Types of Waste Hazardous: can be liquid, solid, gaseous Non-hazardous solid waste Municipal solid waste Mine and agricultural waste Non-hazardous liquid wastes End up in streams and bays: treated or not

Municipal Solid Waste (USA)

Solid Waste - in US alone: Tires encircle planet 3 times (each year): Disposable diapers: to moon & back 7 times (each year) Office paper: 11’ wall from NYC to Pacific (each yr) 2.5 million nonreturnable bottles - every hour! 3200 plastic shopping bags every second. 132,000 computers & 425,000 cell phones each day!

Solid Waste Disposal 1. Sanitary Landfills Different from open dumps Trash compacted & covered daily with layer of dirt Lined, monitored, odorless  but will all leak eventually? Release methane (gh gas) BUT can harvest & sell! Communities reject new landfills 1200 - 1500 landfills have filled up and closed. 4

Waste Disposal Methods 2. Incinerators: Trash-to Energy Burning trash reduces volume by 90%, to ash Saves landfill space Energy Recovery: harvest heat to produce electricity 5

Incinerator (Trash to Energy): Issues Air pollution including dioxin and CO2 Can be reduced by modern controls IF required and enforced Can be reduced if pre-sorting systems remove recyclables & unburnable or toxin-emitting materials Toxins are concentrated in the ash Dioxins, furan, lead and cadmium This smaller volume is easier to manage Costly to build: $100-300 million Sales of energy and recycling of metals help with expense NIMBY & ecojustice: Not in My Backyard

Waste Disposal Methods 3. Composting Collect organic, compostable waste, such as food scraps and yard trimmings, sewage sludge Broken down naturally by bacteria. This resulting compost can then be used as a natural fertilizer. Organic wastes 17% of waste stream; 66% composted (US) 7

Managing Solid Waste 4. Recycling Reduces waste disposal problems Reduces mining Reduces timber harvesting Reduces energy needs for producing materials Thus less air pollution health Lower CO2 emissions Cheaper to produce than new from scratch Saves money through all of these steps

Recycling rates in US (EPA 2013)

Recycling: INCREDIBLE Recycling: INCREDIBLE potential to reduce: logging, mining, air pollution from factories, greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, waste going to landfills, and costs 2 million trees /year for paper in US

How to Deal With Solid Waste 6. Shrink the Waste Stream: Source Reduction Redesign products and processes to use less material (and less energy) Redesign products: longer-lasting, easier to repair, reuse, and recycle Eliminate unnecessary packaging Reuse: shopping bags, reusable bottles (freecycle.org)

Disposal of US Municipal Solid Waste Figure 21_13 Disposal of US Municipal Solid Waste

How to Deal With Solid Waste Sanitary landfills Incineration (burning): energy recovery Composting Recycling Source reduction Bad ideas: Open dumps Ocean dumping Illegal “midnight dumping”

Waste Disposal: Bad Ideas Open Dumps Widely used near cities in many developing countries Banned in US, replaced by sanitary landfills

Waste Disposal Methods: Bad Ideas Ocean Dumping NJ coast: long history of dumping until 1990’s Banned by London Convention (Treaty) took effect 2006 Difficult to enforce

Recycling looks better and better.