Solid, Toxic and Hazardous Waste
Objectives
 Identify the major components of the waste stream and how waste production
has changed over time
 Explain the difference between dumps, sanitary landfills and modern secure
landfills
 Summarize the benefits, problems, and potential of recycling and reusing
wastes
Objectives
 Analyze some of the alternatives for reducing the waste we generate
 Understand what hazardous and toxic wastes are and how we dispose of them
 Evaluate options for hazardous waste management
Solid waste
 Waste stream is term that describes steady flow of wastes that we all produce
 According to EPA, U.S. produces 11 billion tons of solid waste annually
– About half is agricultural waste, that are reused on farms
• Contribute to non-point source pollution
– More than one-third is mining related
• Much of this material is stored in place
Solid waste
– Industrial waste - 400 million metric tons
• 15% is hazardous/toxic
– Municipal waste - 200 million metric tons
• Two-thirds of a ton per person
• Twice per capita as Europe or Japan
• Five to tens times as much as developing countries
Open dumps
 Open, unregulated dumps are still the predominant method of waste disposal
in developing countries
 Over 20,000 people live and work on “Smoky Mountain” in Philippines
Open dumps
 Most developed countries forbid open dumping
– However:
• Estimated 200 million liters of motor oil are poured into the sewers or
soak into the ground each year in the U.S.
– Five times volume of Exxon Valdez oil spill
Ocean dumping
Landfills
 Landfills
– Sanitary landfills
• Refuse compacted and covered every day with a layer of dirt
• Dirt takes up as much as 20% of landfill space
• Since 1994, all operating landfills in the U.S. have been required to
control hazardous substances
• Methane can be recovered from landfills as energy source
Landfills
 Historically, landfills have been a convenient, inexpensive waste-disposal
option
– Costs are increasing
– Suitable landfill sites are become scarce
– Increasingly, communities are rejecting new landfills
– Old landfills are quickly reaching capacity and closing
Exporting waste
 Although most industrialized nations have agreed to stop shipping hazardous
and toxic waste to less-developed countries, the practice still continues
– Indian reservations increasingly being approached to store wastes on
reservations in US
– New York City sends its 11,000 tons of garbage per day to NJ, PA, VA and
OH
Incineration and resource recovery
 Also known as “waste-to-energy”
– Energy recovery - heat derived from incinerated refuse is a useful resource
– Steam used for heating buildings or generating electricity
– Reduces disposal volume by 80-90%
– Residual ash usually contains toxic material
Produce less waste
 Best waste management practice
 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
– Use biodegradable or photodegradable plastic
Reuse
 Cleaning and reusing materials in their present form is even better than
recycling or composting
 Reusable glass container makes an average of 15 round-trips between factory
and customer before it has to be recycled producing less waste
– Buy beer in returnable bottles!
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
Recycling
 Potential problems
– Market prices fluctuate wildly
– Contamination
• Most of 24 billion plastic soft drink bottles sold annually in the U.S. 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 we still throw away more than a million tons of aluminum
annually!
Composting
 Biological degradation of organic material
 Every year we throw away the equivalent of 80 million barrels of oil in organic
waste
 Can be used for methane production
Demanufacturing
 Disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer products
 “e- waste”
– A single personal computer has 700 different chemical compounds
including toxic metals and valuable metals
 European Union requires “cradle-to-grave” responsibility for electronic
products
 80% of US e-waste is sent to Asia for disposal or recycling, causing
environmental degradation there
Hazardous and toxic wastes
 EPA estimates US industries generate 265 million metric tons of officially
classified hazardous wastes annually, more than 1 ton per person in the
country
 At least 40 million metric tons of toxic and hazardous wastes are released into
the environment each year
Chemical and petroleum industries produce 70% of hazardous wastes
Federal Legislation - RCRA
 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) - 1976
– Comprehensive program requiring rigorous testing and management of
toxic and hazardous substances
• Cradle to grave accounting
Federal legislation - CERCLA
 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA)
– Modified in 1984 by Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act
(SARA)
• Aimed at rapid containment, cleanup, or remediation of abandoned toxic
waste sites
• Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) - Requires 20,000 manufacturing facilities
to report annually on releases of more than 300 toxic materials
Superfund sites
 Superfund is a revolving pool designed to:
– Provide immediate response to emergency situations posing imminent
hazards
– Clean-up abandoned or inactive sites
 Formerly financed by special taxes on producers of toxic and hazardous
wastes, but now funded by our taxes
Superfund sites
 EPA estimates 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S.
 1,400 sites had been placed on the National Priority List for cleanup with with
Superfund financing
 Studies of Superfund sites reveal minorities tend to be over-represented in
these neighborhoods
Hazardous materials
Hazardous waste management options
 Produce Less Waste
– Avoid creating wastes in the first place
– Recycle and Reuse
 Convert to less hazardous substances
 Store permanently
– Permanent retrievable storage
– Modern secure landfills
Bioremediation