Waste Disposal Flashcards
municipal waste
- landfills
- incineration
- ocean dumping
hazardous waste
- industrial
* e-waste
Waste and Geology
A waste disposal site’s ability to isolate solid and liquid waste is determined almost entirely by its geologic and hydrologic conditions.
•The primary goal in site selection is to protect the local water supply.
Just ONE DAY’S total U.S. waste would cover 15 km2 (almost 6 mi2) to a depth of 3 meters (10 ft).
Challenges:
- Quantity
- Containment
- Logistics
What is Solid Waste?
Major sources of solid waste in the United States:
•Agriculture (crops and animals)!
•Mineral industry (spoils, tailings, slag, and
other rock and mineral wastes)!
•Municipalities (small amount of municipal
waste)!
•Industry (highly toxic)
Where does our MSW go?
1. Landfills
• Open Dumps – unsightly, unsanitary, and smelly
•Sanitary Landfills – alternate layers of compacted
trash and a covering material
•In U.S. open dumps no longer tolerated
• Landfill design is important
•Barriers need to lock in toxins and chemicals;
must reduce leakage into the environment
•Important to control the migration of leachate
out of the landfill
•Sites for sanitary landfills are often controversial
Where does our MSW go?
2. Incineration
Partial solution to landfill space problems; !
•Burning waste releases CO2 and toxins into
the atmosphere;!
•New incinerators burn hotter and breakdown
more complex toxic substances to less
dangerous ones;!
•Expensive to operate and still produce a
residual waste; often toxic and require
proper storage;!
•The considerable heat generated by an
incinerator can be recovered and used.
Where does our MSW go?
3. Ocean dumping
1.Ship board incineration over the open
ocean, and dumping residual waste into the
ocean;
•Similar to land-based incineration but at sea;
•Incineration not 100% effective, residual
toxic materials and chemicals dumped into
the ocean will still pollute.
2.Ocean dumping without incineration still
popular in many places around the world
•Very disastrous to local oceans where
practiced.
The NY/NJ Bight was known
as the “Ocean Dumping
Capital of the World” due to
eight ocean dumpsites.
Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s oceans. In
March 2004, 146 dead zones were located in the world oceans where
marine life could not be supported due to depleted oxygen levels. Some
of these were as small as a square kilometer, but the largest dead zone
covered 70,000 square kilometers.
New York City’s 8 million residents and millions of businesses,
construction projects and visitors generate as much as 36,200
tons of garbage every day (550 rigs each day!)
Currently, the city is relying mostly on landfills in Pennsylvania as
well as in Ohio and Virginia. But for the most part, they are
smaller than the landfills that are trying to find ways to better pack
trash, Mr. Szarpanski said. So, ultimately, the city’s trash could
find its final resting spot “in the South and out West,” he said.
Ocean Dumping and Disease
•In 1991, an Asian freighter secretly dumped sewage in a harbor near Lima, Peru.
• The incident coincided with a festival at which cerviche (raw
shellfish) was served.
• Within days villagers in towns near the dump site were sick
from Asiatic cholera.
• By 1993, more than 700,000 people
in Central and South America had
been diagnosed with Asiatic cholera
(more than 6,000 died).
What is Hazardous Waste?
Hazardous wastes can be from:
•industrial products:
•sludges, solvents, acids, pesticides, PCBs (polychlorinated
biphenyls - highly toxic organic fluids used in plastics and
electrical insulation);
•U.S. industries generate ~260 million metric tons of
hazardous waste per ear (EPA estimate)
•individuals:
•drain cleaners, paint products, oil, some cosmetics
•nuclear waste
• e-waste
Hazardous Waste Management
shift in philosophies
Philosophy #1 – Out of sight out of mind:
•widespread environmental damage, the philosophy persists, and continues to
pose serious problems
Philosophy #2 – Dilute and Disperse (“the solution to pollution is dilution”):
•no longer suitable for waste disposal; many environments have reached their
maximum compensation points
Philosophy #3 – Concentrate and Contain:
•the most popular today, very energy intensive and expensive
Philosophy #4 – Resource Recovery:
•waste converted to useful material, requires technology, and volumes too
large
Philosophy #5 – Integrated Waste Management:
•Complex set of alternatives: source reduction, recycling, composting, landfill,
and incineration
What do we do with Hazardous Waste?
Liquid Waste;;;
Strategies (neither is safe in long term)
•Dilute and disperse
•Concentrate and contain
•Secure Landfills – is it possible?
•Placing liquid-waste into sealed drums, and covering with
impermeable lining material; idea is to assure that the
leachate will not migrate
•Deep wells – inject deep into the crust
•Leachate not contained
•May lubricate faults
•Expensive and unsafe
bhopal disaster
Industrial catastrophe that took place at a
pesticide plant owned and operated by Union
Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in Bhopal,
Madhya Pradesh, India on December 3, 1984.
Around 12 AM, the plant released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and
other toxins, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people.
•Estimates vary on the death toll.
•The official immediate death toll was 2259 and the government of M P has
confirmed a total of 3787 deaths related to the gas release.
•Other government agencies estimate 15,000 deaths.
•Others estimate 8,000 to 10,000 died within 72 hours and 25,000 have
since died from gas-related diseases
•Dow (merged with Union Carbide) has not cleaned up the toxins left
behind, and toxic chemicals still exist in the groundwater and soil.
Munincipal solid waste
Incineration and ocean dumping
Toxic Waste Disposal
Secure landfill
deep-well disposal
