1. Solid and Hazardous Waste

3. Central Case: Transforming New York’s Fresh Kills Landfill
The largest landfill in the world, it closed in 2001
Staten Island residents viewed the landfill as an eyesore and civic blemish
It was briefly reopened to bury rubble from the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001, attack
New York plans to transform the landfill into a world-class public park

4. Core Case Study: Love Canal — There Is No “Away”
Between , Hooker Chemical sealed multiple chemical wastes into steel drums and dumped them into an old canal excavation (Love Canal).
In 1953, the canal was filled and sold to Niagara Falls school board for $1.
The company inserted a disclaimer denying liability for the wastes.

5. Core Case Study: Love Canal — There Is No “Away”
In 1957, Hooker Chemical warned the school not to disturb the site because of the toxic waste.
In 1959 an elementary school, playing fields and homes were built disrupting the clay cap covering the wastes.
In 1976, residents complained of chemical smells and chemical burns from the site.

6. Core Case Study: Love Canal — There Is No “Away”
President Jimmy Carter declared Love Canal a federal disaster area.
The area was abandoned in 1980 (left).
Figure 22-1

7. Core Case Study: Love Canal — There Is No “Away”
It still is a controversy as to how much the chemicals at Love Canal injured or caused disease to the residents.
Love Canal sparked creation of the Superfund law, which forced polluters to pay for cleaning up abandoned toxic waste dumps.

8. What is your definition of waste?

9. Waste
Any discarded material for which no further sale or use is intended
examples: residue, chemical by-products, unused virgin material, spill absorbent material

10. WASTING RESOURCES
Solid waste: any unwanted or discarded material we produce that is not a liquid or gas.
Municipal solid waste (MSW): produce directly from homes.
Industrial solid waste: produced indirectly by industries that supply people with goods and services.

11. How Much Trash is Generated?
Of the 251 million tons (228 million metric tons) of trash, or solid waste, generated in the United States in 2006, about 81.8 million tons (74.2 million metric tons), or 32.5 percent, was either recycled or composted [source: EPA].

12. Materials Discarded in a Municipal Landfill
Paper and paperboard %
Yard waste %
Glass %
Metal %
Rubber, leather, textiles 8.1%
Food waste %
Plastic %
Miscellaneous inorganic 1.6%

13. Electronic Waste: A Growing Problem
E-waste consists of toxic and hazardous waste such as PVC, lead, mercury, and cadmium.
The U.S. produces almost half of the world's e-waste but only recycles about 10% of it.
Figure 22-4

14. Waste generation is rising in the U.S.
In the U.S,, since 1960, waste generation has increased by 2.8 times

15. Waste disposal

16. WASTING RESOURCES
Solid wastes polluting a river in Jakarta, Indonesia. The man in the boat is looking for items to salvage or sell.
Figure 22-3

17. Trash For Sale The US sells it’s trash to China for recycling.
The turn in the economy has devalued the recycling industry

18. Burying Solid Waste
Most of the world’s MSW is buried in landfills that eventually are expected to leak toxic liquids into the soil and underlying aquifers.
Open dumps: are fields or holes in the ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes covered with soil. Mostly used in developing countries.
Sanitary landfills: solid wastes are spread out in thin layers, compacted and covered daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam.

19. Why do we have landfills?
Protect groundwater
Protect surface water
Protect air quality

20. Landfills can produce gas for energy
Bacteria can decompose waste in an oxygen-deficient environment
Landfill gas = a mix of gases that consists of roughly half methane
Can be collected, processed, and used like natural gas
When not used commercially, landfill gas is burned off in flares to reduce odors and greenhouse emissions

21. The rules are different!
Hazardous Waste
The rules are different!

22. Hazardous Waste
Solid waste or combination of solid wastes which because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics may cause an increase in mortality, incapacitating illness or pose a present or potential hazard to the health or environment when improperly treated, stored or disposed of.

23. EPA Criteria for Hazardous Waste
Toxicity
Persistence in the environment
Degradability in the environment
Bioaccumulation potential
Hazardous Characteristics: ignitibility, corrosivity, reactivity, Toxicity Characteristic Leachate Procedure (TCLP)

24. Hazardous Characteristics
Ignitibility: flashpoint less than 140oF (<140oF)
Corrosivity: pH less than 2.0 S.U. or greater than 12.5 S.U. (2.0 < S.U. < 12.5)
Reactivity: a combination of greater than 250 mg/kg of HCN and greater than 500 mg/kg of H2S

25. Hazardous Characteristics (cont.)
TCLP with one or more compounds above the Maximum Concentration Limit

26. Illegal dumping of hazardous waste
Since hazardous waste disposal is costly, it results in illegal and anonymous dumping by companies,
Creating health risks
Industrial nations illegally dump in developing nations
Basel Convention, an international treaty, should prevent dumping but it still happens
High costs of disposal encourages companies to invest in reducing their hazardous waste

27. Superfund
Later laws charged the EPA with cleaning up brownfields = lands whose reuse or development are complicated by the presence of hazardous materials
Two events spurred creation of Superfund legislation
In Love Canal, Niagara Falls, New York, families were evacuated after buried toxic chemicals rose to the surface, contaminating homes and an elementary school
In Times Beach, Missouri, the entire town was evacuated after being contaminated with dioxin from waste oil sprayed on roads

28. The Superfund process
Once a Superfund site is identified, EPA scientists evaluate:
How close the site is to human habitation
Whether wastes are currently confined or likely to spread
Whether the site threatens drinking water supplies

29. Superfund: harmful sites
Harmful sites are:
Placed on the EPA’s National Priority List
Ranked according to the level of risk to human health that they pose
Cleaned up on a site-by-site basis as funds are available
The EPA is required to hold public hearings and inform area residents of tits findings and to receive feedback

30. Who pays for cleanup?
CERCLA operates under the polluter pays principle = polluting parties were to be charged for cleanup
However, the responsible parties often can’t be found
A trust fund was established by a federal tax on petroleum and chemical industries
The fund is bankrupt, and neither the Bush administration nor Congress has moved to restore it, so taxpayers now pay all costs of cleanup
Fewer cleanups are being completed
An average cleanup costs $25 million and takes years

31. Hazardous Waste Regulations in the United States
Two major federal laws regulate the management and disposal of hazardous waste in the U.S.:
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
Cradle-to-the-grave system to keep track waste.
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)
Commonly known as Superfund program.

32. Hazardous Waste Regulations in the United States
The Superfund law was designed to have polluters pay for cleaning up abandoned hazardous waste sites.
Only 70% of the cleanup costs have come from the polluters, the rest comes from a trust fund financed until 1995 by taxes on chemical raw materials and oil.

33. Hazardous Waste Exclusions
Household waste
Agricultural waste returned as fertilizer
Mining overburden returned to mine site
Certain utility wastes from coal combustion
Certain oil & natural gas exploration drilling waste

34. Hazardous Waste Exclusions (continued)
Waste from mining and processing ores
Cement chromium bearing wastes
Cement kiln dust wastes
Arsenic-treated wood wastes from end users

35. Long-Term Storage of Hazardous Waste
Hazardous waste can be disposed of on or underneath the earth’s surface, but without proper design and care this can pollute the air and water.
Deep-well disposal: liquid hazardous wastes are pumped under pressure into dry porous rock far beneath aquifers.
Surface impoundments: excavated depressions such as ponds, pits, or lagoons into which liners are placed and liquid hazardous wastes are stored.

36. Deep Underground Wells
Trade-Offs
Deep Underground Wells
Advantages
Disadvantages
Safe method if
sites are chosen
carefully
Leaks or spills at
surface
Leaks from
corrosion of well
casing
Wastes can be
retrieved if
problems
develop
Existing fractures
or earthquakes
can allow wastes
to escape into
groundwater
Figure 22.20
Trade-offs: advantages and disadvantages of injecting liquid hazardous wastes into deep underground wells. QUESTION: Which single advantage and which single disadvantage do you think are the most important?
Easy to do
Encourages
waste production
Low cost
Fig , p. 539

37. Low construction costs
Trade-Offs
Surface Impoundments
Advantages
Disadvantages
Groundwater
contamination
from leaking liners
(or no lining)
Low construction costs
Low operating costs
Air pollution from
volatile organic
compounds
Can be built quickly
Overflow from
flooding
Figure 22.21
Trade-offs: advantages and disadvantages of storing liquid hazardous wastes in surface impoundments. QUESTION: Which single advantage and which single disadvantage do you think are the most important?
Wastes can be retrieved if necessary
Disruption and
leakage from
earthquakes
Can store wastes indefinitely with secure double liners
Promotes waste
production
Fig , p. 539