|
|
23
Hazardous and Solid Wastes:
Sustainable Solutions
Chapter Outline
Hazardous Wastes: Coming to Terms with the Problem
Love Canal: The Awakening
The Dimensions of a Toxic Nightmare
LUST - It’s Not What You Think
Attacking Hazardous Wastes on Two Fronts
The Superfund Act: Cleaning Up Past Mistakes
What to Do with Today’s Waste: Preventing Future Disasters
Dealing with Today’s Wastes: A Variety of Options
Disposing of Radioactive Wastes
Some Obstacles to Sustainable Hazardous Waste Management
Individual Actions Count
Solid Wastes: Understanding the Problem
Solving a Growing Problem Sustainably
The Traditional Approach
Sustainable Options: The Input Approach
The Throughput Approach: Reuse, Recycling, and Composting
Key Terms
hazardous wastes Superfund in-plant options
process manipulation reuse recycling
detoxification land disposal incineration
low-temperature decomposition secured landfills NIMBY syndrome
municipal solid wastes output approach input approach
throughput approach dumps landfills
ocean dumping waste-to-energy plants aseptic containers
price preference policies compost co-composting
Objectives
1. Discuss the national significance, implications, and effects of the Love Canal toxic waste problem.
2. List some of the environmental effects of improper waste disposal.
3. Define the acronym “LUST” and suggest how this environmental problem is being remediated.
4. Discuss the primary provisions and effectiveness of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
5. Discuss the primary provisions and effectiveness of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
6. Summarize current sustainable options for reducing our hazardous wastes.
7. List some personal actions that will reduce hazardous wastes.
8. Define the following terms: “municipal solid wastes,” “dumps,” “landfills.”
9. Discuss the composition of solid waste in the United States.
10. Summarize the current strategies for dealing with solid wastes.
11. Define “reuse” and “recycling” and give examples of solid wastes that can be handled by these techniques.
12. List some obstacles to recycling in our society and how these obstacles might be overcome.
13. Define “composting” and list the advantages of composting as a solid waste reduction strategy.
Lecture Outline
Hazardous Wastes: Coming to Terms with the Problem
Love Canal: The Awakening
Hazardous wastes are byproducts of industry that pose a threat to the environment.
Love Canal is a tragic public health and environmental disaster; it symbolizes our past disregard for the basic rule that "there is no away.”
As a result of negligent (though legal) dumping of toxic wastes at Love Canal, the health and investments of nearly a thousand families were damaged or destroyed and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent for compensation and cleanup.
The Dimensions of a Toxic Nightmare
The huge amount of waste produced and past irresponsible disposal practices combine to create a toxic waste nightmare.
In the past, toxic wastes were disposed of largely by use of two criteria: cost and convenience; effects of this negligence include groundwater and soil contamination, human and other animal disease and death, costly cleanup attempts and remediation efforts, and forced abandonment of homes and small towns.
LUST- It's Not What You Think
Leaking underground storage tanks, "LUST," pose serious threats to groundwater worldwide.
Costs of LUST correction may be prohibitively high.
Attacking Hazardous Wastes on Two Fronts
The Superfund Act: Cleaning Up Past Mistakes
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) or “Superfund" is legislation aimed at improving waste-disposal practices in the U.S.
Though well intentioned, RCRA has its drawbacks, including high costs and enforcement difficulties and stimulation of illegal dumping.
Alternative funding for cleanup and proper disposal through a tax or generators fee might allow the EPA to more effectively direct cleanup efforts.
What to Do With Today's Waste: Preventing Future Disasters
Preventing Leaking Underground Storage Tanks
RCRA amendments may effectively address this problem.
Weaknesses in RCRA
Difficulties in administering and enforcing federal law, combined with under-funding and increasing responsibilities, have made it difficult for the EPA to close the loopholes in this law.
Exporting Toxic Troubles
Exporting toxic wastes does not address the root causes of our toxic waste problems and has serious ethical implications.
Dealing With Today's Wastes: A Variety of Options
Process Manipulation, Reuse, and Recycling
These approaches help reduce waste output as well as reduce resource consumption.
Conversion to Less Hazardous or Nonhazardous Substances
Various technologies for detoxification, incineration, and low-temperature decomposition may be used to help detoxify or destroy hazardous wastes.
Perpetual Storage
While appealing to those seeking a quick solution to the hazardous waste problem, resorting to perpetual storage techniques is seen by many as a temporary and socially unjust solutions.
Barriers to Waste Reduction
Powerful incentives that encourage waste production remain in place today.
Disposing of Radioactive Wastes
Disposing of High-Level Radioactive Wastes
Currently the U.S. has no disposal facility for high level radioactive wastes generated by weapons manufacture and nuclear energy production.
By law, the Federal government must choose a waste disposal site, build and license a repository there, and begin accepting high-level wastes within a decade; public opposition, though, may delay this.
Disposing of Low- and Medium-Level Radioactive Wastes
Low-level radioactive wastes are currently landfilled in Nevada, Washington, and South Carolina.
There is no repository yet for medium-level radioactive waste, though DOE has built a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico that might be licensed to receive these wastes.
Some Obstacles to Sustainable Hazardous Waste Management
Overall, while total amounts of toxic waste generated in the past few years have decreased, disposal problems have intensified.
The move away from land- and water-based disposal practices has created a new hazard: toxic waste incineration.
Individual Actions Count
By reducing our participation in the production and improper disposal of hazardous wastes, we can minimize our personal contribution to this problem.
Solid Wastes: Understanding the Problem
The huge amounts of solid waste we generate represent a squandering of energy, resources, and money; it is a result of population growth, increasing consumerism and affluence, and a combination of marketing, governmental, and societal factors that stimulate consumption and waste generation.
The goals of modern solid waste management focus on source reduction and minimum-impact disposal.
Solving a Growing Problem Sustainably
The Traditional Strategy: Output Approach - This strategy focuses on ways to safely and economically dispose of waste.
Dumps and Landfills
While sanitary landfills are environmentally preferable to open dumps, they are still energy- and resource-intensive, potentially polluting, and generally undesirable as neighbors.
Ocean Dumping
This practice raises serious concerns over ecosystem damage, toxin biomagnification, and aesthetic degradation of oceans and beaches.
Incineration
Waste-to-energy plants, or incinerators, can reduce waste volume and recover energy from wastes, but they emit toxic air pollution and generate hazardous ash for disposal.
Sustainable Options: The Input Approach
Increasing Product Durability
Making goods more durable will reduce resource use and waste generation.
Reducing the Amount of Material in Products and Packaging
Redesigning products to reduce waste is practical and economical.
Reducing Consumption
By rejecting the accelerating consumerism of our culture, individuals can reduce the amount of waste they generate.
The Throughput Approach: Reuse, Recycling, and Composting - This largely consists of reusing and recycling materials before they enter the waste stream.
The Reuse Option
Many items commonly thrown out as waste can be reused one or more times. By reducing waste, reuse lessens all the problems associated with waste disposal.
The Recycling Option
Recycling a product to make more products saves energy, resources, money, pollution, jobs, and aesthetics.
Obstacles to Recycling
There are few technological obstacles to recycling; rather, the barriers are political governmental, economic, and attitudinal.
Overcoming the Obstacles
Spiraling landfill costs, energy and resource shortages, and pollution problems will encourage recycling efforts in the United States.
Procuring Recycled Materials
High recycling rates can be achieved only if a strong market for recycled products is maintained.
Suggestions for Presenting the Chapter
Ÿ Instructors should emphasize the virtues of conservation and recycling.
Ÿ A visit to a local landfill site is an excellent exercise to illuminate the concepts in this chapter. The cost of citing landfills and the associated environmental problems can be discussed as a part of this activity.
Ÿ A discussion of any local Superfund sites can be explored in class or as part of a fieldtrip.
Ÿ Visiting a local recycling facility is an excellent fieldtrip for your class. Students can see that recycling can have a real impact on the quality of the environment and support a sustainable economy.
|
|
|