SOLID AND HAZARDOUS WASTES

1. SOLID AND HAZARDOUS WASTES By Shantay Shahbaz, Derek Yeghiazarian, Delilah Shahbazian, Varen Yousefian

2. SOLID WASTE • Municipal solid waste (MSW): Solid materials discarded by homes, office buildings, retail stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals, prisons, libraries, and other commercial commercial and institutional facilities.The solid waste problem was made abundantly clear by several highly publicized instances of garbage barges wandering from port to port and from country to country. Nonmunicipal solid waste: Solid waste generated by industry, agriculture, and mining.

3. US EPA's assessment on kitchen waste

4. OPEN DUMPS • Solid waste has traditionally been regarded as material that is no longer useful and that should be disposed of.The old method of solid waste disposal was dumping. Open dumps were unsanitary, malodorous places in which disease-carrying vermin such rats and flies proliferated. Methane gas was released into the surrounding air as microorganisms decomposed the solid waste, and fires polluted the air with acrid smoke.

6. SANITARY LANDFILLS • Sanitary landfill: The most common method of disposal of solid waste, by compacting it and burying it under a shallow layer of soil.Safety is ensured by layers of compacted clay and plastic sheets at the bottom of the landfill, which prevent liquid waste from seeping into ground-water. Newer landfills poses a double-liner system and use sophisticated systems to collect leachate and gases that form during decomposition.

7. INCINERATOR • Mass burn incinerator: A large furnace that burns all solid waste except for unburnable items such as refrigerators.Modular incinerators: Smaller incinerators that burn all solid wastes.Refuse-derived fuel incinerators: Assembled at factories and only combustible part of solid waste is burned. Currently both types of incinerator ash are best disposed of in specially licensed hazardous waste landfills.

8. COMPOSTING • Municipal solid waste composting is a large scale composting of the entire organic portion of a community's garbage.Because approximately 2/3 of all households garbage is organic, MSW composting substantially reduces demand for sanitary landfills.More troubling is the concern over heavy metals such lead and cadmium. Heavy metals can enter compost sewage which may contain industrial waste water.

9. REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF WASTE: SOURCE REDUCTION • The most underused aspect of waste management is source reduction. Source reduction is accomplished by a variety of ways, such as substituting raw materials that introduce less waste during manufacturing process and using and recycling wastes that the plant where they are generatedDry-cell batteries for example contain much less mercury today than they did in the early 1980s. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 was the first US environmental law to focus on the reduced generation of pollutants at their point of origin rather than the reduction of pollutants or repair of damage caused by such substances.

10. Dematerialization is the progressive decrease of the size and weight of the product as a result of technological improvements, is an example of source reduction only if the new product is as durable as the one it replaced.

11. THINGS YOU COULD DO: • RECYCLE MATERIALS SUCH AS PAPER GLASS, ALUMINUM AND OTHER METALS, PLASTIC, AND TIRESREDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE!

12. Established waste treatment technologies • CompostingIncinerationLandfillRecyclingWindrow composting

13. What else can we do? • In the UK these are sometimes termed advanced waste treatment technologies, even though these technologies are not necessarily more complex than the established technologies.BiodryingGasification

14. Anaerobic Digestion • Anaerobic digestion is a series of processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. It is used for industrial or domestic purposes to manage waste and/or to release energy. Anaerobic digestion is particularly suited to organic material, and is commonly used for effluent and sewage treatment. Anaerobic digestion, a simple process, can greatly reduce the amount of organic matter which might otherwise be destined to be dumped at sea, dumped in landfills, or burnt in incinerators.Pressure from environmentally related legislation on solid waste disposal methods in developed countries has increased the application of anaerobic digestion as a process for reducing waste volumes and generating useful byproducts.

15. Gasification • Gasification is a process that converts organic or fossil based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures, without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam The resulting gas mixture is called syngas (from synthesis gas or synthetic gas) or producer gas and is itself a fuel. he advantage of gasification is that using the syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot's rule is higher or not applicable. Syngas may be burned directly in gas engines, used to produce methanol and hydrogen.

16. Example of a Gasifier • Plasma, often referred to as the “fourth state of matter”, is the term given to a gas that has become ionized. An ionized gas is one where the atoms of the gas have lost one or more electrons and have become electrically charged. The benefits of plasma torches include:High reliability – over 500,000 hours in commercial operationProven commercially in the world’s largest plasma gasification facilityAvailability in a wide range of power inputs

17. Biodrying • Biodrying is the process by which biodegradable waste is rapidly heated through initial stages of composting to remove moisture from a waste stream and hence reduce its overall weight. In biodrying processes, the drying rates are augmented by biological heat in addition to forced aeration. The major portion of biological heat, naturally available through the aerobic degradation of organic matter, is utilized to evaporate surface and bound water associated with the mixed sludge. Biodried waste will still break down in a landfill to produce landfill gas and hence potentially contribute to climate change. In the UK this waste will still imact upon councils LATS allowances. Whilst biodrying is increasingly applied within commercial mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants, it is also still subject to on-going research and development.

18. Energy Sources & Consumption • Energy sources must be used (locally)Now they are worldwide:

19. Energy Density & Energy Efficiency • ED: Amount of energy contained in a given volume or mass of an energy source.EE: A measure of the fraction of energy used relative to the total energy available in a given source.

20. US Energy Policy • Objective 1: Increase Energy Efficiency and Conservation → Requires many unpopular decisions → Examples: Decrease speed limit to conserve fuels; Eliminate GOV subsidiesObjective 2: Secure Future F.E. Energy Supplies → 2 Oppositions: environmental/economicObjective 3: Develop Alternative Energy Sources → Who should pay for this? Gas Taxes? Etc.Objective 4: Meet the First Three Objectives W/out Further Damage to the Environment

21. A Hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known or tested to exhibit one or more of the following four hazardous traits:ignitability (i.e., flammable)Reactivity (capability of having a chem. reaction)Corrosivity (extent of destruction upon contact)Toxicity (how much a substance can damage a living or non-living organism)

22. There are alternatives to the hazardous wastes daily used in your home, such as:

23. Extra tips regarding recycling or disposing of household chem. wastes: How to Dispose of Unused or Expired Medication Do not flush unused, unwanted, and expired medications down the toilet or put them in drains. Take your expired, unwanted or unused medications to a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center or Event or put your expired, unwanted or unused medications in a sturdy, securely sealed container, then in a trash can where children and animals can’t reach them. • Collection bins for tech waste (printer cartridges, batteries, etc) can be found at electronic stores or in city collection events.

25. Fossil Fuels • Combustible deposits in the Earth's crust.Composed of the reminants (fossils) of prehistoric organisms that existed million of years ago → Include coal, oil (petroleum), and natural gasNon-renewable Resources: Formed 300 million years agoDead planets material decayed slowly in the swamp Environment

26. Coal • Heat, pressure, and time turned the plant material into carbon rich rock (coal) Most if not at all coal deposits have been identifiedOccurs in different ways → based on variations in heat/pressure during burialUs has 25% of World's Coal suppliesKnown “coal deposits” could last 20 years → At present rate of consumption

27. Oil & Natural Gas • Sediment deposited over microscopic plantsHeat pressured and time turned them into hydrocarbonsNatural GasFormed the same way as oil, but at temperatures higher than 100 C

28. Hazardous Waste: Love Canal • In 1977, nearly 700 families were evacuated from Niagara Falls, New York after toxic waste was discovered in a nearby canal. The Love Canal incident was declared a national disaster, and became a rallying cry for proper waste management. Nearly 13 years after the Love Canal dump site was discover that the EPA declared the site safe for resettlement. Even until today, the actual Love Canal is closed to the public, a reminder of what can happen due to negligence of waste management.