Solid and Hazardous Waste

1
Solid and Hazardous Waste

• Chapter 16

2
What are solid waste and hazardous waste, and why
are they problems?

• Section 16-1

3
We throw away huge amounts of useful things and
hazardous materials

• No waste in natural world because wastes of one
  organism become nutrients for others as a natural
  recycling of nutrients occurs.
• Modern humans produce huge amounts of waste that
  go unused and pollute.
• Solid wasteany unwanted or discarded material we
  produce that is not a liquid or a gas.
• Industrial solid waste produced by mines,
  agriculture, and industries that supply people
  with goods and services.
• Municipal solid waste (MSW), consisting of the
  combined solid waste produced by homes and
  workplaces.

4
We throw away huge amounts of useful things and
hazardous materials

• Hazardous, or toxic, waste threatens human health
  or the environment because it is poisonous,
  dangerously chemically reactive, corrosive, or
  flammable. Examples include
• Industrial solvents.
• Hospital medical waste.
• Car batteries.
• Household pesticide products.
• Dry-cell batteries.
• Ash from incinerators and coal-burning power
  plants.

5
Harmful chemicals are found in many homes
6
What Harmful Chemicals Are in Your Home?
Cleaning
Gardening
Disinfectants
Pesticides
Weed killers
Drain, toilet, and window cleaners
Ant and rodent killers
Spot removers
Flea powders
Septic tank cleaners
Paint Products
Paints, stains, varnishes, and lacquers
Paint thinners, solvents, and strippers
Automotive
Wood preservatives
Gasoline
Artist paints and inks
Used motor oil
General
Antifreeze
Battery acid
Dry-cell batteries (mercury and cadmium)
Brake and transmission fluid
Glues and cements
Fig. 16-2, p. 413
7
Stepped Art
Fig. 16-2, p. 413
8
We throw away huge amounts of useful things and
hazardous materials

• Classes of hazardous wastes are
• Organic compounds
• Various solvents, pesticides, PCBs, and dioxins.
• Nondegradable toxic heavy metals
• Lead, mercury, and arsenic.
• Highly radioactive waste produced by nuclear
  power plants and nuclear weapons facilities.

9
How should we deal with solid waste?

• Section 16-2

10
We can burn or bury solid waste or produce less
of it

• Waste management in which we attempt to manage
  wastes in ways that reduce their environmental
  harm without seriously trying to reduce the
  amount of waste produced.
• Waste reduction (produce much less waste and
  pollution), and the wastes we do produce are
  considered to be potential resources that can be
  reused, recycled, or composted.
• Integrated waste managementa variety of
  strategies for both waste reduction and waste
  management.

11
Integrated waste management
12
First Priority
Second Priority
Last Priority
Primary Pollution and Waste Prevention
Secondary Pollution and Waste Prevention
Waste Management
Treat waste to reduce toxicity
Reuse
Change industrial process to eliminate use of
harmful chemicals
Incinerate waste
Repair
Use less of a harmful product
Recycle
Bury waste in landfills
Reduce packaging and materials in products
Compost
Release waste into environment for dispersal or
dilution
Make products that last longer and are
recyclable, reusable, or easy to repair
Buy reusable and recyclable products
Fig. 16-4, p. 415
13
Stepped Art
Fig. 16-4, p. 415
14
We can cut solid wastes by reducing, reusing, and
recycling

• Waste reduction is based on three Rs
• Reduce consume less and live a simpler
  lifestyle.
• Reuse rely more on items that can be used
  repeatedly instead of on throwaway items, and buy
  necessary items secondhand or borrow or rent
  them.
• Recycle separate and recycle paper, glass, cans,
  plastics, metal, and other items, and buy
  products made from recycled materials.

15
We can cut solid wastes by reducing, reusing, and
recycling

• Strategies that industries and communities have
  used to reduce resource use, waste, and
  pollution.
• Redesign manufacturing processes and products to
  use less material and energy.
• Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse,
  remanufacture, compost, or recycle.
• Eliminate or reduce unnecessary packaging.
• Charge consumers by amount of waste they throw
  away but provide free pickup of recyclable and
  reusable items.
• Establish cradle-to-grave responsibility laws
  that require companies to take back various
  discarded consumer products, such as electronic
  equipment, appliances, and motor vehicles.

16
You can save resources by reducing your output of
solid waste and pollution
17
Why is reusing and recycling materials so
important?

• Section 16-3

18
Reuse is an important way to reduce solid waste
and pollution, and to save money

• Increasingly substituted throwaway items for
  reusable ones, which has resulted in growing
  masses of solid waste.
• Reuse involves cleaning and using materials over
  and over and thus increasing the typical life
  span of a product.
• Waste reduction decreases the use of matter and
  energy resources, cuts pollution and waste,
  creates local jobs, and saves money.
• In many less-developed countries, the poor
  scavenge in open dumps for food scraps and items
  that they can reuse or sell, and are often
  exposed to toxins and infectious diseases.

19
Reuse is an important way to reduce solid waste
and pollution, and to save money

• Reuse strategies in more-developed countries
  include yard sales, flea markets, secondhand
  stores, and online sites such as eBay and
  craigslist.
• To encourage people reusable bags, the
  governments of Ireland, Taiwan, and the
  Netherlands tax plastic shopping bags.
• Australia, France, Italy, and the U.S. city of
  San Francisco have banned the use of all or most
  types of plastic shopping bags.
• Plastics industry officials have mounted a
  massive advertising and political campaign to
  prevent such bans.

20
There are many ways to reuse the items we purchase
21
There are two types of recycling

• Recycling involves reprocessing discarded solid
  materials into new, useful products.
• Households and workplaces produce five major
  types of materials that we can recycle paper
  products, glass, aluminum, steel, and some
  plastics.
• Primary, or closed-loop, recyclingmaterials are
  recycled into new products of the same type.
• Secondary recycling waste materials converted
  into different products.

22
There are two types of recycling

• Key questions about recycling
• Do the items that are separated for recycling
  actually get recycled?
• Do businesses, governments, and individuals
  complete the recycling loop by buying products
  that are made from recycled materials?

23
Composting is a form of recycling that mimics
natures recycling of nutrients

• Involves using decomposer bacteria to recycle
  yard trimmings, food scraps, and other organic
  wastes.
• The resulting organic material can be added to
  soil to supply plant nutrients, slow soil
  erosion, retain water, and improve crop yields.
• Homeowners can compost such wastes in simple
  backyard containers.
• Some cities in Canada and in many European Union
  countries collect and compost more than 85 of
  their biodegradable wastes in centralized
  community facilities.
• In the US, about 3,000 municipal composting
  programs recycle about 60 of the yard wastes.

24
Recycling has advantages and disadvantages

• Whether recycling makes economic sense depends on
  how we look at its economic and environmental
  benefits and costs.
• Critics of recycling programs argue that
  recycling is costly and adds to the taxpayer
  burden in communities where recycling is funded
  through taxation.
• Proponents of recycling point to studies showing
  that the net economic, health, and environmental
  benefits of recycling far outweigh the costs.
• Critics say that recycling may make economic
  sense for valuable and easy-to-recycle materials
  such as aluminum, paper, and steel.

25
Recycling has advantages and disadvantages
26
We can encourage reuse and recycling

• Three factors hinder reuse and recycling.
• The market prices of almost all products do not
  include the harmful environmental and health
  costs associated with producing, using, and
  discarding them.
• The economic playing field is uneven, because in
  most countries, resource-extracting industries
  receive more government tax breaks and subsidies
  than reuse and recycling industries.
• The demand, and thus the price paid, for recycled
  materials fluctuates, mostly because buying goods
  made with recycled materials is not a priority
  for most governments, businesses, and individuals.

27
We can encourage reuse and recycling

• Ways to encourage reuse and recycling
• Increase subsidies and tax breaks for reusing and
  recycling materials and decrease subsidies and
  tax breaks for making items from virgin
  resources.
• Increase use of the fee-per-bag waste collection
  system and encourage or require government
  purchases of recycled products to help increase
  demand for and lower prices of these products.
• Pass laws requiring companies to take back and
  recycle/reuse packaging and electronic waste.
• Citizens can pressure governments to require
  product labeling that lists recycled content of
  products and the types and amounts of any
  hazardous materials.

28
We can encourage reuse and recycling

• Recycling is popular because it helps to soothe
  the consciences of people living in a throwaway
  society.
• Reducing resource consumption and reusing
  resources are more effective prevention
  approaches to reducing the flow and waste of
  resources.

29
What are the advantages and disadvantages of
burning or burying solid waste?

• Section 16-4

30
Burning solid waste has advantages and
disadvantages

• Globally, MSW is burned in more than 600 large
  waste-to-energy incinerators which use the heat
  they generate to boil water and make steam for
  heating water or interior spaces, or for
  producing electricity.
• The US incinerates only about 12 of its MSW.
• Incineration has a bad reputation stemming from
  past use of highly polluting and poorly regulated
  incinerators.
• Incineration competes with an abundance of
  low-cost landfills in many areas.

31
Burning solid waste has advantages and
disadvantages
32
Burying solid waste has advantages and
disadvantages

• About 54, by weight, of the MSW in the United
  States is buried in sanitary landfills, compared
  to 80 in Canada, 15 in Japan, and 4 in
  Denmark.
• Sanitary landfills are where solid wastes are
  spread out in thin layers, compacted, and covered
  daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam,
  which helps to keep the material dry and reduces
  leakage of contaminated water.

33
Burying solid waste has advantages and
disadvantages

• Open dumps are essentially fields or holes in the
  ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes
  burned.
• Rare in more-developed countries.
• China disposes of about 85 of its solid waste in
  rural open dumps or in poorly designed and poorly
  regulated landfills.

34
A waste-to-energy incinerator with pollution
controls
35

Electricity
Smokestack
Turbine
Steam
Crane
Generator
Wet scrubber
Furnace
Boiler
Electrostatic precipitator
Waste pit
Water added
Dirty water
Bottom ash
Conveyor
Fly ash
To waste treatment plant
Ash for treatment, disposal in landfill, or use
as landfill cover
Fig. 16-9, p.420
36
Burying solid waste has advantages and
disadvantages
37
A state-of-the-art sanitary landfill
38
When landfill is full, layers of soil and clay
seal in trash
Topsoil
Sand
Electricity generator building
Methane storage and compressor building
Clay
Leachate treatment system
Garbage
Probes to detect methane leaks
Pipes collect explosive methane for use as fuel
to generate electricity
Methane gas recovery well
Leachate storage tank
Compacted solid waste
Groundwater monitoring well
Garbage
Leachate pipes
Leachate pumped up to storage tank for safe
disposal
Sand
Synthetic liner
Leachate monitoring well
Groundwater
Sand
Clay and plastic lining to prevent leaks pipes
collect leachate from bottom of landfill
Clay
Subsoil
Fig. 16-11, p. 421
39
How should we deal with hazardous waste?

• Section 16-5

40
We can use integrated management of hazardous
waste

• Integrated management establishes three levels of
  priority
• Produce less.
• Convert as much of it as possible to less
  hazardous substances.
• Put the rest in long-term, safe storage.
• Industries try to find substitutes for toxic or
  hazardous materials, reuse or recycle the
  hazardous materials within industrial processes,
  or use them as raw materials for making other
  products.
• Industrial hazardous wastes are exchanged through
  clearinghouses where they are sold as raw
  materials for use by other industries.
• Most e-waste recycling efforts create further
  hazards and can result in serious threats to
  other species.

41
Integrated hazardous waste management
42
Produce Less Hazardous Waste
Convert to Less Hazardous or Nonhazardous
Substances
Put in Perpetual Storage
Landfill
Natural decomposition
Change industrial processes to reduce or
eliminate hazardous waste production
Underground injection wells
Incineration
Thermal treatment
Surface impoundments
Recycle and reuse hazardous waste
Chemical, physical, and biological treatment
Underground salt formations
Dilution in air or water
Fig. 16-13, p. 422
43
Stepped Art
Fig. 16-13, p. 422
44
We can detoxify hazardous wastes

• Bioremediation employs bacteria and enzymes that
  help destroy toxic or hazardous substances or
  convert them to harmless compounds.
• Phytoremediation involves using natural or
  genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter,
  and remove contaminants from polluted soil and
  water.
• Hazardous wastes can be incinerated to break them
  down and convert them to harmless or less harmful
  chemicals such as carbon dioxide and water.
• Detoxify hazardous wastes by using a plasma arc
  torch, somewhat similar to a welding torch, to
  incinerate them at very high temperatures.

45
We can store some forms of hazardous waste

• Burial on land or long-term storage of hazardous
  and toxic wastes should be used only as the last
  resort.
• Currently, burial on land is the most widely used
  method in the United States and in most
  countries, largely because it is the least
  expensive of all methods.
• The most common form of burial is deep-well
  disposal.
• Liquid hazardous wastes are pumped under pressure
  through a pipe into dry, porous rock formations
  far beneath aquifers that are tapped for drinking
  and irrigation water.

46
We can store some forms of hazardous waste

• Cost is low and the wastes can often be retrieved
  if problems develop.
• Problems with deep-well disposal
• Limited number of such sites and limited space
  within them.
• Wastes can leak into groundwater from the well
  shaft or migrate into groundwater in unexpected
  ways.
• Encourages the production of hazardous wastes.

47
We can store some forms of hazardous waste

• Surface impoundments are ponds, pits, or lagoons
  in which wastes are stored.
• May have liners to help contain the waste.
• 70 of the storage ponds in the United States
  have no liners.
• Eventually all impoundment liners are likely to
  leak and could contaminate groundwater.
• Liquid and solid hazardous wastes can be put into
  drums or other containers and buried in carefully
  designed and monitored secure hazardous waste
  landfills.

48
Storing liquid hazardous wastes in surface
impoundments has advantages and disadvantages
49
How hazardous wastes can be isolated and stored
in a secure hazardous waste landfill
50
Bulk waste
Gas vent
Topsoil
Plastic cover
Earth
Impervious clay cap
Clay cap
Sand
Impervious clay
Water table
Earth
Leak detection system
Groundwater
Double leachate collection system
Plastic double liner
Reactive wastes in drums
Groundwater monitoring well
Fig. 16-16, p. 425
51
You can reduce your output ofhazardous wastes
52
How can we make the transition to a more
sustainable low-waste society?

• Section 16-6

53
Grassroots action has led to better solid and
hazardous waste management

• Individuals have organized to prevent the
  construction of hundreds of incinerators,
  landfills, treatment plants for hazardous and
  radioactive wastes, and polluting chemical plants
  in or near their communities.
• If local citizens adopt a not in my back yard
  (NIMBY) approach, the waste will always end up in
  someones back yard.
• A call for drastically reducing production of
  such wastes by emphasizing pollution prevention
  and using the precautionary principle.

54
Providing environmental justice for everyone is
an important goal

• Environmental justice is an ideal whereby every
  person is entitled to protection from
  environmental hazards regardless of race, gender,
  age, national origin, income, social class, or
  any political factors.
• A larger share of polluting factories, hazardous
  waste dumps, incinerators, and landfills in the
  United States are located in or near communities
  populated mostly by African Americans, Asian
  Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.
• In general, toxic waste sites in Caucasian
  communities have been cleaned up faster and more
  completely than such sites in African American
  and Latino communities.

55
International treaties have reduced hazardous
waste

• For decades, some more-developed countries had
  been shipping hazardous wastes to less-developed
  countries.
• Since 1992, international treaty known as the
  Basel Convention has banned participating
  countries from shipping hazardous waste to or
  through other countries without their permission.
• In 1995, the treaty was amended to outlaw all
  transfers of hazardous wastes from industrial
  countries to less-developed countries.

56
International treaties have reduced hazardous
waste

• By 2010, this agreement had been signed by 175
  countries and ratified by 172 countries.
• The United States, Afghanistan, and Haiti have
  signed but have not ratified the convention.
• Hazardous waste smugglers evade the laws by using
  an array of tactics.

57
International treaties have reduced hazardous
waste

• In 2000, delegates from 122 countries completed a
  global treaty called the Stockholm Convention on
  Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) to control
  12 POPs.
• POPs are widely used toxic chemicals that can
  accumulate in the fatty tissues of humans and
  other organisms at high trophic levels in food
  webs.
• The original list of 12 chemicals, called the
  dirty dozen, includes DDT and eight other
  chlorine-containing persistent pesticides, PCBs,
  dioxins, and furans.
• By 2009, 169 countries had signed a strengthened
  version of the POPs treaty that seeks to ban or
  phase out the use of these chemicals and to
  detoxify or isolate stockpiles of them.
• It does allow 25 countries to continue using DDT
  to combat malaria until safer alternatives are
  available.
• The United States has not yet ratified this
  treaty.

58
International treaties have reduced hazardous
waste

• In 2000, the Swedish Parliament enacted a law
  that, by 2020, will ban all chemicals that are
  persistent in the environment and that can
  accumulate in living tissue.
• Industries required to perform risk assessments
  on the chemicals they use and to show that these
  chemicals are safe to use, as opposed to
  requiring the government to show that they are
  dangerous.
• Strong opposition to this approach in the United
  States.

59
We can make the transition to low-waste societies

• Many environmental scientists argue that we can
  make a transition to a low-waste society by
  understanding and following key principles
• Everything is connected.
• There is no away, as in to throw away, for the
  wastes we produce.
• Polluters and producers should pay for the wastes
  they produce.
• Different categories of hazardous waste and
  recyclable waste should not be mixed.

60
Three big ideas

• The order of priorities for dealing with solid
  waste should be to produce less of it, reuse, and
  recycle as much of it as possible and safely burn
  or bury what is left.
• The order of priority for dealing with hazardous
  waste should be to produce less of it, reuse or
  recycle it, convert it to less-hazardous
  material, and safely store what is left.
• We need to view solid wastes as wasted resources
  and hazardous wastes as materials that we should
  not be producing in the first place.