UNIT 9: Waste Disposal

1. UNIT 9: Waste Disposal • More people  more waste  less space • With our human population on the rise, more waste is produced. • There is less space available to dispose of this waste!

2. Two Types of Waste • There are two types of waste produced each day by the human population • SOLID WASTE • CHEMICAL/HAZARDOUS WASTE

3. SOLID WASTE • Any discarded solid material • Cars, paper, food scraps, computers, plastic, cardboard • Amount has doubled since 1960’s • Mining and manufacturing makes up 70% of solid waste

5. CHEMICAL/HAZARDOUS WASTE • Any waste that is a risk to the health of humans or other living things • Examples: Paints, fertilizers, pesticides, varnishes, cleaners

6. Love Canal, NY • Town near Niagara Falls in which 21,000 tons (21,000,000 lbs) of toxins were found in the ground • City of Niagara Falls allowed the town to be built and a school to be built on this old dumping ground • Hooker Electrochemical company dumped their chemical waste at the site in the 1940’s • 1952 – site was covered with dirt

9. Love Canal, NY • 1978 – people began getting sick; were many health problems (epilepsy, asthma, urinary tract infections, leukemia, miscarriages, nervous disorders, birth defects, deafness, cleft palates, mental retardation) • Government relocated 800 families; houses destroyed • Superfund Act was established • EPA sued Hooker for $129 million

10. Superfund Act

12. Landfill • Area of land or an excavation where wastes are placed for permanent disposal • More than 50% of municipal (household & businesses) and manufacturing ends up in landfills

13. New Jersey Landfill • Average resident produces 6.7 pounds of trash per day (50% higher than the national average) • State has 21 landfills which extract methane to produce electricity

14. Active vs. Non-active Landfill ACTIVE LANDFILL NON-ACTIVE LANDFILL

15. Landfills • Must contain the waste that is buried inside and keep it from causing problems with the environment • Especially hazardous wastes!!! • What kinds of environmental problems could come from waste percolating out of a landfill?

16. Maintaining Landfills • Landfills are maintained by covering wastes each day with a layer of soil and/or plastic. • Leachate and Methane inside a landfill must NOT come into contact with the soil, air, and groundwater surrounding the landfill.

17. Landfill Toxins • Leachate • Liquid that has passed through solid waste and has extracted, dissolved, or suspended materials • Collected, stored, treated by landfills and used as waste water • Methane • Highly flammable gas formed from decomposers • can be pumped out of landfill to generate electricity

18. How can methane be useful to us?

21. Florida Landfill (10 min) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i90BQQ9YAzw

22. Incineration • In 1999, the U.S. had 102 operational incinerators that were capable of burning up to 94,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste per day. • Incinerators are one option for reducing the amount of solid waste in landfills. Incinerated materials do not disappear, but the weight of solid waste is reduced • Incinerated materials can be more toxic than before it was incinerated.

23. Incineration • Special air pollution control devices help control the amount of toxins released into the air. • However, even incinerators with these special air pollution control devices release small amounts of poisonous gases and particles of toxic heavy metals into the air.

24. Incineration Process

25. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) • Requires that landfills be properly lined with plastic and safety precautions taken to prevent leakage leachate and methane • Requires that ALL incinerators and hazardous treatment and disposal facilities be built and operated according to standards that are designed to prevent the facilities from polluting the environment