Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Solid, Toxic and Hazardous Waste Chapter 23

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Outline: Solid Waste Waste Disposal Methods Shrinking the Waste Stream  Recycling Hazardous and Toxic Wastes  Federal Legislation - RCRA - CERCLA  Management Options

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. SOLID WASTE According to EPA, US produces 11 billion tons of solid waste annually.  About half is agricultural waste.  More than one-third is mining related.  Industrial Waste million metric tons. - Hazardous/Toxic - 60 million metric tons.  Municipal Waste million metric tons. - Two-thirds of a ton per person.  Waste Stream

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. US Domestic Waste

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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 US.  Five times volume of Exxon Valdez.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Waste Disposal Methods 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 US have been required to control hazardous substances.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Sanitary Landfills

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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 become scarce.  Increasingly, communities are rejecting new landfills.  Old landfills are quickly reaching capacity and closing.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Waste Disposal Methods 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Waste Disposal Methods Incineration and Resource Recovery  Energy Recovery - Heat derived from incinerated refuse is a useful resource. - Steam used for heating buildings or generating electricity.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. US Recycling Rates

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Recycling Potential Problems  Market prices fluctuate wildly.  Contamination - Most of 24 billion plastic soft drink bottles sold annually in the US 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Recycling 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Recycling Benefits Example  Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves 4 tons of bauxite, 700 kg of 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Shrinking the Waste Stream 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 ?

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. HAZARDOUS AND TOXIC WASTES EPA estimates US 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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 60 o C.  Explosive or highly reactive.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Hazardous Waste Disposal Federal Legislation  Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Comprehensive program requiring rigorous testing and management of toxic and hazardous substances.  Cradle to grave accounting.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Cradle to Grave

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Superfund Sites EPA estimates 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the US.  By 1997, 1,400 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Superfund Sites Total costs for hazardous waste cleanup in the US 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. 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)

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Hazardous Waste Management Options 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.

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Secure Landfills

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed. Summary: Solid Waste Waste Disposal Methods Shrinking the Waste Stream  Recycling Hazardous and Toxic Wastes  Federal Legislation - RCRA - CERCLA  Management Options

Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7 th Ed.