Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources Chapter 2

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Renewable and Nonrenewable ResourcesChapter 2
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Theme Outline

• Lesson 2.4
• Solid Waste Management
• Municipal Solid Waste
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

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PA Academic Standards for Environment Ecology

• Standard 4.2.10.D
• Explain different management alternatives
  involved in recycling and solid waste management.
• Analyze the manufacturing process (before, during
  and after) with consideration for resource
  recovery.
• Compare various methods dealing with solid waste
  (e.g., incineration, compost, land application).
• Differentiate between pre/post-consumer and raw
  materials.
• Illustrate how one natural resource can be
  managed through reduction, recycling, reuse or
  use.

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Learning Objectives

• Students will compare various methods dealing
  with solid waste, including incineration,
  composting, and the use of landfills.
• Students will analyze several manufacturing
  processes with consideration for resource
  recovery.
• Students will learn how aluminum and other
  resources are managed through reduction,
  recycling, refuse, or use.
• Students will differentiate between
  pre/post-consumer and raw materials.

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Solid Waste Management

• Natural resources harvested from the Earth are
  typically processed.
• This processing generates waste products that can
  either be
• Released into the environment
• Recovered and sold
• Recycled within a manufacturing process
• Taken to landfills or other waste management
  facilities for disposal.

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Natural Resources

• What are the two types of natural resources?

Renewable Food and Fiber Soil Wind The
Sun Water Biomass Fuels Geothermal
Energy Non-Renewable Ores Rocks as
Resources Fossil Fuels
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Municipal Solid Waste

• Definition waste that consists of paper, yard
  waste, food,
• and plastics

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How is municipal waste handled?

• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfills
• Source Reduction
• Recycling

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How is municipal waste handled?

• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfills
• Source Reduction
• Recycling

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Composting

• Definition biological method of waste disposal
  in which worms, bacteria, fungi, and other
  organisms decompose piles of fruit and vegetable
  food scraps, wood, and lawn clippings

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The pros

• Removes materials from the waste stream
• Processed product can be used for erosion control
• Provides nutrients to the topsoil
• Inexpensive
• Free fertilizer

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The cons

• Time consuming
• Time intensive

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How is municipal waste handled?

• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfills
• Source Reduction
• Recycling

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Combustion

• Definition process of waste disposal by which
  waste material is burned

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The pros

• Reduces volume by 90
• Reduces mass by 75
• Conservation of mass still applies, thus the mass
  that is reduced is actually redistributed
• Destroys bacteria
• Waste to energy facility (W-T-E)

The cons

• Air pollutions
• Disposal of excess waste in landfills

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How is municipal waste handled?

• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfills
• Source Reduction
• Recycling

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Landfills

• Definition regulated area where wastes are
  placed in the land

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Landfill Volumes
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How are landfills constructed?

• Select a location
• Pits and quarries. Why?
• Liner installed.
• Layer of clay deposited.
• Why clay?
• Ready to accept trash.

5. Trucks are weighed, waste deposited, trash
compacted by heavy machinery, trucks weighed
again. 6. Daily cover Why? 7. Trash, dirt,
trash, dirt 8. Cap or seal installed to contain
waste.
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Leachate

• Definition waste material (liquid) that collects
  in the bottom layers of landfills as waste
  material decomposes

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Landfill Gas (LFG)

• Definition waste material (gas) that collects at
  the top of landfills as waste material decomposes
  producing gases such as methane

Whats the problem with these gases?

• Methane contributes to
• Local smog
• Air pollution
• Depletion of the Ozone layer

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So whats the solution?

• Gases can be burned using a flare.
• Gases can be processed, converted to fuel, and
  sold to supply energy.

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Modern approach to LFG production?
SELL IT!!!
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Landfills in Pennsylvania
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Landfills in perspective

• The number of landfills in the United States has
  decreased sharply in the past decade for various
  reasons.
• What do you think are those reasons?

Landfills have closed because

• Posed environmental concerns.
• Leakage of leachate.
• Improperly handled hazardous waste.
• Have reached their capacity.

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Pennsylvania and its trash

• Pennsylvanians recycle about ¼ of their MSW.
• Pennsylvanias deposit about 3 million tons of
  MSW in landfills yearly.
• So what happens with all the extra landfill space?

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One time you might not want to be 1...
Importers Tons Exporters Tons
Pennsylvania 9,764,000 New York 5,600,000
Virginia  3,891,000  New Jersey  1,800,000 
Michigan  3,124,000 Missouri  1,793,000
Illinois   1,548,000 Maryland  1,547,000
Indiana  1,531,000 Massachusetts  1,218,000
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Ten years down the road
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Trends in Solid Waste
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How is municipal waste handled?

• Composting
• Combustion
• Landfills
• Source Reduction
• Recycling

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Source Reduction

• Definition alteration of the design,
  manufacture, or use of materials to reduce the
  amount of toxicity of the waste generated

• Source reduction, generally speaking, means
  reducing the amount of solid waste which enters
  the waste stream. It means that waste is
  prevented before it is created by using materials
  more efficiently, using reusable products and
  extending life of products.
• In other words, source reduction can be
  achieved by reducing the total volume of
  disposable packaging material generated for
  domestic, commercial, industrial and
  governmental use by
• reducing the disposal impact of packaging waste
  by changing to more
• environmentally benign packaging material
• increasing the recyclablility of packaging
  products that cannot be reduced
• increasing the recycled material content of
  packaging products.

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Source reduction example
http//www.cleaning101.com/environment/source_redu
ction.cfm
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Recycling

• Definition series of activities that reuse a
  products raw materials to manufacture new
  products

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• These symbols are used to mark recyclable
  materials as recyclables.
• The different symbols represent the materials
  from which the current product was made.
• Example HDPE stands for high-density
  polyethylene.

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Aluminum Recycling facts

• Some 119,482 cans are recycled every minute
  nationwide.
• Used aluminum cans are recycled and returned to
  store shelves as new cans in as few as 60 days.
• Recycling saves 95 percent of the energy required
  to make aluminum cans from virgin ore. In 1995,
  aluminum companies saved the equivalent of over
  20.6 million barrels of oil -- or 12.3 billion
  kilowatt hours by recycling. This represents
  enough energy to supply the electrical needs of a
  city the size of Pittsburgh for about six years.

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Incomplete Cycle

• Definition process by which materials (wastes)
  do not complete a full cycle in the waste
  recovery system and are disposed

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Closed-Loop Cycle

• Definition process by which materials (wastes)
  complete a full cycle in the waste recovery
  system and are partially reused and recycled

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What happens to recyclables?

• Recyclables have a series of different paths they
  can take, once entering the recycling stream.

MatsPlayground PadsFuel Sources
Rubber
PackagingLawn furnitureVideotape
cassettesInsulation
Plastics
Metals
Metals
Melted, Sorted Recast
Paper
Paper
Reduced to pulpReprocessed
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• What are some interesting statistics about
  recycling?
• Hotels will create 1.5 pounds of solid waste per
  day per room
• Each person produces 3.5 pounds of solid waste
  per day
• There are 6 two liter bottles in one pound of PET
  
• One three foot stack of newspapers is equal to
  one tree, approximately 30 feet tall
• One three foot stack of newspaper weighs 100
  pounds
• To make one ton of virgin paper uses 17 trees (3
  2/3 acres of forest)
• 62,860 trees must be cut to provide pulp for a
  single edition of the Sunday New York
• Times.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves the energy
  equivalent to one cup of gasoline.
• A steel mill can reduce its water pollution 76
  and mining wastes 97 using scrap
• metal, such as steel cans, instead of iron
  ore.
• In the summer, nearly one third of all summer
  waste handled by garbage haulers
• consists of grass clippings.
• In the fall, leaves comprise as much as half of
  all waste generated by residents.
• One dollar out of every 11 spent on groceries
  goes to pay for packaging
• 32 of all municipal waste is from packaging.
• Americans are the worlds trashiest people. US
  citizens consume more goods per capita
• than any other nation in the world. Each year
  we throw away