This study looks into a theoretical scenario where tetrapods were produced with various percentages of municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash used as aggregate replacement. The incineration of municipal wastes is not a permanent solution for waste management. Therefore, the use of bottom ash in tetrapod productions offers another method for disposal or recycling of bottom ash, while also adding other benefits such as the reduction of natural resource usage (gravel). Some considerations were necessary to completely run and analyze the scenarios at an overestimation or a worst case scenario for the risk assessment. There were four bottom ash replacement scenarios tested with bottom ash data from four different cities in Taiwan and a scenario where the regulated toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) limit would be used as the bottom ash data: 30%, 50%, 60%, and 70% replacement with Yilan, Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei, and TCLP limit bottom ash data. The different cities were chosen to represent big and small cities in Taiwan while also being close to the northeast coast, which could benefit from tetrapod usage. The heavy metals of interest for this study are lead, cadmium, chromium, and copper because they were the most commonly tested metals for TCLP. The results of the scenarios were assessed with Taiwan’s sediment quality guidelines (SQGs) and Hakanson’s methods. Both methods showed chromium to be the lowest in all cities and replacement percentages while cadmium was shown to have the highest impacts of all the metals in this study. Overall, the heavy metal’s ecological impacts in the study would be in the order of cadmium > copper > lead > chromium. Based on the results, future studies could consider focusing on reducing cadmium concentrations in bottom ash by way of additional steps in the pretreatment of bottom ash.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS v
LIST OF FIGURES vii
LIST OF TABLES ix
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Motivation 1
1.3. Assumptions in the Study 2
1.4. Research Questions and Objectives 3
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 7
2.1. Bottom Ash Regulation in Taiwan 7
2.2. Bottom Ash Composition and Comparison 7
2.3. Bottom Ash Reuse 11
2.4. Use of Bottom Ash in Concrete Production 14
2.5. Leaching of Heavy Metals from Concrete 16
2.6. Environmental Impacts in Concrete Industry 17
3. METHODOLOGY 19
3.1. Data collection 19
3.2. Statistical Analysis of Data 20
3.3. Tetrapod 20
3.4. Tetrapod Calculations 21
3.4.1. Tetrapod Volume Calculations 21
3.4.2. Tetrapod Compression Strength 22
3.4.3. TCLP Data to Bottom Ash Conversion 23
3.4.4. Tetrapod Erosion Calculations 26
3.5. Risk Assessment Calculations 27
3.5.1. Sediment Quality Guidelines 27
3.5.2. Contamination Factor Calculation 28
3.5.3. Potential Ecological Risk Factor Calculations 29
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 31
4.1. TCLP Data Analysis 31
4.2. Tetrapod Calculation Results 35
4.2.1. Tetrapod Scenarios 35
4.2.2. TCLP Data to Bottom Ash Conversion Results 36
4.2.3. Tetrapod Erosion Results 37
4.3. Sediment Quality Guideline Assessment 38
4.4. Sediment Quality Guideline Scenario Summary 44
4.5. Environmental Quality Assessment 45
4.5.1. Bottom Ash Replacement Scenario Contamination Factor 46
4.5.2. Bottom Ash Replacement Scenario Contamination Factor Summary 51
4.5.3. Bottom Ash Replacement Scenario Ecological Risk Factor 51
4.5.4. Ecological Risk Factor Summary 56
4.5.5. Ecological Risk Index 57
4.6. Comparison of Assessment Methods 59
4.7. Benefits from the Application of Bottom Ash in Tetrapod Production 60
5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 63
5.1. Conclusion 63
5.2. Suggestions 65
REFERENCES 69
APPENDIX 75

Åberg, A., Kumpiene, J., Ecke, H., 2006. Evaluation and prediction of emissions from a road built with bottom ash from municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI). Science of the Total Environment. 355, 1-12.
Benumof, B. T., Storlazzi, C. D., Seymour, R. K., Griggs G. B., 2000. The Relationship Between Incident Wave Energy and Seacliff Erosion Rates: San Diego County, California. Journal of Coastal Research. 16(4), 1162-1178.
Bruder-Hubscher, V., Lagarde, F., Leroy, M. J. F., 2001. Utilisation of bottom ash in road construction: evaluation of the environmental impact. Waste Management & Research. 19, 545-556.
Chiu, Y., 2003. Protectors’ damage coast. Retrieved from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2003/05/29/2003053115, accessed 12-27-2017.
Chou, S., Lo, S., Hsieh, C., Chen, C., 2009. Sintering of MSWI fly ash by microwave energy. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 163, 357-362.
Forteza, R., Far, M., Seguı́, C., Cerdá, V., 2004. Characterization of bottom ash in municipal solid waste incinerators for its use in road base. Waste Management. 24, 899-909.
Gao, X., Yuan, B., Yu, Q. L., Brouwers, H. J. H., 2017. Characterization and application of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) bottom ash and waste granite powder in alkali activated slag. Journal of Cleaner Production. 167, 410-419.
Gougar, M. L. D., Scheetz, B. E., Roy, D. M., 1996. Ettringite and C-S-H portland cement phases for waste ion immobilization: a review. Waste Management. 16, 295-303.
Gupta, V. K., Ali, I., Saini, V. K., Gerven, T. V., Bruggen, B. V., Vandecasteele, C., 2005. Removal of Dyes from Wastewater Using Bottom Ash. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. 44, 3655-3664.
Hakanson, L., 1980. An ecological risk index for aquatic pollution control. A sedimentological approach. Water Research. 14, 975-1001.
Hjelmar, O., 1996. Disposal strategies for municipal solid waste incineration residues. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 47, 345-368.
Holmes, N., O’Malley, H., Cribbin, P., Mullen, H., Keane, G., 2016. Performance of masonry blocks containing different proportions of incinator bottom ash. Sustainable Materials and Technologies. 8, 14-19.
Hseu, Z., Chen, Z., Tsai, C., Tsui, C., Cheng, S., Liu, C., Lin, H., 2002. Digestion methods for total heavy metals in sediments and soils. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution. 141, 189-205.
Huang, C., Yang, W., Ma, H., Song, Y., 2006. The potential of recycling and reusing municipal solid waste incinerator ash in Taiwan. Waste Management. 26, 979-987.
Jurič, B., Hanžič, L., Ilić, R., Samec, N., 2006. Utilization of municipal solid waste bottom ash and recycled aggregate in concrete. Waste Management. 26, 1436-1442.
Keelung incineration plant website: http://www.glp.sesc.com.tw/, accessed 11-20-2017. Keelung incinerator plant in Taiwan.
Kuo, W., Liu, C., Shu, C., 2015. The feasibility of using washed municipal solid waste incinerator bottom ash in compressed mortar paving units. Journal of Marine Science and Technology. 23, 364-372.
Li, C., Song, C., Yin, Y., Sun, M., Tao, P., Shao, M., 2015. Spatial distribution and risk assessment of heavy metals in sediments of Shuangtaizi estuary, China. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 98, 358-364.
Li, S., Altan, H., 2011. Environmental impacts of building structures in Taiwan. Procedia Engineering. 21, 291-297.
Liu, A., Ren, F., Lin, W. Y., Wang, J., 2015. A review of municipal solid waste environmental standards with a focus on incinerator residues. International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment. 4, 165-188.
Liu, C., Wu, C., Shieh, M., Liu, J., Lin, C., Shieh, C., 2005. Monitoring the illegal quarry mining of gravel on the riverbed using daily revisit FORMOSAT-2 imagery. In the proceedings of IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2005, Seoul, Korea. 1777-1780.
Liu. Y., Xiao, T., Baveye, P. C., Zhu, J., Ning, Z., Li, H., 2015. Potential health risk in areas with high naturally-occurring cadmium background in southwestern China. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. 112, 122-131.
Lu, J., Zhang, S., Hai, J., Lei, M., 2017. Status and perspectives of municipal solid waste incineration in China: A comparison with developed regions. Waste Management. 69, 170-186.
Pan, J. R., Huang, C., Kuo, J., Lin, S., 2008. Recycling MSWI bottom and fly ash as raw materials for Portland cement. Waste Management. 28, 1113-1118.
Pejman, A., Bidhendi, G. N., Ardestani, M., Saeedi, M., Baghvand, A., 2015. A new index for assessing heavy metals contamination in sediments: A case study. Ecological Indicators. 58, 365-373.
Pera, J., Coutaz, L., Ambroise, J., Chababbet, M., 1997. Use of incinerator bottom ash in concrete. Cement and Concrete Research. 27, 1-5.
Roethel, F. J., Breslin, V. T., 2000. MSW combustor ash utilization in marine and terrestrial systems, in: Dhir, R. K., Dryer, T. D., Paine, K. A. (Eds.), Sustainable Construction: Use of Incinerator Ash. Thomas Telford Publishing. London, pp. 331-339.
Shen, W., Liu, Y., Yan, B., Wang, J., He, P., Zhou, C., Huo, X., Zhang, W., Xu, G., Ding, Q., 2017. Cement industry of China: Driving force, environment impact and sustainable development. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 75, 618-628.
Shi, H., Kan, L., 2009. Leaching behavior of heavy metals from municipal solid wastes incineration (MSWI) fly ash used in concrete. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 164, 750-754.
Shim, Y., Rhee, S., Lee, W., 2005. Comparison of leaching characteristics of heavy metals from bottom and fly ashes in Korea and Japan. Waste Management. 25, 473-480.
Taiwan Tourism Bureau website: http://admin.taiwan.net.tw/index.aspx, accessed 1-6-2018. Tourism Bureau, M.O.T.C. in Taiwan.
TEPA, 2010. Incinerator Ash Treatment and Reuse. Environmental Policy Monthly. XIII(12), 1-12.
TEPA ERDB website: https://erdb.epa.gov.tw, accessed 12-10-2017. Environmental Resource Database of Environmental Protection Administration in Taiwan.
TEPA SWIM website: https://swims.epa.gov.tw/swims/swims_net/index.aspx, accessed 1-19-2018. Solid Waste Incineration Management system in Taiwan.
Tsai, C., Tzang, S., Hsiao, S., Cheung, C., Li, H., 2006. Coastal Structure Failures and Coastal Waves on the North Coast of Taiwan due to Typhoon Herb. Journal of Coastal Research. 22(2), 393-405.
Tsakalou, C., Papamarkou, S., Tsakiridis, P. E., Bartzas, G., Tsakalakis, K., 2018. Characterization and leachability evaluation of medical wastes incineration fly and bottom ashes and their vitrification outgrowths. Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering. 6, 367-376.
Vu, C. T., Lin, C., Shern, C., Yeh, G., Le, V. G., Tran, H. T., 2017. Contamination, ecological risk and source apportionment of heavy metals in sediments and water of a contaminated river in Taiwan. Ecological Indicators. 82, 32-42.
Wei, X., Han, L., Gao, B., Zhou, H., Lu, J., Wan, X., 2016. Distribution, bioavailability, and potential risk assessment of the metals in tributary sediments of Three Gorges Reservoir: The impact of water impoundment. Ecological Indicators. 61, 667-675.
Wey, M., Liu, K., Tsai, T., Chou, J., 2006. Thermal treatment of the fly ash from municipal solid waste incinerator with rotary kiln. Journal of Hazardous Materials. B137, 981-989.
Wu, M., Lin, C., Huang, W., Chen, J., 2016. Characteristics of pervious concrete using incineration bottom ash in place of sandstone graded material. Construction and Building Materials. 111, 618-624.
Yang, R., Liao, W., Wu, P., 2012a. Basic characteristics of leachate produced by various washing processes for MSWI ashes in Taiwan. Journal of Environmental Management. 104, 67-76.
Yang, R., Wu, Y., Hwung, H., 2012b. Beach Erosion Management with the Application of Soft Countermeasure in Taiwan, in: Curkovic, S. (Ed.), Sustainable Development – Authoritative and Leading Edge Content for Environmental Management, InTech, pp. 349-370.
Yilan Lize incinerator plant website: http://www.yiland.com.tw/, accessed 12-21-2017. Yilan incinerator plant in Taiwan.
Zhang, T., Zhao, Z., 2014. Optimal Use of MSWI Bottom Ash in Concrete. International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials. 8 (2), 173-182.
Zhang, Z., Juying, L., Mamat, Z., Qingfu, Y., 2016. Sources identification and pollution evaluation of heavy metals in the surface sediments of Bortala River, Northwest China. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety. 126, 94-101.
Zhipeng, T., Bingru, Z., Chengjun, H., Rongzhi, T., Huangpu, Z., Fengting, L., 2015. The physiochemical properties and heavy metal pollution of fly ash from municipal solid waste incineration. Process Safety and Environmental Protection. 98, 333-341.