Understanding Our Environment

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Chapter 13 Solid Hazardous Waste
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Outline

• Solid Waste
• Waste Disposal Methods
• Shrinking the Waste Stream
• Recycling
• Hazardous and Toxic Wastes
• Federal Legislation
• RCRA
• CERCLA
• Management Options

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WASTE

• According to EPA, U.S. produces 11 billion tons
  of solid waste annually.
• About half is agricultural waste.
• More than one-third is mining related.
• Industrial Waste - 400 million metric tons.
• Hazardous/Toxic - 60 million metric tons.
• Municipal Waste - 230 million metric tons.
• Two kg per person / per day.
• Waste Stream

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U.S. Domestic Waste
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WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS

• Open Dumps
• Open, unregulated dumps are still the predominant
  method of waste disposal in developing countries.
• Most developed countries forbid open dumping.
• Estimated 200 million liters of motor oil are
  poured into the sewers or soak into the ground
  each year in the U.S.
• Five times volume of Exxon Valdez.

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WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS CONTD

• Landfills
• Sanitary Landfills
• Refuse compacted and covered everyday with a
  layer of dirt.
• Dirt takes up as much as 20 of landfill space.
• Since 1994, all operating landfills in the U.S.
  have been required to control hazardous
  substances.

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Sanitary Landfills
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Landfills

• Historically, landfills have been a convenient,
  inexpensive waste-disposal option.
• Increasing land and shipping fees, and demanding
  construction and maintenance requirements are
  increasing costs.
• Suitable landfill sites are becoming scarce.
• Increasingly, communities are rejecting new
  landfills.
• Old landfills are quickly reaching capacity and
  closing.

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Fresh Kills Landfill (1947 2001)

• Opened as a "temporary landfill" in 1947, The
  Fresh Kills Landfill covers 2200 acres, can be
  seen with the naked eye from space and is taller
  then the Statue of Liberty, at a height of 225
  ft.
• It is situated on the western shore of Staten
  Island and is made up of four sections which
  contain fifty plus years of landfill, mostly in
  the form of household waste.
• The waste disposed at the Fresh Kills Landfill
  and the decomposition products of this waste
  contain numerous chemicals.
• The chemicals can enter into the environment in a
  variety of ways releases into the air from barge
  unloading and garbage trucks unloading the
  cement crushing trucks releases chemical dust
  into the air and into the local groundwater by
  leaching.

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(1947-2001)
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Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, New York
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Fresh Kills Landfill, Staten Island, New York
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Borough President James P. Molinaro wants the
existing roads in the Fresh Kills Landfill open
to commuter traffic by 2007.  The roads will help
relieve traffic congestion in Staten Islands
busy Richmond Avenue commercial district.
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FOUNTAIN AVE LANFILL Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY
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WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS CONTD

• Exporting Waste
• Although most industrialized nations have agreed
  to stop shipping hazardous and toxic waste to
  less-developed countries, the practice still
  continues.
• Garbage imperialism also operates in wealthier
  countries.
• Indian reservations increasingly being approached
  to store wastes on reservations.

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WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS CONTD

• Incineration and Resource Recovery
• Energy Recovery - Heat derived from incinerated
  refuse is a useful resource.
• Steam used for heating buildings or generating
  electricity.

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Incinerator Types

• Refuse-Derived Fuel - Refuse is sorted to remove
  recyclable and unburnable materials.
• Higher energy content than raw trash.
• Mass Burn - Everything smaller than major
  furniture and appliances loaded into furnace.
• Creates air pollution problems.
• Reduces disposal volume by 80-90.
• Residual ash usually contains toxic material.

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Mass-Burn Garbage Incinerator
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Incinerator Cost and Safety

• Initial construction costs are usually between
  100 and 300 million for a typical municipal
  facility.
• Tipping fess are often much higher than tipping
  fees at landfills.
• EPA has found alarmingly high toxin levels in
  incinerator ash.
• Concentrated in fly ash.
• Pollution control methods are not guaranteed to
  be 100 effective.

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SHRINKING THE WASTE STREAM

• Recycling
• Recycling is the reprocessing of discarded
  materials into new, useful products.
• Currently, about two-thirds of all aluminum cans
  are recycled.
• Half of all aluminum cans on grocery shelves will
  be made into another can within two months.

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Recycling

• Potential Problems
• Market prices fluctuate wildly.
• Contamination
• Most of 24 billion plastic soft drink bottles
  sold annually in the U.S. are PET, which can be
  melted and remanufactured into many items.
• But a single PVC bottle can ruin an entire
  truckload of PET if melted together.

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U.S. Recycling Rates
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Recycling Contd

• Benefits
• Saves money, raw materials, and land.
• Encourages individual responsibility.
• Reduces pressure on disposal systems.
• Japan recycles about half of all household and
  commercial wastes.
• Lowers demand for raw resources.
• Reduces energy consumption and air pollution.

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Recycling Contd

• Benefits Example
• Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves 4 tons of
  bauxite, 700 kg of petroleum coke and pitch, and
  keeps 35 kg of aluminum fluoride out of the air.
• Producing aluminum from scrap instead of bauxite
  ore cuts energy use by 95.
• Yet still throw away more than a million tons of
  aluminum annually.

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SHRINKING THE WASTE STREAM

• Composting
• Biological degradation of organic material under
  aerobic conditions.
• Demanufacturing
• Disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer
  products.
• Reuse
• Reusable glass container makes an average of 15
  round-trips between factory and customer before
  it has to be recycled.

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An Active Compost Heap
Earthworms are entirely good (beneficial) animals
performing important functions in the soil that
increase its fertility and improve its structure
and aeration. They are valuable in treating
waste, combating pollution and generally help to
tidy the garden of leaves and other rotting
vegetation. Worms take plant material and leaves
into the soil where it rots and is eaten to form
humus (humus contains nutrients). This aids soil
structure. The burrows formed by worms aerate and
break-up the soil helping drainage and creating
space for plant root growth.
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Turning Over the Compost Heap
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SHRINKING THE WASTE STREAM CONTD

• Producing Less Waste
• Excess packaging of food and consumer products is
  one of our greatest sources of unnecessary waste.
• Paper, plastic, glass, and metal packaging
  material make up 50 of domestic trash by volume.
• Increase use of photodegradable and biodegradable
  plastics.
• Too much emphasis on recycling?

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HAZARDOUS AND TOXIC WASTES

• EPA estimates U.S. industries generate 265
  million metric tons of officially classified
  hazardous wastes annually.
• At least 40 million metric tons of toxic and
  hazardous wastes are released into the
  environment each year.

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Hazardous Waste

• Legally, hazardous waste is any discarded liquid
  or solid that contains substances known to be
• Fatal to humans or laboratory animals in low
  doses.
• Toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic to
  humans or other life-forms.
• Ignitable with a flash point less than 60o C.
• Corrosive
• Explosive or highly reactive.

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Hazardous Waste Disposal

• Federal Legislation
• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) -
  1976.
• Comprehensive program requiring rigorous testing
  and management of toxic and hazardous substances.
• Cradle to grave accounting.

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Cradle to Grave
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Federal Legislation

• Comprehensive Environmental Response,
  Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
• Modified in 1984 by Superfund Amendments and
  Reauthorization Act.
• Aimed at rapid containment, cleanup, or
  remediation of abandoned toxic waste sites.
• Toxic Release Inventory - Requires 20,000
  manufacturing facilities to report annually on
  releases of more than 300 toxic materials.

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CERCLA

• Government does not have to prove anyone violated
  a law, or what role they played in a superfund
  site.
• Liability under CERCLA is strict, joint, and
  several, meaning anyone associated with a site
  can be held responsible for the entire clean-up
  cost.

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Superfund Sites

• EPA estimates 36,000 seriously contaminated sites
  in the U.S.
• By 2004, 1,671 sites had been placed on the
  National Priority List for cleanup with with
  Superfund financing.
• Superfund is a revolving pool designed to
• Provide immediate response to emergency
  situations posing imminent hazards.
• Clean-up abandoned or inactive sites.

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Superfund Sites Contd

• Total costs for hazardous waste cleanup in the
  U.S. are estimated between 370 billion and 1.7
  trillion.
• For years, most of the funding has gone to legal
  fees, but this situation has improved over past
  several years.
• Studies of Superfund sites reveal minorities tend
  to be over-represented in these neighborhoods.

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How Clean is Clean

• Brownfields - Contaminated properties that have
  been abandoned or are not being used up to
  potential because of pollution concerns.
• Up to one-third of all commercial industrial
  sites in urban core of many big cities fall into
  this category.
• In many cases, property owners complain that
  unreasonably high purity levels are demanded in
  remediation programs.

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Hazardous Waste Management Options

• Produce Less Waste
• Avoid creating wastes in the first place
• Recycle and Reuse
• Convert to Less Hazardous Substances
• Physical Treatment (Isolation)
• Incineration
• Chemical Processing (Transformation)
• Bioremediation (Microorganisms)

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Hazardous Waste Management Options Contd

• Store Permanently
• Retrievable Storage
• Can be inspected and periodically retrieved.
• Secure Landfills
• Modern, complex landfills with multiple liners
  and other impervious layers and monitoring
  systems.

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Secure Landfills
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Summary

• Solid Waste
• Waste Disposal Methods
• Shrinking the Waste Stream
• Recycling
• Hazardous and Toxic Wastes
• Federal Legislation
• RCRA
• CERCLA
• Management Options