1. Chapter 19
Waste

2. Bellringer

3. Objectives
Name one characteristic that makes a material biodegradable.
Identify two types of solid waste.
Describe how a modern landfill works
Name two environmental problems caused by landfills.

4. Chapter 19 – Solid Waste
Every year, the U.S. generates ~10 billion tons of solid waste
Space is becoming limited
Ex Mobro barge – carrying 3,200 tons of garbage from NY; no one would take it so it cruised around for 5 months (finally, trash was incinerated & ashes buried in NY)

5. ↑ population, ↑ waste, ↓ space
Average person produces 4.4 pounds of solid waste per day
Waste can be made of 2 types of materials
1. biodegradable – paper, cotton, leather, wood, food
2. non-biodegradable – usually synthetic materials; plastic, polyester, etc

6. Types of Solid Waste
1. Municipal (~38%) – produced by households & businesses
Mostly paper products

7. Types of Solid Waste
2. manufacturing (scrap metals, plastics, sludge, ash…); mining (rocks or minerals left over from excavation; agriculture (crop wastes, manure)

8. Solid Waste Management
Most wastes sent to a landfill, some is incinerated, & some is recycled

9. Landfills (sanitary)
Permanent waste disposal facility where wastes are put in the ground & covered with layers of soil, plastic or both
Must be contained so there is no contact with soil/groundwater that surrounds the landfill

10. Problems with Landfills
1. Leachate – liquid that has passed through compacted solid waste
Contains dissolved chemicals from decomposing garbage
Have monitoring wells
Leachate is stored & treated as wastewater
If monitoring is poor, it can seep into groundwater

11. Problems with Landfills
2. methane (CH4) – produced when organic matter decomposes
Highly flammable
Pumped out & used as fuel
If not monitored, can seep into ground (basements) & can explode

12. Modern Landfills have Safeguarding Techniques
Modern techniques ↑ cost
Finding new place to build is hard (NIMBY)
Has to be close enough to city but far enough away from residents
Space is becoming limited (see Fig 9 in text)

13. Incineration Alternative to landfills
Reduce weight of solid waste by 75%
Problems with separation of materials that should not be burned
Could end up polluting air (need scrubbers & electrostatic precipitators)
Ash has to be disposed of in landfill

14. Questions: What is solid waste?
How much solid waste does the average person in the US produce per day?
What are some current problems with landfills?
Why is incinerated waste often more toxic than the original waste?

15. Objectives Sec 2 Identify 3 ways you can produce less waste.
Describe how you can use your consumer buying power to reduce solid waste.
List the steps that an item must go through to be recycled.
List two benefits of composting.
Name one advan. and one disadvan. to producing degradable plastic.

16. Reducing Solid Waste – Three R’s

17. Reduce – any change in design, manufacture, purchase or use of materials/products to reduce their amount or toxicity before they become municipal waste
Produce less - ↓ expense of collecting/disposing
Buy less – consumers can influence manufacturers (buy products that have less packing & last longer) – manufacturers produce more to satisfy demand
Three R’s VS VS

18. Three R’s
Re-use
Until the 60’s, bottles were returned to stores when empty & reused
Today, most bottles are disposable
Use tupperware or reusable water bottles
instead of

19. Three R’s
Recycle
reusing materials or recovering valuable materials from waste/scrap
began in Baltimore in 1974 due to lack of landfill space
usually saves energy
ex. 95% less energy is needed to produce aluminum from recycled aluminum than from the bauxite ore
ex. 75% less energy to produce steel from scrap than from the ore
Ex. 70 % less energy to produce paper from recycled paper than from trees

22. Steps to recycling collection/sorted by type
cleaned & made ready for use (ex. glass is sorted by color)
materials are used to manufacture new products
if more people bought products made from recycled materials, the demand would increase

23. Plastics -after recycling, the quality of the plastic is usually reduced
secondary plastic products are not usually recyclable
the life cycle is extended, but it will eventually end up in a
landfill
the numbers on plastic containers indicate the materials used to make it and which ones can be recycled

24. Composting 15 % of a community’s solid waste is yard waste
biodegradable material can be composted and turned into humus (nutrient rich organic material)
humus can be used to enrich garden soil (fertilize)
Keeps solid waste out of landfills or…….

26. Changing the Materials We Use
- buy items made from recycled products or items that can be re-used or recycled
there are some new items on the market that are becoming more popular
photodegradable plastic: when left in the sun, it becomes weak & brittle and eventually breaks into pieces
green plastic: blend sugars in plants with special chemicals - made from living things (requires less fossil fuels)
degrades within 45 days of being thrown away
problems: only reduced to smaller pieces ( the plastic does not disappear completely), but there is less environmental impact (pieces usually too small to kill animals)

28. Questions What are three ways to reduce solid waste?
What are two benefits of composting?
Name two types of degradable plastics?

29. Objectives: Section 3 Name two characteristics of hazardous waste.
Describe one law that governs hazardous waste.
Describe two ways to treat hazardous waste safely.

30. Hazardous Waste
any waste that is a risk to the health of humans/other living things
can be solids, liquids, or gases (See Table 3, P. 493)
disposal is often careless

32. Love Canal (1950’s)
homes/schools built on top of a covered contaminated waste site
toxic waste leaked into soil (hundreds of people affected)
company had to pay families millions in compensation

33. Love Canal served as a wake up call
the Federal government passed laws forcing the clean up of old waste sites & regulation of future disposal
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA- 1970’s) - requires records to be kept of how wastes are handled from the time they are made to their disposal in an approved disposal facility- Cradle to grave accounting
the producers of the waste are legally responsible
Superfund Act (1980’s)
- gave the EPA the right to sue owners of hazardous waste sites who had
illegally dumped & force owners to pay for the proper clean up
- also created a fund of money to pay for cleaning up abandoned hazmat
sites
clean up is very expensive (ex. Love Canal - $275 million)

34. Many sites still need to be cleaned up
- there are about 1,200 proposed Superfund sites
clean up has occurred at only 75 of those sites
LA has 15 sites to be cleaned

35. Hazardous Waste Management
difficult to guarantee that today’s disposal techniques won’t eventually pollute
This could eventually turn into …..

36. scary!

37. Ways to cut down/get rid of hazmats:
1. Redesign in manufacturing to produce fewer hazmats (may be cheaper, possibly cut costs of disposal)
some types of wastes can be 2. Chemically treated to make wastes less hazardous (ex. cyanides combined with oxygen to form carbon dioxide & nitrogen)
3. land disposal (most common method of disposal)

38. Types of Land Disposal 4.- Deep-well injection
wastes pumped deep below the groundwater into dryer layer of rock
5.- Surface impoundment - pond bottom sealed with a liner - wastes settle, water evaporates & leaves more room to add more wastes

39. Types of Land Disposal, cont.
6. Bioremediation- use bacteria/fungus to clean up wastes, also, some plants can absorb heavy metals from the soil

40. Types of Land Disposal, cont.
7. Specially designed incinerators- expensive & require lots of energy, need pollution control devices such as scrubbers/electrostatic precipitators; leftover ash must be buried in a hazmat landfill that is closely monitored
8. Exportation - through international trade agreement; there may be a more specialized facility to deal with certain hazmats

41. Hazmats at Home many everyday household products (see Table 4, P. 499)
there are more & more hazmat collections sites for personal disposal of products such as motor oil, batteries, tires, ect.

42. Questions
What are three ways of dealing with hazardous waste that do not involve storage?
What are two types of land disposal techniques for hazardous waste?

43. The End!!!!