditions on greenhouse gas emissions;
  • the monitoring of pharmaceuticals in soils and water from land applied municipal bio-solids;
  • and the composting of agricultural and non-agricultural organic by-products.

Additional areas of emphasis include exploring value-added opportunities for organic wastes through conversion into biomass fuels; the use of composts as containment systems for oil spills; and the development of commercial bio-fertilizers for use in organic agriculture.

Current projects

Adaptive Agriculture

  1. Impact of land-applied alkaline treated municipal biosolids on agricultural soils in Nova Scotia
  2. Evaluation of contaminants in surface and subsurface drainage water from land applied  treated municipal biosolids
  3. Linking agro-ecosystem impacts to emerging contaminants from land applied municipal biosolids
  4. Development of a liquid fish fertilizer for utilization on agricultural crops in Newfoundland and Labrador
  5. Monitoring of inactivation of Aleutian Mink Disease Virus during composting of mink manure
  6. Mitigating the impact of mink manure production on water quality in Nova Scotia
  7. Development of a bioenergy decision support system for Regional Biomass to Biofuel markets in Canada
  8. Management and Disposal of Specified Risk Materials (SRM) in Nova Scotia
  9. Using Sea lettuce as a Soil Amendment for Potato Production
  10. Wool Value Chain Development Manufacturing Study Pilot Project

Municipal/Institutional/Commercial/Industrial

  1. Value enhancement of municipal organics compost through effective microorganisms and management
  2. Bio-Products: Development, Testing and Commercialization
  3. Evaluation of coated gypsum wallboard as a composting additive

Previous Projects

 

Lead researcher

Dr. Gordon W. Price
Assistant Professor and Innovative Waste Management Research Chair

Phone: (902) 896-2461
Fax: (902) 893-1859
Office: Cox 28
Email: gprice@dal.ca