Solid and Hazardous Waste Management

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Solid and Hazardous Waste Management
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Solid Waste

• Solid Waste (SW)- is any unwanted or discarded
  material that is not a liquid or gas
• 2 Types of Solid Waste
• Municipal solid waste (MSW)- consists of solid
  materials discarded by homes, office buildings,
  retail stores, schools , etc. a heterogeneous
  mixture
• a. generates about 1.5 of total solid waste in
  U.S.
• b. electronic wastes - a new, growing category
• 2. Nonmunicipal solid waste (NMSW)- wastes from
  mining (75), agriculture (13), and industry
  (9.5)
• a. generate about 98.5 of total solid waste in
  U.S.

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Ways to Dispose of SW

• Incineration
• Open Dumps
• Sanitary Landfills
• Composting

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Incineration

• incineration- solid wastes are burned in a large
  furnace at high temperatures to get rid of as
  much of the refuse as possible
• a. produces heat that can produce steam to warm
  buildings or generate electricity
• 3 types of incinerators
• i. mass burn incinerators large furnaces that
  burn all SW except for unburnable items
• ii. modular incinerators smaller incinerators
  that burn all SW
• iii. refuse-derived fuel incinerators only the
  combustible portion of SW is burned
• c. produce substantially less CO2 emissions than
  equivalent power plants that burn fossil fuels,
  HOWEVER produces dioxin (one of the most toxic
  chemicals ever manufactured by man)
• d. creates bottom ash (residual ash) and fly ash
  (ash from the flume)

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Open Dumps

• Open dumps areas where trash and garbage would be
  left out to sit or to be picked through the
  untraditional method of SW

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Sanitary Landfills

• Sanitary landfills- solid and semisolid wastes
  are confined to a specific area (giant hole)
  after being compacted, they are covered over
  daily with a layer of soil
• a. location is based on a variety of factors
  geology of area, soil drainage, proximity to
  wetlands and bodies of water, etc.
• b. equipped with a double liner system (plastic,
  clay, plastic, clay) and uses a sophisticated
  system to collect leachate (liquid that seeps
  through the SW.
• c. past decades many landfills have closed,
  however difficult to open new ones due to expense
  and NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) syndrome

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Composting

• Composting- taking yard waste, food scraps,
  sewage sludge, and agricultural manure out of MSW
  to convert these items into soil conditioners
• a. underutilized

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Management or Prevention?

• A. Waste Management- views waste production as an
  unavoidable product of economic growth
• 1. attempts to manage the resulting waste in ways
  that reduce environmental harm (by burying,
  burning, or shipping)
• 2. goal is to move increasing amounts of resource
  through the economy to enhance economic growth.
• B. Waste Prevention- views waste as either a
  potential resource or a harmful substance that we
  should not be dealing with

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Reducing Waste and Pollution

• Consume less
• Redesign manufacturing processes and products to
  use less material and energy and to create less
  waste and pollution
• Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse,
  remanufacture, compost, or recycle
• Design products to last longer
• Eliminate or reduce unnecessary packaging
• Create and use a trash tax

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Recycling in the US

• 98 of steel in cars
• 96 car batteries
• 70 lead
• 55 aluminum cans
• 49 waste paper and paperboard
• 40 yard waste
• 27 of glass containers
• OVERALL -- 60-90 could be recycled

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Recycling Paper

• Process
• Why Recycle Paper
• Saves trees
• Saves energy
• Reduces air pollution
• Lowers water pollution
• Prevents groundwater contamination
• Conserves water
• No extra bleaching
• Saves landfill space
• Creates extra jobs
• Saves money

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Recycling Plastics

• Hard to isolate
• Does not yield much material
• Oil prices are low, so it remains cheap to
  recycle
• Plastic industries produce a lot of hazardous
  wastes
• Chemicals can lead into landfills
• Some plastics are used unnecessarily and could be
  replaced with other materials

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Reuse

• Refillable Containers
• Bottles
• Tissues
• Paperware
• Lunch boxes
• Tupperware
• Cloth Shopping Bags

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MRFs - Material Recovery Faciltiies

• 225 in the US
• Expensive to build, operate, and maintain
• Can emit pollutants
• Produce a toxic ash
• Must have a large input to be worthwhile

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Source Separation Facilities

• Little air and water pollution
• Low start-up costs and moderate operating costs
• Saves energy
• Provides jobs
• Yields cleaner and more valuable recyclables
• Educates people

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Why Dont We Have More Recycling?

• Failure to include the harmful environmental and
  health costs of raw materials in the market price
  of consumer items.
• Lopsided tax incentives - more incentives
  available for resource extraction than recycling
• Lack of large steady markets for recycled
  materials

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Hazardous Wastes

• Hazardous Waste- any discarded solid or liquid
  material that is toxic, ignitable, corrosive, or
  reactive enough to explode or release toxic fum
• A. EPA defines hazardous materials as having one
  of the following
• 1. Toxicity- materials that may release poisons
  in sufficient quantities to pose an ample health
  risk to us and the environment
• 2. Ignitability- pose a fire hazard during
  routine management
• 3. Corrosiveness- materials requiring special
  containers because of their ability to corrode
  standard materials.
• 4. Reactivity- substances that, during routine
  management tend to react spontaneously and
  vigorously with air or water

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Threat from Lead

• Neurotoxin - can harm the nervous system,
  especially of young children
• Can cause impairment, lower IQ, shortened
  attention span, hyperactivity, hearing damage,
  various behavior disorders

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How to Reduce Lead

• Test all children
• Ban incineration of solid and hazardous waste
• Phase out leaded gasoline
• Test older houses for lead paint, lead dust
• Ban all lead solder in pipes and food cans
• Remove lead piping
• Ban incineration of landfill disposal of TV sets,
  monitors, etc.
• Wash fresh fruits and vegetables
• Test cooking ware
• Ban PVC miniblinds and PVC candles.

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Threat from Mercury

• Neurotoxin
• Caused by
• Inhaling vaporized elemental mercury or
  particulates of inorganic mercury
• Eating fish contaminated with mercury
• Coal burning, waste incineration, electric air
  furnaces
• Can control by
• Reducing emissions
• Preventing the possibility of mercury in the
  environment

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Organic Containing Chlorine Compounds

• Found in plastics, solvents, paper, and pulp
  bleaching
• Can be persistent
• Accumulate in body fat
• Harmful to human health
• Need chlorine substitutes

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Dioxins

• Family of 75 different chlorinated hydrocarbons
  formed as unwanted by-products in high
  temperatures

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Brownfields

• Abandoned industrial and commercial sites that
  are contaminated
• Factories
• Junkyards
• Older landfills
• Gas stations
• Can be cleaned up and turned into popular,
  recreational, residential, etc. areas
• Example 11 Mile Delaware Riverfront

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Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976

• varies from country to country
• most widely used definition is Resource
  Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA)
• using RCRAs, the EPA has compiled a list of
  hazardous waste, if a substance contains one of
  the four characteristics mentioned earlier it is
  under regulation.

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Superfund Act

• A law for identifying abandoned hazardous waste
  cites, protecting and, if necessary, cleaning up
  groundwater, cleaning up the sites, and giving
  those who are responsible the financial
  responsibility.

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Biological Methods of Control

• bioremediation- use of bacteria and other
  microorganisms to break down hazardous wastes
• example Exxon Valdez oil spill of March 1989
• phytoremediation- using natural or genetically
  engineered plants to absorb, filter and remove
  contaminants from polluted soil and water
• Slow and only effective at plants roots depth
• Toxic plant leaves are toxic to animals, insects,
  and humans

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Physical Methods of Control

• Physical methods- detoxify hazardous wastes
  though filtering out solids, distilling liquid
  mixtures to separate our harmful chemicals, and
  precipitating such chemicals from solutions.
• 1. cyclodextrin- type of sugar made form corn
  starch to remove toxic materials such as solvents
  and pesticides from contaminated soil and
  groundwater.
• 2. plasma torch- an ionized gas made up of
  electrically conductive ions and electrons
  passing electrical current through a gas to
  generate an electric arc at high temperatures

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Political Methods of Control

• 1. Comprehensive Environmental Response,
  Compensation Liability Act (CERCLA)
• a. established in 1980 in response to public
  pressure to clean up hazardous waste dumps and to
  protect the public health from them
• b. make responsible parties pay for those
  cleanups Love Canal
• c. set-up 1.6 billion hazardous waste trust fund
  (superfund) to support identification and clean
  up of abandoned waste sites.
• 2. Superfund National Priorities List
• a. sites that pose the greatest threat to public
  health and the environment are placed on this
  list

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An Ecoindustrial Revolution

• How can we achieve economic, industrial, and
  environmental stability?