Environmental Engineering Seminar Series – Sponsored by UCI WEX Center: Advances In Municipal Solid Waste Landfills

ABSTRACT: Despite efforts to reduce the amount of waste that is generated and to recover resources from waste that is not recycled, there is a continued reliance on landfills nationally and globally. Sustainable landfilling faces multiple challenges, including the effective management of leachate and landfill gases to prevent negative environmental, health, and safety impacts. Research in the laboratory and the field is addressing these challenges. This presentation will focus on existing and potential strategies for safer landfilling of wastes.

BIO: Debra Reinhart is a Pegasus Professor and Assistant Vice President for Research and Commercialization at the University of Central Florida and a member of the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department. She holds a B.S. in Engineering from Florida Technological University, and an M.S. in Sanitary Engineering and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Reinhart’s research area is solid waste management, with a focus on optimized waste collection and sustainable operation of landfills. Reinhart is an Associate Editor for the Waste Management Journal, President of the International Waste Working Group, and a member of the Environmental Research and Education Foundation Board. In addition she is a member of the ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission and served as an ABET program evaluator for the past eight years. She has served on the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure Committee for the last three report cards. She is a registered professional engineer in Florida and Georgia, a Board Certified Environmental Engineer, and Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.