1. Chapter 23 Solid and Hazardous Waste

2. Overview of Chapter 23 Solid Waste Waste Prevention Hazardous Waste
Types of Solid Waste
Waste Prevention
Reducing the Amount of Waste
Reusing Products
Recycling Materials
Hazardous Waste
Types of Hazardous Waste
Management of Hazardous Waste
Environmental Justice

3. Humans generate waste that other organisms cannot use

4. Plastic lunch bags
Throw-away napkins
Disposable diapers replaced cloth in the 60s
Disposable plates and forks
Larger items made NOT to last
Packaging!!!

5. Past: broken bookcase  wooden stool  wood for fire

6. Solid Waste
US generates more solid waste per capita than any other country
2.1kg per person per day (4 ½ lbs)
Types of Solid Waste
Municipal solid waste
Solid material discarded by homes, office buildings, retail stores, schools, hospitals, prisons, etc
Non-municipal solid waste
Solid waste generated by industry, agriculture, and mining

8. Composition of Municipal Solid Waste

9. e-waste Small by weight, but effects are large
Contain valuable metals: lead, mercury, cadmium
Cathode ray tubes (CRT) (“hazardous waste”)
More expensive to recycle than to go to landfill
Some recycled waste goes to China: no protective clothing/respiratory gear

11. PVC: polyvinyl chloride Wire insulator Pipes
Leather-like material clothes
Water beds
Shower curtains
Pool toys
Inflatable structures
Releases dioxins when burned
Most environmentally harmful plastic; dioxins: cancer and endocrine disrupter
Solution: phase out PVC use for other materials
Difficult to recycle because of many additives
“PVC” or “vinyl”

12. Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

13. REduce
Individual: print double sided, assignments (don’t print), don’t print s, downloading music and not buying CDs, less paper towels
Corporations: less packaging that protects product equally

14. HW: identify a product with wasteful packaging
Reducing Waste
Purchase products with less packaging
HW: identify a product with wasteful packaging

15. REuse Ideally requires no more energy input
Newspapers for animal beds, wrapping paper
Reuse coffee mug instead of styrofoam/paper cup.
eBay, Craigslist, Freecycle
Bottling factory: wash, sterilized, refilled

16. REcycle Convert materials into raw materials for some other purpose
Closed-loop: recycle into same product (aluminum cans) – cheaper to recycle than to make new
Open-loop: plastic soda bottle into polar fleece jacket, tires into playground
Avoids landfill, but still requires raw material (petroleum) for new bottles

17. Requires more energy than reducing or reusing: cleaning, transporting, sorting
Sometimes difficult to find buyers for glass and plastic
1/3 MSW in US recycled

18. Recycling Materials Every ton of recycled paper saves: 17 trees
7000 gallons of water
4100 kw-hrs of energy
3 cubic yards of landfill space

19. Recycling Recycling Plastic Recycling Glass
Less expensive to make from raw materials
Recycling Glass
Costs less than new glass
Can be used to make glassphalt (right)

20. Recycling Recycling Aluminum
Making new can from recycled one costs far less than making a brand new one

22. Recycling Recycling Tires Few products are made from old tires
Playground equipment
Trashcans
Garden hose
Carpet

23. composting Pros: Other info:
Diverts organic materials (food and yard waste) from landfills
Space is saved and methane gas (from anaerobic respiration) is avoided
Produces humus to enrich soil
Other info:
Turn frequently to aerate
Worms can be used

24. Disposal of Solid Waste
Three methods
Sanitary Landfills
Recycling
Incineration

26. Sanitary Landfill NIMBY Problems: They fill up
Methane gas production by microorganisms (MSW compacted into “cells” to save space)
Greenhouse gas and explosive
Can be captured to generate heat or electricity
Contamination of ground water by leachate

27. Sanitary Landfill Clay or plastic lining bottom
Underneath pipes collect leachate
Soil and clay cover (cap) when at capacity

28. Sanitary Landfill Ideally:
No metals (aluminum, copper, etc) –valuable and leach
No organic matter (food scraps, yard waste) – source of methane
No toxic material (household cleaners, oil-based paints, electronics)
Glass and plastic only if can’t recycle
Special Problem of Tires
Cannot be melted and reused for tires
Can be incinerated or shredded
Mosquito breeding

29. Approximately the size of TEXAS
North Pacific Gyre – collects vortex of garbage
Approximately the size of TEXAS

30. Other than landfills, how else do we dispose of garbage???????

31. Incineration Pros: Volume of solid waste reduced by 90%
Produces heat that can make steam to generate electricity
Called waste-to-energy
Produce less carbon emissions than fossil fuel power plants (right)

32. Incineration

33. Incinerator Problems Associated with Incineration
Yields air pollution (HCl, SO2, NOX)
Produce large amounts of ash
Sent to landfill if safe (e.g.lacking lead) or used elsewhere (e.g. cement blocks)
Sent to hazardous waste landfill if toxic
Site selection often controversial, expensive (and then requires lots of MSW to be profitable, may reduce municipal push to recycle)

34. Integrated Waste Management

35. Hazardous Waste
Any discarded chemical that threatens human health or the environment
Reactive, corrosive, explosive or toxic chemicals
Types of Hazardous Waste
Dioxins
PCBs (insulator in transformers)
Radioactive waste
See chart (right)

36. Love Canal, New York ( )
A hazardous waste landfill  school and housing Cancer-causing (carcinogen) waste (benzene) found in basement Instrumental in leading to the development of CERCLA (“superfund” – next slide)

37. Management of Hazardous Waste
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (1976, 1984) – identifies what constitutes hazardous waste and provides guidelines regarding transporting and waste disposal; “cradle to grave”; keeps a record of hazardous waste to reduce illegal dumping
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1980) (CERCLA) aka “superfund” – pays for cleanup

38. Management of Hazardous Waste
States with the greatest number of sites
New Jersey (115)
California (93)
Pennsylvania (93)
New York (86)
Michigan (65)
Management of Hazardous Waste
Cleaning up existing hazardous waste: superfund program
400,000 waste sites
Leaking chemical storage tanks and drums (right)
Pesticides dumps
Piles of mining wastes

39. Cleaning –up hazardous waste
Bioremediation: using microorganisms (little longer but cheap) – excellent for petroleum
Phytoremediation: use plants and then plants disposed of at hazardous waste landfill
Dig up contaminated soil and burn it
Dilute soil: contaminate water, water shortage
Vapor extraction (inject air in soil remove volatile compounds)

40. Management of Hazardous Waste
Treatment of:
(1) conversion to less hazardous materials (e.g. neutralize a corrosive acid with a base)
(2) Incinerate/burn : dispose ash at special landfill
(3) Hazardous waste landfill: several clay layers/heavy plastic liner on bottom
Contents placed in containers
Careful monitoring of nearby groundwater
Final cover must limit liquids through landfill
Another solution: use less hazardous waste (substitute with less harmful product) in the first place.

41. Hazardous Waste Landfill

42. Environmental Justice
International Waste Management
Developed countries sometimes send their waste to developing countries
Less expensive than following laws within the country
Basel Convention (1989)
Restricts international transport of hazardous waste

43. Persistent organic pollutants
Persist, bioaccumulate in tissue, biomagnify in food chain
Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Include:
PCB
DDT
dioxins