Chapter 23 Solid and Hazardous Waste

1. Chapter 23Solid and Hazardous Waste

2. Overview of Chapter 23 • Solid Waste • Types of Solid Waste • Waste Prevention • Reducing the Amount of Waste • Reusing Products • Recycling Materials • Hazardous Waste • Types of Hazardous Waste • Management of Hazardous Waste • Environmental Justice

3. Humans generate waste that other organisms cannot use

4. Plastic lunch bags • Throw-away napkins • Disposable diapers replaced cloth in the 60s • Disposable plates and forks • Larger items made NOT to last • Packaging!!!

5. Past: broken bookcase  wooden stool  wood for fire

6. Solid Waste • US generates more solid waste per capita than any other country • 2.1kg per person per day (4 ½ lbs) • Types of Solid Waste • Municipal solid waste • Solid material discarded by homes, office buildings, retail stores, schools, hospitals, prisons, etc • Non-municipal solid waste • Solid waste generated by industry, agriculture, and mining

8. Composition of Municipal Solid Waste

9. e-waste • Small by weight, but effects are large • Contain valuable metals: lead, mercury, cadmium • Cathode ray tubes (CRT) (“hazardous waste”) • More expensive to recycle than to go to landfill • Some recycled waste goes to China: no protective clothing/respiratory gear

11. PVC: polyvinyl chloride • Wire insulator • Pipes • Leather-like material clothes • Water beds • Shower curtains • Pool toys • Inflatable structures Releases dioxins when burned Most environmentally harmful plastic; dioxins: cancer and endocrine disrupter Solution: phase out PVC use for other materials Difficult to recycle because of many additives “PVC” or “vinyl”

12. Reduce Reuse Recycle

13. REduce • Individual: print double sided, email assignments (don’t print), don’t print emails, downloading music and not buying CDs, less paper towels • Corporations: less packaging that protects product equally

14. Reducing Waste • Purchase products with less packaging HW: identify a product with wasteful packaging

15. REuse • Ideally requires no more energy input • Newspapers for animal beds, wrapping paper • Reuse coffee mug instead of styrofoam/paper cup. • eBay, Craigslist, Freecycle • Bottling factory: wash, sterilized, refilled

16. REcycle • Convert materials into raw materials for some other purpose • Closed-loop: recycle into same product (aluminum cans) – cheaper to recycle than to make new • Open-loop: plastic soda bottle into polar fleece jacket, tires into playground • Avoids landfill, but still requires raw material (petroleum) for new bottles

17. Requires more energy than reducing or reusing: cleaning, transporting, sorting • Sometimes difficult to find buyers for glass and plastic • 1/3 MSW in US recycled

18. Recycling Materials • Every ton of recycled paper saves: • 17 trees • 7000 gallons of water • 4100 kw-hrs of energy • 3 cubic yards of landfill space

19. Recycling • Recycling Plastic • Less expensive to make from raw materials • Recycling Glass • Costs less than new glass • Can be used to make glassphalt (right)

20. Recycling • Recycling Aluminum • Making new can from recycled one costs far less than making a brand new one

22. Recycling • Recycling Tires • Few products are made from old tires • Playground equipment • Trashcans • Garden hose • Carpet

23. composting • Pros: • Diverts organic materials (food and yard waste) from landfills • Space is saved and methane gas (from anaerobic respiration) is avoided • Produces humus to enrich soil • Other info: • Turn frequently to aerate • Worms can be used

24. Disposal of Solid Waste • Three methods • Sanitary Landfills • Recycling • Incineration

26. Sanitary Landfill • NIMBY • Problems: • They fill up • Methane gas production by microorganisms (MSW compacted into “cells” to save space) • Greenhouse gas and explosive • Can be captured to generate heat or electricity • Contamination of ground water by leachate

27. Sanitary Landfill • Clay or plastic lining bottom • Underneath pipes collect leachate • Soil and clay cover (cap) when at capacity

28. Sanitary Landfill • Ideally: • No metals (aluminum, copper, etc) –valuable and leach • No organic matter (food scraps, yard waste) – source of methane • No toxic material (household cleaners, oil-based paints, electronics) • Glass and plastic only if can’t recycle • Special Problem of Tires • Cannot be melted and reused for tires • Can be incinerated or shredded • Mosquito breeding

29. North Pacific Gyre – collects vortex of garbage Approximately the size of TEXAS

30. Other than landfills, how else do we dispose of garbage???????

31. Incineration • Pros: • Volume of solid waste reduced by 90% • Produces heat that can make steam to generate electricity • Called waste-to-energy • Produce less carbon emissions than fossil fuel power plants (right)

32. Incineration

33. Incinerator • Problems Associated with Incineration • Yields air pollution (HCl, SO2, NOX) • Produce large amounts of ash • Sent to landfill if safe (e.g.lacking lead) or used elsewhere (e.g. cement blocks) • Sent to hazardous waste landfill if toxic • Site selection often controversial, expensive (and then requires lots of MSW to be profitable, may reduce municipal push to recycle)

34. Integrated Waste Management

35. Hazardous Waste • Any discarded chemical that threatens human health or the environment • Reactive, corrosive, explosive or toxic chemicals • Types of Hazardous Waste • Dioxins • PCBs (insulator in transformers) • Radioactive waste • See chart (right)

36. Love Canal, New York (1978-80) A hazardous waste landfill  school and housing Cancer-causing (carcinogen) waste (benzene) found in basement Instrumental in leading to the development of CERCLA (“superfund” – next slide)

37. Management of Hazardous Waste • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) (1976, 1984) – identifies what constitutes hazardous waste and provides guidelines regarding transporting and waste disposal; “cradle to grave”; keeps a record of hazardous waste to reduce illegal dumping • Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1980) (CERCLA) aka “superfund” – pays for cleanup

38. States with the greatest number of sites • New Jersey (115) • California (93) • Pennsylvania (93) • New York (86) • Michigan (65) Management of Hazardous Waste • Cleaning up existing hazardous waste: superfund program • 400,000 waste sites • Leaking chemical storage tanks and drums (right) • Pesticides dumps • Piles of mining wastes

39. Cleaning –up hazardous waste • Bioremediation: using microorganisms (little longer but cheap) – excellent for petroleum • Phytoremediation: use plants and then plants disposed of at hazardous waste landfill • Dig up contaminated soil and burn it • Dilute soil: contaminate water, water shortage • Vapor extraction (inject air in soil remove volatile compounds)

40. Management of Hazardous Waste • Treatment of: • (1) conversion to less hazardous materials (e.g. neutralize a corrosive acid with a base) • (2) Incinerate/burn : dispose ash at special landfill • (3) Hazardous waste landfill: several clay layers/heavy plastic liner on bottom • Contents placed in containers • Careful monitoring of nearby groundwater • Final cover must limit liquids through landfill Another solution: use less hazardous waste (substitute with less harmful product) in the first place.

41. Hazardous Waste Landfill

42. Environmental Justice • International Waste Management • Developed countries sometimes send their waste to developing countries • Less expensive than following laws within the country • Basel Convention (1989) • Restricts international transport of hazardous waste

43. Persistent organic pollutants • Persist, bioaccumulate in tissue, biomagnify in food chain • Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants • Include: • PCB • DDT • dioxins