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Chapter 17 Solid and Hazardous Waste

Chapter 17 Solid and Hazardous Waste. By: Paris Do, Alicia Hillier, and Suhaila Sikand. 17.1 Wasting Resources Case Study: Love Canal: There is No "Away". 1942-1953 Hooker Chemicals and Plastics dumped 200 sealed containers into the Love Canal, NY

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Chapter 17 Solid and Hazardous Waste

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  1. Chapter 17 Solid and Hazardous Waste By: Paris Do, Alicia Hillier, and Suhaila Sikand

  2. 17.1 Wasting ResourcesCase Study: Love Canal: There is No "Away" • 1942-1953 Hooker Chemicals and Plastics dumped 200 sealed containers into the Love Canal, NY • In 1953 the company piled clay on top of their waste and sold the property to the Niagara Falls school Board • Media publicity pushed state congress to act. • 1980 President Jimmy Carter declared the Love Canal a federal disaster • Caused Congress to pass law requiring companies to pay cleanup costs

  3. 17.1 Wasting Resources Solid Waste • Solid Waste: any unwanted or discarded material • Direct waste: garbage • suppliers of goods and services produce 98% of the world's solid waste • Indirect Waste: from industrial activities • unnecessary waste • causes air and water pollution as well as land degradation • US produces 33% of world's solid waste • 98.5% from industries • 1.5% is Municipal Solid Waste (MSW): garbage from homes and workplaces

  4. 17.1 Wasting Resources High Waste Societies • The US wastes: • 130 million cell phones, 50 million computers, and 8 million TVs each year • 2.5 million non-reusable plastic bottles every hour

  5. US MSW Disposal • 55% landfills • 30% recycled/ composted • 15% burned

  6. 17.2 Producing Less Waste Waste Management • Waste Management: high waste approach • finds ways to reduce environmental harm from the inevitable waste • Waste Reduction: low waste approach • focuses on reusing, recycling, and composting

  7. 17.2 Producing Less Waste Waste Reduction • Six ways to reduce less: 1) consume less 2) redesign manufacturing processes/ products to use and waste less material and energy 3) redesign manufacturing processes to pollute less 4) develop easily repairable, reusable, manufacturable, compostable, and recyclable products 5) longer lasting products 6) increase resource productivity

  8. 17.3 The EcoIndustrial Revolution & Selling Services Instead Of ThingsScience: The EcoIndustrial Revolution • EcoIndustrial Revolution: redesigning industrial manufacturing processes by mimicking nature (biomimicry) for sustainability • recycle and reuse • resource exchange webs: wastes of one becomes raw material for another • CalMax (California's Resource Exchange) • brownfields: abandoned sites being redeveloped • Benefits: reduce pollution costs, improves working conditions, encourages development of environmentally beneficial chemicals • Minnesota Mining: air pollution emissions down by 70%, saved $750 million, overall waste production reduced by 33%

  9. Industrial Ecosystem at Kalundborg, Denmark: Resource Exchange Web

  10. 17.3 The EcoIndustrial Revolution & Selling Services Instead Of ThingsEconomics: Selling Services Instead of Things • Selling Services: shift from material flow to service flow economy • consumers rent or lease services • Xerox • Carrier (air conditioning) • Chemical Services by many companies

  11. 17.4 ReuseTrade-offs: Advantages and Disadvantages • Reusing is cleaning and using materials over and over to extend its typical life span • Advantages: • Reduces the use of matter and energy resources, cuts pollution and waste, creates jobs, and saves money • Disadvantages: • Reusing in developing countries can be a health hazard to the poor • Roughly 80% of the United States e-waste is shipped to China, India, Pakistan, and other countries where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are weak • Workers dismantle the products to recover reusable parts and are exposed to lead, mercury, and cadmiu • Remaining scraps are thrown into waterways and fields or burned into open fires

  12. 17.4 ReuseSolutions: Using Refillable Containers • Uses less resources and energy, produces less waste, saves money, and creates jobs • Refillable glass beverage bottles and refillable soft drink bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) • Make 15 round trips before becoming too damaged to be reused and then are recycled • Stimulates local economies by creating jobs • Big companies make more money by producing and shipping throwaway beverage and food containers at centralized facilities • Denmark and Prince Edward Island have banned beverage containers that can't be reused

  13. 17.4 ReuseSolutions: Other Ways to Reuse Things • We can employ reusable shopping bags, food containers, and shipping pallets, and borrow tools from tool libraries • Cloth bags to carry groceries • Netherlands and Ireland charge for shopping bags => 90-95% drop • Plastic lunchboxes • Plastic containers for storing lunch items and refrigerator leftovers

  14. 17.5 RecyclingScience: Two Types of Recycling • Recycling is an important way to collect and reprocess solid waste materials and turn them into useful products • 5 major types: paper products, glass, steel, plastic, aluminum • Primary/ closed-loop recycling happens when waste is recycled into new products of the same type • Secondary recycling/ downcycling is when waste materials are converted into different products • Preconsumer/ internal waste: generated in a manufacturing process and recycled instead of being discarded • Preconsumer/ external waste: generated by consumer use of products

  15. 17.5 RecyclingScience: Composting • Composting biodegradable organic waste mimics nature by recycling plant nutrients to the soil • Composting is a simple process in which we copy nature to recycle some of the biodegradable organic wastes we produce • Organic soil produced by composting can be added to soil to supply plant nutrients, slow soil erosion, retain water, and improve crop yields

  16. 17.5 RecyclingScience: Methods for Recycling Solid Waste • Disagreement over whether to send mixed urban wastes to centralized resource recovery plants or have individuals sort recyclables for collection and sale manufacturers as raw materials • Material-Recovery Facility (MRF): machines mix waste to recover valuable materials that can be sold to manufacturers as raw materials • MRF are expensive can emit toxic air pollutants if not used properly • Source Separation: produces much less air and water pollution and as low start up costs and moderate operating costs and saves more energy • PAUT (Pay As You Throw): pay for amount of mixed waste being picked up but not for the collection of materials separated for recycling

  17. 17.5 RecyclingScience & Economics Case Study: Problems With Recycling Plastics • Recycling many plastics is chemically and economically difficult • 10% by weight of all plastics in the US are recycled • Many plastics are challenging to isolate from other wastes • Recovering individual plastic resins does not yield much material • Price of oil used to produce petrochemicals is much lower than that of recycled resins • Cargill Dow is manufacturing biodegradable and recyclable plastic containers made from a polymer called polyactide (ACT) • Instead of being sent to a landfill they can be composted to a produce a soil container

  18. 17.5 RecyclingTrade-Offs: Advantages and Disadvantages of Recycling • Advantages: • Reduces air and water pollution • Saves energy • Reduces mineral demand • Reduces greenhouse gas emissions • Reduces solid waste disposal • Helps protect biodiversity • Can save money for items such as paper, metals, and some plastics • Important part of economy • Disadvantages: • Does not save landfill space in areas with ample land • May lose money for items such as glass and most plastics • Reduces profits from landfills and incinerators • Sources separation is inconvenient for some people

  19. 17.5 RecyclingEconomics, Politics, and Stewardship: Encouraging Reuse and Recycling • Reuse and recycling are hindered by prices of good that do not reflect the ecological truth, too few government subsidies and tax breaks, low landfill dumping costs, and price fluctuations • Four factors hinder reuse and recycling: • There is a faulty accounting system • Uneven economic playing field • Charges for depositing wastes in landfills in the US are lower than those in most of Europe • The demand and price paid for recycled material fluctuate • Increasing subsidies and tax breaks for reuse and recycling materials and decrease subsidies and tax breaks for making items from virgin resources • Pay-as-you-throw systems • Government can pass laws requiring companies to take back and recycle or reuse packaging discarded by consumers

  20. 17.6 Burning and Burying Solid Waste Science: Burning Solid Waste • Japan and a few European countries incinerate most of their municipal waste • Waste-To-Energy Incinerators: boil water to make steam for heating water or space or for producing electricity • Most of world's municipal solid waste is buried in landfills and will leak toxic liquids into soil and underlying aquifers • Open dumps: fields or holes in the ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes covered with soil • Sanitary landfills: solid wastes are spread out in thin layers, compacted, and covered daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam

  21. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience & Politics: Hazardous Waste • hazardous waste – any discard solid or liquid material that is toxic, corrosive, or reactive enough to explode or release toxic fumes • in U.S. about 5% of all hazardous waste is regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) • developed countries produced 80-90% of the world's solid and liquid waste that can harm people, and most such wastes are not regulated

  22. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience & Politics: Hazardous Waste • EPA sets standards for management of several types of hazardous waste and issues firms permits to produceand dispose of a certain amount of wastes in acceptable ways • Cradle-to-grave system – keeps track of waste they transfer from a point of generation (cradle) to an approved off-site disposal facility (grave) and submit proof of disposal to EPA • RCRA does regulate 95% of wastes

  23. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience & Politics: Hazardous Waste • Comprehensive Environmental Response, compensation, and Liability Act – CERLA/Superfund • Goal = identify hazardous waste sites and clean them up on a priority basis • Worst sites to health put on National Priorities List (NPL) and scheduled for cleanup sing the most cost effective method • Increase in superfund list • Superfund law – have polluters pay for cleaning up abandoned hazardous waste sites • Taxpayer-pay program – cleanup has dropped sharply and the pace of cleanup has slowed • Brownfields – abandoned industrial and commercial sites that are often contaminated with hazardous wastes (i.e. factories, junkyard, older landfills, and gas stations)

  24. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience & Politics: How Safe Are U.S. Chemical Plants from Terrorist Attacks? • Large amounts of hazardous wastes could be released into the environment by terrorist attacks on major chemical plants in the U.S.* • Analyst view such plants as easy targets for acts of sabotage • Potentially harmful wastes – gaseous ammonia and chlorine

  25. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience, Economics, & Ethics Case Study: A Black Day in Bhopal India • Factoid: The world’s worst industrial accident occurred in 1984 at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India • Explosion in an underground storage tank – released toxic methyl cyanate (MIC) gas (water caused gas to react) --> in atmosphere converted to hydrogen cyanide gas • 10,000 people died and 50,000-60,000 suffered permanent injuries • Money shortage -> laid off of precautions • Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

  26. Pesticide Plant in Bhopal, India

  27. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience: Detoxifying Hazardous Waste • Chemical and biological methods can be used to remove hazardous wastes or to reduce their toxicity* • Physical, chemical, and biological methods of detoxification (i.e country=Denmark) • Bioremediation– bacteria and enzymes help destroy toxic or hazardous substance or convert them to harmless compounds • Phytoremediation (pollution sponge) – using natural or genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter, and remove contaminants from polluted soil and water • Pollution sponges – clean up soil and water contaminated with chemical (i.e. pesticides, organic solvents, radioactive metals, and toxic metals such as lead and mercury)

  28. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience: Burning & Burying Solid Waste • Hazardous waste can be incinerated or disposed of on or underneath the earth’s surface, but this practice can pollute the air and water* • Releases air pollutants and highly toxic dioxins • Most waste in U.S. is stored in underground wells • Deep-well disposal – liquid hazardous wastes are pumped under pressure through a pipe into dry, porous geological formations or zones of rock far beneath the aquifers tapped for drinking and irrigation water (fg. 17.7)

  29. 17.7 Hazardous WasteScience: Burning & Burying Solid Waste • Surface impoundments– are dug depressions such as ponds, pits, or lagoons into which liquid hazardous wastes are drained and stored -> water evap. and waste becomes more concentrated • Study shows that 70% of these storage basins in the U.S have no liners • 90% threaten ground water • Sometimes liquid and hazardous wastes are put into containers/drums and buried in carefully designed and monitored Secure hazardous waste landfills • Aboveground buildings – built to withstand storms and such, leaks are monitored • To environmental scientist, the real solution to the hazardous waste problem is to produce as little as possible in the first place (prevention vs. cleanup)

  30. 17.8 Toxic Metals Case Study: Lead • Lead is especially harmful to children and is still used in leaded gasoline and household paints in about 100 countries* • Doesn't break down in environmental • Potent neurotoxin • Children vulnerable • Permanent side effects

  31. 17.8 Toxic MetalsCase Study: Lead • regulations on lead ->there is not safe level of lead in children’s blood • remained a danger in many developing countries • the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 130-200 million children around the world are at risk from lead poisoning, and 15-18 million children in developing countries have permanent brain damage because of lead poisoning • China phased out leaded gasoline within three years

  32. 17.8 Toxic MetalsCase Study: Mercury • Mercury is released in the environment mostly by burning coal and incinerating wastes and can building to high levels in some types of fish consumed by humans • Released into the atmosphere from rocks, soil and volcanoes and by vaporization from the ocean (1/3) • Human exposed to mercury in 2 ways: • 1) The inhale vaporized elemental mercury (Hg) • 2) They eat fish

  33. Mercury Cycle in a Lake & its Watershed

  34. 17.8 Toxic MetalsCase Study: Mercury • Greatest risk is brain damage • Bacteria convert inorganic mercury ions to high toxic methylmercury, which can be biologically magnified in food chains and webs -> mercury found in the tissue of sharks, swordfish, king mackerel, etc… • Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and EPA recommends women not to eat fish • Refer to Fg. 17-23 (Solutions to Mercury Pollution)

  35. 17.9 Achieving a Low Waste SocietyPolitics: Grassroots Action for Better Solid and Hazardous Waste Management • In the U.S., citizens have kept large numbers of incinerators, landfills, and hazardous waste treatment plants from being built in their local areas* • Environmental injustice: sites located in poorer communities • Health risks over entire country are quite low, however, the risks for people living near facilities are much higher • “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) – manufactures/waste industries claim that it ends up in someone’s backyard no matter what

  36. 17.9 Achieving a Low Waste SocietyGlobal Outlook:International Action to Reduce Hazardous Waste • An international treaty calls for phasing out the use of harmful persistent organic pollutants (POPs) • POPs: Widely used toxic chemical are insoluble in water and soluble in fat --> go into humans • Can be transported by wind and water • Dirty dozen – chemical covered by the 2000 treaty (i.e. DDT, PCBs, dioxins…) • Swedish Parliament enacted a law – chemicals assumed guilty until proven innocent --> reverse in U.S.

  37. 17.9 Achieving a Low Waste SocietySolutions: Making the Transition to a Low-Waste Society • A number of the principles and programs discussed in this chapter can be used to make transition to a low-waste society during this century. Four key concepts to prevent pollution and reduce waste • Everything is connected • There is no “away” for the wastes we produce • Dilution is not always the solution to pollution • Best and cheapest way is to reduce, reuse, and recycle • eco labeling programs: products certified with specific environmental standards receive a label

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