virgin material, spill absorbent material - Solid waste: any unwanted or discarded material we produce that is not a liquid or gas. - Any garbage; refuse; sludge from a waste treatment plant or air pollution control facility; and other discarded material (including solid, liquid, semi-solid or contained gaseous material) generated from any industrial, commercial or community activities; mining or agricultural operations - Waste stream = flow of waste as it moves from its sources toward disposal destinations - More efficient use of materials, consume less, buy goods with less packaging, reusing goods - Recovery (recycling, composting) = next best strategy in waste management - Recycling = sends used goods to manufacture new goods - Composting = recovery of organic waste - All materials in nature are recycled - The US sells its trash to China for recycling. - The United States produces about a third of the worlds solid waste and buries more than half of it in landfills. - Most of the worlds MSW is buried in landfills that eventually are expected to leak toxic liquids into the soil and underlying aquifers. - Open dumps: are fields or holes in the ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes covered with soil. Mostly used in developing countries. - Sanitary landfills: solid wastes are spread out in thin layers, compacted and covered daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam. - Sanitary landfills = waste buried in the ground or piled in large, engineered mounds - We have landfills to protect groundwater, protect surface water, protect air quality, and control pathogenic migration. - Leachate is the liquid that migrates from within a land disposal site which has come in contact with solid waste. - Bacteria can decompose waste in an oxygen-deficient environment
- Landfill gas = a mix of gases that consists of roughly half methane - Can be collected, processed, and used like natural gas - When not used commercially, landfill gas is burned off in flares to reduce odors and greenhouse emissions - Reducing solid waste by: - Refuse: to buy items that we really dont need. - Reduce: consume less and live a simpler and less stressful life by practicing simplicity. - Reuse: rely more on items that can be used over and over. - Repurpose: use something for another purpose instead of throwing it away. - Recycle: paper, glass, cans, plasticsand buy items made from recycled materials. - Reusing products is an important way to reduce resource use, waste, and pollution in developed countries. - Reusing can be hazardous in developing countries for poor who scavenge in open dumps. - They can be exposed to toxins or infectious diseases. - Primary (closed loop) recycling: materials are turned into new products of the same type. - Secondary recycling: materials are converted into different products. - Used tires shredded and converted into rubberized road surface. - Newspapers transformed into cellulose insulation. - What can you do with waste other than landfilling it? - Compost piles - Biodegradable - Since hazardous waste disposal is costly, it results in illegal and anonymous dumping by companies, - Creating health risks - Industrial nations illegally dump in developing nations - Basel Convention, an international treaty, should prevent dumping but it still happens
- High costs of disposal encourages companies to invest in reducing their hazardous waste - Superfund: harmful sites - Harmful sites are: - Placed on the EPAs National Priority List - Ranked according to the level of risk to human health that they pose - Cleaned up on a site-by-site basis as funds are available - The EPA is required to hold public hearings and inform area residents of tits findings and to receive feedback - CERCLA operates under the polluter pays principle = polluting parties were to be charged for cleanup - Hazardous waste is Solid waste or combination of solid wastes which because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics may cause an increase in mortality, incapacitating illness or pose a present or potential hazard to the health or environment when improperly treated, stored or disposed of. - Bioaccumulators: Chlorinated Insecticides, Carbamates, Organophosphates, Herbicides , and Metals - Cyanides (-CN): Commonly found in plating operations and sludges, when mixed with an acid, Hydrogen Cyanide gas is released, can cause instantaneous death, and acutely toxic - 8 heavy metals: Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, Selenium, Silver - Lead is especially harmful to children and is still used in leaded gasoline and household paints in about 100 countries. - Mercury is released into the environment mostly by burning coal and incinerating wastes and can build to high levels in some types of fish. - There are several categories of treatment options: Landfill or storage, incineration or destruction, fuel blending, neutralization, biological treatment. - Deep-well disposal: liquid hazardous wastes are pumped under pressure into dry porous rock far beneath aquifers. Surface impoundments: excavated depressions such as ponds, pits, or lagoons into which liners are placed and liquid hazardous wastes are stored.
- Phytoremediation is the use of living green plants for in situ risk reduction and/or removal of contaminants from contaminated soil, water, sediments, and air.