Hazardous Waste:

Is it disposed of properly?

This report gives some background and a brief history of

hazardous waste disposal sites under the category of geologic
repositories and why geologic repositories should be
improved.

Michael Zhang
5/11/10
 Hazardous Waste: 1

Hazardous Waste:

Is it disposed of properly?

What do you think when you see the words “hazardous waste”? Big metal

cylinders filled with green goop in a landfill? Well, that might be the good picture.

Now imagine that same goop being placed directly on land without any artificial

barrier. Think that’s illegal? Well, it’s not. That type of disposal is considered in

the category of geologic repositories. A geologic repository is basically a

natural/artificial land formation (i.e., cave) that can contain material, in this case

hazardous waste. They are not required to have any technology-based standards,

such as liners ("Hazardous Waste Land Disposal Units (LDUs)", 2009). This

specific method of disposal I think should be improved. It is unreliable, unsafe,

and not at all a long term solution to our problem.

First, a little bit of background: the Environmental Protection Agency’s

(EPA’s) definition of hazardous waste is “…waste that is dangerous or potentially

harmful to our health or the environment.” With that in mind, hazardous waste is

actually a fairly broad spectrum of different kind of materials. The first thing

that usually comes to mind is usually radioactive waste, but it can also include:

chemical waste, biological waste, nuclear waste, toxic waste, etc. (Nuclear waste is

considered a radioactive waste, but they are formed in different manners.)

1
 Hazardous Waste: 2

Compared to radioactive waste, chemical and biological wastes are actually easier

to deal with. For most organic chemical wastes and biological wastes, combustion or

sterilization can be a very effective method for treatment. Some “heavy metals”

such as mercury may be disposed in a different way. Radioactive wastes, including

nuclear waste, however, aren’t that easy to handle.

What determines whether it’s considered a hazardous waste depends on how

ignitable, corrosive, reactive, and toxic the specified waste is ("Characteristic

Wastes", 2010). To be very scientific, (Note that you might not be able to

understand some of this) “Ignitable wastes can create fires under certain

conditions, are spontaneously combustible, or have a flash point less than 60 °C

(140 °F),” “Corrosive wastes are acids or bases (pH less than or equal to 2, or

greater than or equal to 12.5) that are capable of corroding metal containers, such

as storage tanks, drums, and barrels,” “Reactive wastes are unstable under

"normal" conditions,” and, “Toxic wastes are harmful or fatal when ingested or

absorbed (e.g., containing mercury, lead, etc.)” ("Characteristic Wastes", 2010).

Basically, it says that anything that is potentially unsafe, it’s considered hazardous.

This paper will mostly be referring to radioactive waste. Some basic things

that you should know about radioactive waste are:

2
 Hazardous Waste: 3

 The amount of time a radioactive material is radioactive is measured

in half-life, or the time it takes for it to lose half of its radioactivity.

 Radioactive materials decay, which means to break down into simpler

elements.

 Radioactive materials will emit radiation when they decay.

History

Nuclear Waste

Nuclear waste started to become a problem starting with the development

of nuclear weapons in 1945. Then, Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act in 1954.

It made the federal government responsible for its proper disposal. Two years

later, deep geologic repositories were proposed by the National Academy of

Sciences. Research has been conducted on that topic though the 1960’s and the

1970’s. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 laid the foundation for deep

geologic repositories (Note that this I think this method is okay). It said that

there was to be two repositories, one on each side of the Mississippi River, and

that the sites should be recommended by 1998. Yucca Mountain, Nevada was first

approved by President Regan in 1985, and was then determined to be the only

primary repository in 1987.

(All information for this section found on CleanWisconsin.org)

3
 Hazardous Waste: 4

Chemical Waste

Starting in the mid-1970’s, there was a significant increase in news results

relating to the term Chemical Waste. This probably shows that there were more

and more accidents involving chemical waste. Then, peaking around early 1990, the

results started slowly decreasing. This trend probably shows chemical waste being

not that big of a deal before 1970, then suddenly becoming more serious. Then

after the peak in the 1990’s, chemical waste disposal laws were created and

enforced, therefore there were less accidents involving chemical waste.

(All information for this section found on Google News)

My Reasons for Improvement

Now, the first reason I think geologic repositories should be improved is

that they are potentially unreliable. First of all, as mentioned before, they are not

required to have a liner, leak detection system, or anything like that, so any runoff

could potentially be washed into an ocean, and eventually our drinking water. Then,

there’s always a chance that it will collapse. Most of the repositories are natural,

which means the only things that are holding them up are minerals and dirt

("Hazardous Waste Land Disposal Units (LDUs)", 2009). As you can imagine, it

would be quite easy for it to cave in. Snow, hail, rain, and heavy wind could all

possibly damage and weaken one of them, and also possibly making it leak.

4
 Hazardous Waste: 5

Going off of the previous paragraph, that makes geologic repositories also

unsafe. By now you probably know that hazardous waste is harmful to you. And,

they will be, for a long time it turns out. Some types of radioactive waste have a

half-life of over a century! That also means that anything contaminated by that

will also be radioactive for that long. Unless it’s collected and quarantined, it will

eventually spread to a lot of places. Then, it could poison fish, plants, and other

animals, and, if you remember science class, the animals that eat those will get

sicker than their prey, and the ones who eat those animals get even sicker, and so

on and so forth. This is especially bad for us because we’re at the top of the food

chain. And, of course, we could also get directly exposed to it.

For those of you who still aren’t convinced, there is one more reason:

geologic repositories are not long-term solutions. The EPA says that they are

designed to hold permanently ("Treatment and Disposal", 2009), but they obviously

can’t. As mentioned above, they can collapse and leak. The world isn’t going to just

magically stop producing hazardous waste. If we continue to use this method,

eventually we’ll run out of places, and we may have to dig out more. Digging out

giant holes in the ground is expensive, and also potentially dangerous. Plus, we may

just run out of land to dig in the first place! Most of the United States is

populated, so there isn’t much room for giant holes.

5
 Hazardous Waste: 6

So in conclusion, I strongly agree that geologic repositories should be

improved. Remember that geologic repositories are just empty spaces in the

ground, and that they do not have to have liners. So they are not reliable, can be a

potential hazard to human health, and will not be of practical use for a long term

solution. Don’t you think our Earth would be happy to hear that we’re not stuffing

that green goop inside of him?

6
 Hazardous Waste: 7

Bibliography

"Hazardous Waste Land Disposal Units (LDUs)". (2009, February 10). Retrieved April 19,

2010, from http://www.epa.gov/wastes/hazard/tsd/td/ldu/index.htm

"Treatment and Disposal". (2009, December 08). Retrieved April 19, 2010, from US

Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/wastes/hazard/tsd/td/index.htm

"Characteristic Wastes". (2010, March 1). Retrieved May 2, 2010, from US Environmental

Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov/wastes/hazard/wastetypes/characteristic.htm

"Radioactive waste". (2010, May 1). Retrieved May 1, 2010, from Wikipedia, the free

encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

Clean Wisconsin. (n.d.). "History of Nuclear Waste Disposal". Retrieved April 21, 2010, from

http://www.cleanwisconsin.org/publications/nuclear_waste/5-10.pdf