1. Chapter 19 Waste Management
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2. Aluminum cans first used in 1965 Many advantages and became widespread
What a Waste!
Aluminum cans first used in 1965
Many advantages and became widespread
Waste has become a widespread issue
2010: 1.54 million metric tons of aluminum waste in United States.
Mining and refining aluminum uses energy and produces pollution
Recycling greatly reduces these impacts
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3. 18.1 Wastewater Municipal wastewater treatment
Sewage and other wastewater was dumped into waterways
Treatment varies among developed and developing countries
Municipal sewage treatment plants (MSTPs)
Primary treatment
Physical reduction
Secondary treatment
Broken down by microorganisms
Tertiary treatment
Reduces nutrient wastes
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4. On-site wastewater treatment
Typical of households (25% in U.S.)
Septic systems
Underground tank
Leach field
Solids must be periodically pumped out
Graywater
Water from sources other than toilets and garbage disposal
May be used to irrigate
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5. 18.2 Solid Waste Municipal solid waste
Quantities and composition differ region to region and time
Paper products, yard wastes, food scraps, plastic, metal, rubber, and cloth
Large increase in per capita production in recent history
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6. MSW
The United States produces 11 billion tons of solid waste each year.
Agricultural waste (50%)
Residues produced by mining and primary metal processing (30%)
Industrial waste million metric tons/year (3.6%) with a large toxic/hazardous part!
Municipal waste million metric tons/year (1.8%) or 2 kg/person/day.

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8. The Waste Stream
Waste stream is the steady flow of varied wastes we all produce.
In spite of recent progress in recycling, many recyclable materials end up in the trash.
A major problem is refuse mixing where recyclable and nonrecyclable materials, hazardous and nonhazardous materials are mixed and crushed together is the collection process.

9. WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS
Some Current Methods:
Open Dumps
Ocean Dumping
Landfills
Exporting Waste
Incineration

10. Open Dumps
Open dumping is a predominant method of waste disposal in developing countries.
Illegal dumping classifies as a type of open dumping.
Groundwater contamination is one of the many problems with open dumping.

11. Sanitary Landfills
Landfills control and regulate solid waste disposal with less smell, litter and vermin
Refuse compacted and covered everyday with a layer of dirt. Dirt takes up as much as 20% of landfill space.
Since 1994, all operating landfills in the US have been required to control hazardous substances.
More than 1,200 of the 1,500 existing landfills in the U.S. have closed, and many major cities must export their trash.

12. 18.2 Solid Waste Sanitary landfills
Designed to prevent contamination of groundwater and reduce odors and aesthetic problems
Lined with impervious clay and plastic
Leachate
Trash compacted and covered
When full, capped with clay
Methane produced
May be tapped as green energy
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13. Incineration and Resource Recovery
Incineration is burning refuse at high temperatures to reduce disposal volume by 94-95%.
Energy recovery is possible through heat derived from incineration. Steam from this process can be used for heating buildings or generating electricity.
Waste-to-energy facilities
Refuse-derived fuel is when waste is sorted to remove recyclable and unburnable materials. This yields refuse with a higher energy content than raw trash.
Mass burn means everything smaller than major furniture and appliances is loaded into furnace. It results in greater problems with air pollution.
Residual ash has toxic components including dioxins.
Facilities use filters and scrubbers to reduce emissions of pollutants
High construction costs and environmental regulations have resulted in closures and waste exportation.

14. Mass-Burn Garbage Incinerator
Initial construction costs are usually between $100 and $300 million for a typical municipal facility. Tipping fess are often much higher at incinerators than tipping fees at landfills.

15. 18.2 Solid Waste Composting Uses natural decomposition
Yard trimmings and food waste 25% of municipal waste
Small-scale household composting can help shrink waste stream
Some cities divert food and yard waste to a large-scale composting facility
Generates revenue as compost may be sold
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16. Composting

17. Reducing the waste stream
18.2 Solid Waste
Reducing the waste stream
Multiple strategies for shrinking the waste stream and removing pressure from landfills
Reducing waste
Consumer choices
Reusing waste
Goodwill, Salvation Army
Recycling waste
Saves resources and energy
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18. SHRINKING THE WASTE STREAM Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (the 3 R's)
Recycling is the reprocessing of discarded material into new, useful products.
Reusing is a wash & refill process unlike recycling.
Recycling success stars are aluminum & auto batteries.
Problems include fluctuating market prices & contamination.
Recycling is better than dumping or burning.

19. Recycling Benefits
Saves money, raw materials, and land.
Encourages individual responsibility.
Reduces pressure on disposal systems. Japan (an island nation short on land) recycles about half of all household and commercial wastes.
Lowers demand for raw resources.
Reduces energy consumption and air pollution.
Benefits Example
Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves 4 tons of bauxite, 700 kg of coke and pitch, and keeps 35 kg of aluminum fluoride out of the air.
Producing aluminum from scrap instead of bauxite ore cuts energy use by 95%.

20. Ways Other Than Recycling to Shrink the Waste Stream
Composting is the biological degradation of organic material under aerobic conditions.
Energy can be obtained from waste.
Demanufacturing is the disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer products such as computers & household appliances.
Reuse is exemplified each time you clean a bottle and drink from it again. A reusable glass container makes an average of 15 round-trips between factory and customer before it has to be recycled.
Generating less waste by not consuming originally or using more compostable and degradable packaging.

21. Shrinking the Waste Stream
Excess packaging of food and consumer products is one of our greatest sources of unnecessary waste.
Paper, plastic, glass, and metal packaging material make up 50% of domestic trash by volume.
Producing less waste
Some environmentalists think that society currently places too much emphasis on recycling, thus ignoring better solutions such as reduced consumption and reuse.

22. Demanufacturing
Demanufacturing is the disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer products
Refrigerators and air conditioners produce CFC's. The CFC's can be recycled, thus avoiding their release too the environment.
Computers and other electronics produce both toxic and valuable metals
A problem is that electronics that are turned in for recycling in the U.S. are sometimes dumped in developing countries where their components end up as environmental toxins.

23. Reuse Better than recycling or composting.
Salvage from old houses is an increasingly popular trend in construction.
Glass and plastic bottle potential for reuse is poorly realized.
Large national companies favor recycling over reuse.

24. Producing Less Waste
Reduction in consumption is the best way to reduce our waste stream.
Excess packaging of food and consumer products is one of our greatest sources of unnecessary waste.
Photodegradable plastics break down when exposed to UV rays.
Biodegradable plastics can be decomposed by microorganisms.
There are problems with photodegradable and biodegradable plastics.

25. Municipal solid waste management policy
Policies and management set by city and county governments
Federal government has some oversight
1899 Rivers and Harbors Act
1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act
1970 Resource Recovery Act
Municipal decisions mostly driven by costs
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26. Industrial solid waste
Waste streams vary greatly across facilities
Usually collected and managed by private sector
In United States, 7.6 billions tons of waste per year
Some end up in industrial waste facilities
Some end up in municipal landfills
Industry seeks ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle at every stage of production
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27. Exporting Waste and “Garbage Imperialism”
Although most industrialized nations in the world have agreed to stop shipping hazardous and toxic waste to less developed countries, the practice still continues.
Within rich nations, poor neighborhoods and minority populations are more likely to be the recipients of Locally Unwanted Land Use (LULUs).
Toxic wastes are sometimes “recycled” as building materials, fertilizer or soil amendments.

28. 18.3 Hazardous, Electronic, and Radioactive Waste
Hazardous waste
Wastes that are flammable, corrosive, explosive, or toxic
EPA categorizes three categories
Source-specific wastes
Nonspecific-source wastes
Discarded commercial chemical wastes
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29. U.S. Hazardous
Waste Producers

30. 18.3 Hazardous, Electronic, and Radioactive Waste
Current methods of disposal
Permanent retrieval storage sites
Special landfills that are monitored for leakage
Chemical processing
High-temperature incineration
Bioremediation
Living organism breakdown
Superfund sites
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31. 18.3 Hazardous, Electronic, and Radioactive Waste
Electronic wastes (e-waste)
Regulation only recent
Broken or obsolete electronics
Contain many heavy and precious metals
Recycling less than 20%
United States doesn't have national regulations
European Union and some U.S. states have take-back regulations
Manufactures must take back product at end of life cycle
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32. 18.3 Hazardous, Electronic, and Radioactive Waste
Require long-term monitoring
Low-level radioactive waste
Low amount of radioisotopes
Greatest volume of radioactive waste
Mostly from hospitals and labs
High-level radioactive waste
Spent fuel rods
Most dangerous
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33. 18.4 Managing Product Life Cycles
Life-cycle assessment
Method to evaluate environmental impact of product through all stages of life cycle
Inventory analysis
Inputs and outputs of energy, material, and pollutants
Impact analysis
Environmental, economic, health, social, and cultural impacts of inputs and outputs
Improvement analysis
Opportunities to reduce impacts
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34. 18.4 Managing Product Life Cycles
Reimagining product life cycles
Industrial ecology
Industrial system redesigned to mimic natural cycling systems
Design for disassembly
Circularize life cycle of components
Extended product responsibility (EPR)
Producers responsible for product through life cycle
Take-back programs
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35. Hazardous Waste Disposal Legislation
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Comprehensive program requiring rigorous testing and management of toxic and hazardous substances with cradle to grave accounting.
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund Act)
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) created a Toxic Release Inventory. The act requires manufacturing facilities to report annually on releases of hundreds of types of toxins.

36. Tracking Toxic and Hazardous Wastes

37. Superfund Sites
EPA estimates 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S. and by 2000, 1,551 sites were placed on the National Priority List for cleanup with with Superfund financing. Superfund is a revolving pool designed to:
Provide immediate response to emergency situations posing imminent hazards.
Clean-up abandoned or inactive sites.

39. Modified in 1984 by Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act.
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
Modified in 1984 by Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act.
Aimed at rapid containment, cleanup, or remediation of abandoned toxic waste sites.
Toxic Release Inventory - Requires >20,000 manufacturing facilities to report annually on releases of more than 300 toxic materials.
In order to act the government does not have to prove anyone violated a law, or what role they played in a superfund site.
Liability under CERCLA is “strict, joint, and several”, meaning anyone associated with a site can be held responsible for the entire clean-up cost.

40. National Priority List (NPL) & Brownfields
EPA estimate: 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S.
General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that there are > 400,000 seriously contaminated sites
NPL sites are waste sites that are especially hazardous to human health or environmental quality
How clean is clean? Brownfields are large areas of contaminated properties that have lost their potential value. Because of the presence of assumed pollutants, the areas are considered liability risks. This business attitude discourages redevelopment and can be >30% of the land within urban areas. In many cases, property owners complain that unreasonably high purity levels are demanded in remediation programs.

41. Options for Hazardous Waste Management
Produce less waste using 3 R's
Physical treatments (isolation)
Incineration
Chemical processing (transformation
Bioremediation (microorganisms)
Permanent retrievable storage
Secure landfills

42. When Hazardous Waste Management Options To Cleanup Fail, Storage Is Required
Ways to Store Permanently are:
Retrievable Storage
Can be inspected and periodically retrieved.
Secure Landfills
Modern, complex landfills with multiple liners and other impervious layers and monitoring systems.
To guard and monitor these sites for leakage is very costly.

43. Secure Landfills

44. “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us
“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
Aldo Leopold