Waste Management Industrial and agricultural waste Municipal solid waste Hazardous wastes.

Waste ManagementIndustrial and agricultural wasteMunicipal solid wasteHazardous wastes

Solid Waste in U.S.>100 lbs/person/dayAgriculture - 51%Mining wastes - 38%Industries - 8% (fly ash)Municipal - 3% (70% paper, food,yard wastes)

U.S. Municipal WastesMulti-billion dollar industryResource Conservation and RecoveryAct - 1976- outlawed open dumping

Managing Todays WastesSanitary landfill - 80%Recycling - 10%Incineration - 9% (dioxin)Composting - 1%

Sanitary LandfillSynthetic liner

2) Earth cover

3) Leachate collection system

4) Methane venting

Changing LandfillsFilling up rapidlyDifficult finding new sites

- restrictions- NIMBY - NOT IN MY BACK YARD!

RecyclingEasily isolated from other wastesLarge quantitiesValuable

Recycling Aluminum, Wastepaper, and Plastics40% of aluminum recycled in USRecycled aluminum uses over 90% fewer resourcesPaper: pre-consumer vs. post-consumer recycling10% or less of plastic recycled in USPlastics can be very difficult to recycle

Burning WastesMass burn incineration Air pollutionWaste to energy

Hazardous WastesU.S. - >1 ton/person/year

Todays Management1) reduce, reuse, recycle (5%)

Todays Management2) detoxification, incineration (5%)Physical reactionsChemical reactionsLand-farming Burning

Todays Management3) Land disposal (90%)Landfills, pits, lagoons, injection wells,midnight dumping, sewage systems,surface waters

Hazardous Waste Regulation in the United StatesResource Conservation and Recovery ActEPA identifies hazardous wastes, setsstandards for managementSuperfund - established to clean uphazardous waste sitesLove Canal - Hooker Chemical plant insuburban Niagara Falls, NY