What do we do with it? What do we do with it? 80% of solid waste is land filled. Maryland is the 4th largest exporter of waste; only topped by New York, New Jersey & Missouri. The top importers of this waste are Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Michigan, & Indiana.

Which of these requires the least amount of energy?

Recycle, reduce, reuse.

1.Reduce what you buy.

2.Reuse what you already have.

3.Recycle: This takes much less energy than beginning with mining the metal.

Outline the disposal of solid waste.

Americans now produce 4.38 lbs. of trash per day.How is this waste disposed?

In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash and recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.5 percent recycling rate. On average, we recycled and composted 1.51 pounds of our individual waste generation of 4.38 pounds per person per day.

So -- Where does this waste material go?

Ocean dumping

Dump

Sanitary landfill

Recycled or upcycled into a new product

Incinerator

De-manufacturing or reusing

Store permanently if hazardous

THERE IS NO AWAY

NIMBY (Not in My Backyard!)

LULU (Locally Unwanted Land Use)

Ocean dumping: Each year = 55 million lbs. packaging, including ½ million bottles, cans & plastic containers.

Beaches are littered with 330 millions lbs. of fishing gear & non-degradable materials.

Environmental groups estimate that 50,000 northern fur seals are entangled in this refuse & drown or starve to death every year in the north Pacific alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0JW2Ikdl3s

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koETnR0NgLY

Ban single use plastic bags. Hillarious.

WHAT IS A SANITARYLANDFILL?   Basically, a landfill is a bathtub in the ground. There are five critical elements in a secure landfill:1.A bottom liner made of a thick plastic liner or layer of clay.2.A leachate (water that has percolated through the landfill) collection system.3.A system of pipes to collect the methane gas 4.A natural setting can be selected to minimize the possibility of wastes escaping to groundwater beneath a landfill. These elements must be engineered.  Each of these elements is critical to success. Each day the compacted materials are covered by a layer of soil. At the end of the landfills use; the landfill is covered & vegetated.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQCz3Ygs568 Landfill construction  

HAZARDOUS WASTEHAZARDOUS WASTEAmerica generates more waste every year, growing from a 247 million tons of non-hazardous waste in 1990, to 409 million tons in 2001. We generate billion tons of waste of which 80% is land filled & 32% of municipal waste is reported to be recycled but municipal waste represents only 2% of all waste generated.

50% = Agricultural + 33% mine tailings + 15% Industrial waste + 2% municipal waste (combination of household & commercial waste)

Secure Retrievable Storage for hazardous wastes.

Deep well injection:

As humans have produced more and more waste, an issue of growing importance has been where to dispose of it. One method of disposing of hazardous waste has been the deep injection well. The are approximately 4,500 feet deep and about 96 million gallons of hazardous waste can be injected into them a year. There are currently 172 of these deep injection wells in the United States, with a new one being proposed for Romulus, Michigan.

There are many hazards associated with these wells. Twenty-two out of the 172 wells in America have leaked or suffered holes and workers were unable to detect substantial leakage from holes in well casing in six other situations. Greenpeace has stated that "in at least 2 states, deep well injection of hazardous wastes has been linked to multiple earthquakes, caused by elevated pressures and reduced friction over large areas...Injected wastes have entered groundwater through cracks, fissures, and abandoned oil and gas wells in the U.S."

In addition to retrievable storage & injection wells:

• Recycle into less hazardous material.

• Incinerate & sometimes incineration to energy.

• Neutralization. EX. Acids treated with bases.

• Pyrolysis using a high-energy arc of electricity. Preferable for toxics like dioxin.

BEST: Do not produce it in the first place, reduce, reuse or recycle.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal Federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.

*Protect health & environment.

*Reduce the amount of waste generated.

•Manage wastes in an environmentally sound manner.

•RCRA tracks the progress of hazardous wastes from their point of generation, their transport, and their treatment and/or disposal. Due to the extensive tracking elements at all points of the life of the hazardous waste, the overall process has become known as the "cradle to grave" system.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, was enacted by Congress on December 11, 1980. established prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites;

•provided for liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites; and

•established a trust fund to provide for cleanup when no responsible party could be identified.

The law authorizes two kinds of response actions:

•Short-term removals, where actions may be taken to address releases or threatened releases requiring prompt response.

•Long-term remedial response actions, that permanently and significantly reduce the dangers associated with releases or threats of releases of hazardous substances that are serious, but not immediately life threatening. These actions can be conducted only at sites listed on EPA's National Priorities List(NPL).

•A tax on chemical & petroleum industries generated $1.6 billion.

NPL – National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identifies parties responsible for contamination of sites and compels the parties to clean up the sites. Where responsible parties cannot be found, the Agency is authorized to clean up sites itself, using a special trust fund.

PRP’s =

potentially responsible parties =

everybody

The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) amended the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act  (CERCLA) on October 17, 1986. SARA reflected EPA's experience in administering the complex Superfund program during its first six years and made several important changes and additions to the program. SARA:

•stressed the importance of permanent remedies and innovative treatment technologies in cleaning up hazardous waste sites;

•required Superfund actions to consider the standards and requirements found in other State and Federal environmental laws and regulations;

•provided new enforcement authorities and settlement tools;

•increased State involvement in every phase of the Superfund program;

•increased the focus on human health problems posed by hazardous waste sites;

•encouraged greater citizen participation in making decisions on how sites should be cleaned up; and

•increased the size of the trust fund to $8.5 billion.

•Superfund is now broke.

Brownfields are real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties protects the environment, reduces blight, and takes development pressures off green spaces and working lands

The Ash Barge Odyssey (Year 2000)--The remaining 3000 tons of Philadelphia's incinerated ash, which was removed from a beach in

Gonaives, Haiti where it was dumped 10 years ago, is now holed-up in a hopper barge in the St. Lucie Canal in Stuart, Florida. A 14-year saga still remains unresolved for the people of Haiti, the residents of Florida and the

city of Philadelphia.