Solid Waste

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Solid Waste
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Consumption for Average U.S. Citizen over a 70
year life span

• 623 tons coal, oil, natural gas
• 613 tons sand, gravel, stone
• 26 million gallons of water
• 21,000 gallons of gasoline
• 51 tons of metals
• 50 tons of food
• 48 tons of wood
• 19 tons of paper
• 5.2 tons of syn. Plastic, rubber, fibers
• 5 tons fertilizer

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Waste for Average U.S. Citizen over a 70 year
life span

• 840 tons of agricultural waste
• 823 tons of garbage, industrial mining wastes
• 7 million gallons polluted water
• 70 tons of air pollutants
• 19,250 bottles
• 19,000 cans
• 7 automobiles

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Major categories of U.S. Solid Waste
Agricultural Waste Mining Waste Industrial
Waste Municipal Waste
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Major categories of U.S. Solid Waste
Agricultural Waste 56 Mining Waste 34
Industrial Waste 6 Municipal Waste 4
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Components of Agricultural Waste

• Crop residues anything that is not harvested
  and used for food, fiber or energy
• Animal wastes includes manures and carcasses
• Pesticide Herbicide residues
• Old equipment and fuel residues

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How can these be disposed of?

• Crop residues composting, plowing into the soil
  (increases organic matter), or burning
• Animal wastes composting, fertilizers,
  pyrolysis
• Heating under very high temperatures and
  pressures to get oil
• Other wastes are landfilled or disposed of in situ

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Components of Mining Waste

• Tailings!

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Why are there so many tailings

• When you find the ore you are interested in, it
  will be combined with other rocks, not as pure
  form.
• After you dig up the raw ore, it is pulverized
  and the material of interest is extracted,
  leaving behind the tailings
• The purest ore that is found is taconite, a form
  of iron. Its concentration is 30, leaving 70
  tailings!
• Most ores contain 1 or less of the material of
  interest.

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Why are there so many tailings, continued
Strip mines make even more tailings than
under- Ground mines.
Left over soil can become tailings here along
with Mining waste.
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Legislation and efforts to reclaim mining areas

• 1977 Surface mining control and reclamation act
  (one of the first efforts)
• Land must be restored to its original contours
  and use
• Mining banned on prime agricultural land
• Effects on local watersheds must be minimized

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What can be done with tailings?

• Because of their thin, powdery nature, this is
  tricky also contaminated with heavy metals such
  as lead, zinc, cadmium, etc. These are toxic.
• Ceramics especially high temperature tiles for
  furnaces
• Road surface materials
• Building materials (e.g. concrete blocks)

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What can be done with tailings?

• Only specific tailings can be used for a specific
  purpose due to their complex chemistry.
• Some tailings can contain radioactive compounds
  like radon and must therefore be used with
  extreme care!

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Components of Industrial Waste

• This is where we think of things such as chemical
  waste, toxic wastes, etc.
• The EPA estimates that only 10 of toxic wastes
  are disposed of properly.
• Some of these wastes are getting into local
  drinking water supplies, food supplies, and
  ecosystems..

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The Love Canal Story
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1927
Arrow Shows Canal Location
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History of Love Canal

• 1942 1952 Hooker Chemical dumped 21,000 tons of
  chemicals in the old canal in steel drums and
  then covered them with fill dirt.
• This was legal at the time.
• 1953 Hooker forced to sell canal area to Niagara
  School Board for 1!
• Did so under duress stated that canal area was
  NOT safe!
• School board had several realtors on it.

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History of Love Canal

• Between 1953 and 1977 an elementary school and
  239 homes were built on or near the canal,
  followed by a major subdivision of 710 homes
• 1977 extremely heavy rains chemicals start
  leaching into basements
• In the meantime the area had higher than normal
  rates of cancers and birth defects

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1980
Canal
Note homes built next to and near canal.
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History of Love Canal

• 1978 residents evacuated from canal area after
  over 200 different compounds are found
• New York State spends 37 million relocating the
  239 families closest to canal
• Federal government relocates the remaining 710
  families
• RCRA begins

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Superfund sites in Oklahoma?
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You Betcha!

• Look at the handout
• Go over the flow chart

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Municipal Wastes
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Municipal Wastes

• These can also be hazardous!
• Therefore, as of October 9, 1993, solid waste
  facilities will be constructed as

Methane collection system
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How else can municipal waste be disposed of?

• Incineration
• Waste to energy programs
• Burn waste and generate steam to power an
  electric power plant
• Burn methane from waste in city vehicles or to
  make electricity

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Since waste in the U.S. is primarily paper, a
  large proportion of it can be recycled
• If it not contaminated with food or covered with
  the clay-based inks seen in shiny magazines,
  etc.
• With the amount of yard waste in Norman being
  reduced by the compost facility, citizens get a
  rebate from state government on their bill every
  month

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See steady increase in steel cans recycled
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Also see steady increase in bottle recycling
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