Solid, Toxic and Hazardous Waste: Cunningham - Cunningham - Saigo: Environmental Science 7

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

Outline:
• Solid Waste
• Waste Disposal Methods
• Shrinking the Waste Stream
 Recycling
• Hazardous and Toxic Wastes

 Federal Legislation
 Management Options

Bioaccumulation

US Age-Adjusted Cancer Death Rates

Population Sensitivity Variations

SOLID WASTE
• US produces 11 billion tons solid waste a year
 About half agricultural waste
 More than one-third mining-related
 Industrial Waste - 400 mil. metric tons
- Hazardous/Toxic - 60 mil. tons
 Municipal Waste - 200 million tons
- Two-thirds of a ton per person.

US Domestic Waste

WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS
• Open Dumps
 Open, unregulated dumps main method in
developing countries.
- Most developed countries forbid open
dumping.
 Estimated 200 million liters of motor
oil in the US.

 Five times volume of Exxon Valdez.

Waste Disposal Methods
• Landfills
 Sanitary Landfills
- Refuse compacted and covered
everyday with a layer of dirt (20%)
 Since 1994, all US landfills must

control hazardous substances.

Sanitary Landfills

Landfills
• Landfills have been a convenient,
inexpensive option.
 Increasing land and shipping fees, and
demanding construction and maintenance

requirements are increasing costs.
- Scarcity of sites; communities rejecting

.Old landfills reaching capacity, closing.

• 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.
• Incineration and Resource Recovery
 Energy Recovery - Heat derived from
incinerated refuse is a useful resource.

- Steam used for heating buildings or
generating electricity.

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.
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.

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.

US Recycling Rates

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.

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.
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.

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.
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 ?

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.

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 60o C.
 Explosive or highly reactive.

Hazardous Waste Disposal
• Federal Legislation
 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA) - 1976.
- Comprehensive program requiring
rigorous testing and management of

toxic and hazardous substances.
 Cradle to grave accounting.

Cradle to Grave

Dioxin in Seveso, Italy 1976

Love Canal, Niagara Falls, NY



Environmental Justice
• Correlation between pollution and race
 1982 African American rallies in NC
• Minorities more affected by toxic wastes and

industries.
 Minority areas before toxic placement?
 Greater ability of whites to avoid or move.
 Class issues: poor whites as affected?

Federal Legislation
• Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
- 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.

CERCLA
• Government does not have to prove anyone
violated a law, or what role they played in a
superfund site.
 Anyone associated with a site can be held

responsible for the entire clean-up cost.

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.
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.

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.
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)

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.

Secure Landfills

Summary:
• Solid Waste
• Waste Disposal Methods
• Shrinking the Waste Stream
 Recycling
• Hazardous and Toxic Wastes

 Federal Legislation
- RCRA
- CERCLA
 Management Options


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Solid, Toxic and Hazardous Waste

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

• Hazardous and Toxic Wastes

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

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

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

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

 More than one-third mining-related

 Industrial Waste - 400 mil. metric tons

- Hazardous/Toxic - 60 mil. tons

 Municipal Waste - 200 million tons

- Two-thirds of a ton per person.

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

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

oil in the US.

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

- Refuse compacted and covered

everyday with a layer of dirt (20%)

 Since 1994, all US landfills must

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

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

demanding construction and maintenance

- Scarcity of sites; communities rejecting

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

agreed to stop shipping hazardous and

approached to store wastes on

incinerated refuse is a useful resource.

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

• Mass Burn - Everything smaller than major

• Reduces disposal volume by 80-90%.

tipping fees at landfills.

- Pollution control methods are not

guaranteed to be 100% effective.

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

materials into new, useful products.

aluminum cans are recycled.

shelves will be made into another can

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

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

- Most of 24 billion plastic soft drink

bottles sold annually in the US are PET,

entire truckload of PET if melted

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

 Encourages individual responsibility.

 Reduces pressure on disposal systems.

- Japan recycles about half of all

household and commercial wastes.

 Reduces energy consumption and air

of bauxite, 700 kg of coke and pitch, and

of bauxite ore cuts energy use by 95%.

million tons of aluminum annually.

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

under aerobic conditions.

average of 15 round-trips between factory

products is one of our greatest sources of

packaging material make up 50% of

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

hazardous wastes are released into the

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