It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to have another weekend trip Friday and Saturday. We took a road trip to about 2.5 hours away to Nuoro, Orgosolo, and Orosei. We first visited an anthropologie museum and got to learn a bit about the local way of life in this region. Pictured below are some of the traditional dresses which are still worn during festival times. The bells on black figurines weigh about 40 lbs! The area had many bandits in the past, well into the 70s. They target the rich and famous, but luckily I am none of those (though I secretly wanted to see one roaming around).

Then we briefly visited a church which had the tombstone of a famous writer Grazia Deledda of Sardinia. She wrote about the life on the island and started writing as a teenager. Her talent won her the nobel prize-I hope to read her translated work someday!   

Next we drove over to Orgosolo where we dined with the shepards. Pictured below was some of the food we ate. We had pork, lamb, potatoes, bread, cheese, and wine. A common theme of Sardinia, the food was simple yet amazing since they are made with the freshest ingredients. Afterwards, as pictured, we watched the shepards sing and dance the food away. 

Next, we went to the town's main square and saw the beautiful street art all over the town. It was cool to see all the different kinds of messages posted on the walls. Many of them were political, as the one pictured below, however some of them were simply drawings as well. I wish there were more of these forms of free art around Boston and the U.S. in general. 

                        Next, we went to the hotel where we stayed the night and ate some more delicious food (including rabbit!). It was my first time having rabbit and though I enjoyed it, I loved the lamb we ate more. I am going to be very disappointed going home and not eating a ten course meal every day. Pictured below is the beautful sunset that accompanied the stay. 

The next morning we got up bright and early to hop on to a mini cruise starting about an hour away. The first stop was at a cave, which extended for 20 km! We were allowed to see 4 of the main "halls" of the cave. My favorite one was the mirrors "hall", in which the water seemed to reflect the cave almost perfectly. Though the insides were breath-taking to saw the least, no photography was allowed inside the cave so I was forced to take mental pictures in my head. But, I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to see it since the cave is only viewable April-October since otherwise the water fills the depths of the caves. Pictured below is the view from the cave looking out. 

The next two stops were two beaches along the coast. The water was absolutely clear and goregeous. The water was so clear that you could see the fish and pebbles at the very bottom. The water was very salty as expected and slightly cold, but not remotely close to the freezing temperature of the Atlantic. It was a relaxing day and I was hoping the boat would forget to pick us up, but unfortunately, it did not. Pictured below is an attempt to capture the beautfy of one of the beaches. 

The next day was a free day in Cagliari, so I decided to roam around and look at all the sites Cagliari has to offer. We first went to the national archeology museum, which was filled with many artifacts from the nuraghic, punic, and phonetian ages. It was cool to see how the generations differed from each other and to see how the archeologists found some of these artifacts and how they deduced information about the different time periods. Pictured below are some of the excavated items found. 

Then, we proceeded to several places. Firstly, we went to the pinocoteca national art museum which featured 16-18th century art. Next we went around the square near by and found a tower and saw the amazing view from the top. Then we continued on roaming and stumbled upon the king's palace, which was so intricately designed, with pretty chandeliers and ornate wall hangings. We ended the excursions back at our favorite and underappreciated food place, the zaza kebab place. Pictued below is some of the excursion sights. 

Overall an enjoyable weekend! Rebecca Black is right-"eveybody's looking forward to the weekend". 

Product lives matter

The past couple of days, we've been back to business, presenting on policies in Europe and the U.S. we've researched for different materials, learning more about waste management, and visited a landfill. The landfill Ecoserdiana currently reached its capacity for municipal solid waste (MSW), but is still collecting the biogas that is being released from the landfill and processing it to create mainly electricity. The biogas is seperated from the liquid portion of leachate via gravity due to differences in specific weight. The pictures below who the landfill itself, which is currently being filled with special waste- a European classification of waste in between hazardous waste and our definitiong of MSW. The gas generated from this is not mixed in with the MSW gas since it is more hazardous, and is colelcted seperately. The speical wasted is placed on top of the landfill area with the previous MSW with the covering of the MSW landfill with an impermeable layer and thus saves space and time.

We then went to the area where the biogas is processed. First it goes through a heat exchanger to dehydate the water content in the gas. Then, the gas, which is Methane and Oxygen mainly,is combusted, resulting in CO2 and water, and NOx. The NOx is minimized in production by allowing air into the inlet streeam which decreases the temperature and allows for less NOx to be produced. That was interesting to hear, since after learning about combustion reactions I have never heard of this technique, and it seems simple as well! The incomplete combustion of leftover CO is then heated to convert it to CO2. The heat is then used to turn an alternator to obtain electrical energy, and about 2-3MWs/day are produced. They sell all their energy to the grid and buy back the amount they need. It was interesting to also see that they are moving into using alternatives since the biogas will eventually stop being produced from the landfill since they are done collecting MSW. They have a solar plant as well and are researching alternative methods as well. Also exciting to see the control systems as seen in the pictures below-all of my homework questions come to life! When's my turn?? =]

Bella vita

This past Thursday we had a free day. In the morning, we took a walk to the Mercato San Benedetto in Cagliari, one of Italy's largest indoor markets. There were two floors, the first with so many stalls of fresh fruits, cheese, bread, pastries, coffee, wine, meats, and more. I bought some Albicocche (apricots) and a cannoli, both of which were amazing. Then, I took a took of the bottom floor, which consisted of mostly seafoods of all kinds. It was interesting to see all the fish in the open, and the lobster out in the open (still alive). There were also different kinds of fish that I would not find at home and that was cool to see too. Also explains why I've eaten so much octopus since I've been here! Here are some pictures of meats I saw at the market:

 Afterwards, before heading to relax for the rest of the day, we had some time to roam around the city and enter some of the buildings we've been eyeing for the past week, including the church pictured below.

Friday we had a traditional class in the morning, but then had a mini-lab class with 3 of the PhDs from University of Cagliari who showed us how to quarter different waste samples and walked us through the process of how they analyze the moisture content of the samples as well as their chemical properties. It was great to get some hands on experience in the lab! Here is a picture of composted waste getting quartered. 

We also had a speaker later in the afternoon come in and answer our questions we had on trash collection in the areas outside of Cagliari, specifically their door-to-door collection that they have been doing since 2001. It was interesting to see how government affects their business in the waste industry, since they are not allowed to fine their customers who do not separate their trash, even though it is against the law. They must instead warn them and report them to the government to have them penalize them instead. It was also nice hearing her insight and all the planning that goes into the trash collection industry, from the truck size, the routes, etc. Its easy to forget how important waste collection is in the waste management process when studying in school about the more advanced topics. 

This past weekend we had a weekend vacation trip up northwest about 2 hours away. Our first stop was the mining facilities in pane di zucchero. We were able to walk inside the tunnels of the mining port, Porto Falvia and learn a little bit about their mining techniques for zinc, silver, and other metals and their strategies. It amazes me how they could work in there with all the dangers of dynamite and do laborious rock sorting inside the caves for 11 hours a day. Below is a picture of the cave as well as the view at the end of the tunnel 

Next we visited the remaining structure of an ancient Roman temple over 3000 years old. People went there to pray for the healing powers of the gods. 

We ended the day at our lovely bed and breakfast place where we got to have a nice home cooked meal and relax on the fields. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and see the stars (and of course also to play with the cats, dogs, and kids).

The next morning the lovely cook of the hotel taught us how to prepare pasta. Though it took overcoming some intial difficulties, we infact had a lovely meal with the pasta we helped prepare. We also prepared seadas,a traditional sardinian dessert which is a fried seminola pastry filled with sheep's milk cheese (called Pecorino) and lemon zest. Regardless of our variety of shapes, the cooks were able to use our preparations and their fool proof fresh ingredients allowed us to have a great sadinian lunch. Here is a picture of the prepared pasta and pre-frying picture of the sedas. 

The last stop of our weekend trip was to the sand dunes of Sardegna, the only sand dunes that are right next to the coast. The sand was very hot even on the beach, and must have been even hotter on the dunes themselves. Only one hotel exists near by, and many famous people who don't want paprazzi runaway to the beach area here. Unfortunately didn't see Leonardo diCaprio today but it was still a beautiful and perfect end to a great weekend.

So, where does my trash really go?

Hard to believe sometimes but the trash doesn't magically disappear. Here are some pictures to prove it. Below is a collection of some of the photos of waste management in Cagliari.

Which bin do I throw it into?
 The following shows the several types of recycling bins and trash bins shown throughout the city. The yellow is for cardboard, green is for glass, gray is for composting, and the blue is for plastic.

 The above two pictures shows where the recycled paper ends up, as seen in a paper recycling plant.

Or, the Organic Waste gets composted, as shown in these pictures below:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Lastly, another option is as shown, which results in the remaining waste going to a waste to energy plant. We have yet to visit the landfill but that is also another option.                                                                                                                                

Learning about Waste Management

The past couple of days I have had the opportunity to dive head first into the world of waste management. Throughout lectures, I have had the opportunity to learn about the basics of recycling(paper, plastic, glass, etc), composting, waste to energy treatments. I have learned not only how the waste is managed but also the basic policy the U.S. has for each topic. Today specifically I learned a lot visually by being able to visit several waste management plants in Cagliari.

First we visited a paper recycling plant where we were able to see the entire process of high quality paper being made from high quality paper. This was a special process running today and only accounts for about 1-2% of the paper they make. The rest of the products made use mixed paper/cardboard to make either mixed paper or cardboard. First, the paper is compressed into cubes, then put into a pulper and filtered physically. Then, the remaining pulp goes through a series of compressors and rollers and is heated to evaporate the water slowly throughout the process. Doing so eliminates the colors in the paper due to specific density of the particles and results in white, high quality paper. I expected more chemicals to be involved-surprised and fascinating to see it be done without them!

Next we went to the organic composting plant. Here we were able to see the composting of all food, which normally takes several years in nature. In the plant, they force air to the food, and in result the total process takes only 3 months. The process is divided up into 4 chambers, first is the collected chamber in which they separate the plastics and in organics from the retrieved food. Then the food sits in the next chamber for about 30 days indoors with the forced air. Then the product is sent to the refining state to get rid of any impurities. Lastly, the composting food sits outdoors for the remaining days. The food is kept track of and certain batches are sent to certain areas upon request. This is a non-profit process, selling a block only for 2 euros for the consumer! The government pays the company money as well though for taking the trash.

Lastly, we went to the waste to energy plant. In this plant, they make the waste into a sludge and dry the water out. Next, they send the remnants to the furnace and collect the steam that exits. The other remaining byproducts are treated with phosphate and NaOH to make inert and non-hazardous. The stream is then filtered through several steps to make it optimal for entering the turbine. Then it goes through the standard vapor-compressor/Rankine cycle to generate electricity. They are able to power their own plant as well was create about 9 additional MW. Interesting to see all the big machinery and finally see my thermodynamics textbook come to life!

Though I came to Italy knowingly wanting to study waste management, seeing all the trash really was impacting seeing that it doesn't magically disappear and knowing that it does go somewhere.

Ciao, Sardinia

It is only day 4 on the island but it feels like we've learned so much about the culture and people!

Day 1 was short-arriving on the island after a long flight ride made a bunch of us exhausted. But was still able to walk around and manage to gesture at people to be able to get pizza and gelato. I quickly learned that day that I should brush up on basic Italian. I also noticed the Italians dress very formally and feel under dressed in shorts.

Day 2 was the first full day. Despite having woken up and taking an ice cold shower, I was ready for the activities to begin. We arrived late on American standards, but were introduced to the concept of Italian time (where 10=10:45) so we didn't feel too bad for being "late". We had the opportunity to learn about the curriculum and student life of the civil engineers at University of Cagliari and from University of Padua. I was more surprised at the number of similarities - I expected the two schools to be very different from the U.S. They all do an b.s/m.s program in the same time I will obtain just a b.s. which intimidates me but sounds like they find time to have fun as well :)

It was great later to do a debate activity with them comparing different aspects of school (type of test-taking, lecturing, etc). This was great getting to really talk to the students and understand how their schools work and helped in getting to know them better as well. Overall a great experience, and great food for lunch too.

After exploring the city for a bit, I went to dinner with the whole group of dialoguers (at 8pm, which is early). Little did I know that I was arriving at a feast like Thanksgiving with seafood as the theme instead. I had all sorts of fish from mussels, to octopus to dried fish eggs and more. The food was so good I did not even notice the number of courses we ate, and enjoyed all of it (including the delicious white wine).

Day 3 was nice having a relaxing morning and then heading to the beach to Professor Kosta's beach house that he so kindly invited us to, located about 40 minutes from Cagliari. Their hospitality was impeccable, chauffeuring us from Cagliari to the house and serving us multiple courses of food. Overall a great day interacting with the Padua Italians and getting to know them more.

Day 4 was a busy day where we toured the Nuragic civilization and explored their structures that archaeologists found. It was fascinating to see how they structured their food storage to keep the food cool and hidden without the use of electricity but rather structural engineering. After exploring, we yet again ate a delicious 3 course meal. Then, we went on a trip into the woods atop a mountain about 1,800 ft above sea level in search of mini horses. Only 700 are left, but we were able to spot about 5! The horses are wild and only the fittest survive as the males fight over females and resources often. Also in the woods are shepard's houses which we got to visit. The base walls were made with brick and the top and roof part were made with branches and resembled the shape of a Native American Teepee. The branches were used to help some of the smoke escape through the holes, but some stayed inside as well. I was also surprised to hear that children started learning how to shepard at 6 and were left alone with the sheep at 10 years old! I am not sure I was even allowed to stay home alone at that age. Kudos to those kids!