esc110 chapter thirteen solid and hazardous waste

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ESC110 Chapter Thirteen Solid and Hazardous Waste

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ESC110 Chapter Thirteen Solid and Hazardous Waste. Chapter Thirteen Readings & Objectives. Required Readings Cunningham & Cunningham Chapter 13: Solid & Hazardous Waste. At the end of this lesson, you should be able to: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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  • ESC110 Chapter ThirteenSolid and Hazardous Waste

  • Chapter Thirteen Readings & Objectives Required Readings Cunningham & Cunningham Chapter 13: Solid & Hazardous WasteAt the end of this lesson, you should be able to: identify the major components of the waste stream, and describe how wastes have been - and are being - deposited in North America and around the world. explain the differences between dumps, sanitary landfills, and modern, secure landfills. summarize the benefits, problems, and potential of recycling and reusing wastes. analyze some alternatives for reducing the waste we generate. understand what hazardous and toxic wastes are and how we dispose of them. evaluate the options for hazardous-waste management. outline some ways we can destroy or permanently store hazardous wastes.

  • Chapter Thirteen Key Terms biodegradable plastics page 310 of text bioremediation 315 brownfields 314 composting 308 demanufacturing 308 energy recovery 305 hazardous waste 311 mass burn 305 permanent retrievable storage 315 photodegradable plastics 310 recycling 306 refuse-derived fuel 305 sanitary landfills 302 secure landfills 316 Superfund 313 Toxic Release Inventory 312 waste stream 301

  • Chapter Thirteen TopicsWasteWaste-Disposal MethodsShrinking the Waste StreamHazardous and Toxic Wastes

  • PART 1: WASTEAgricultural waste (50%) Residues produced by mining and primary metal processing (30%)Industrial waste - 400 million metric tons/year (3.6%) with a large toxic/hazardous part!Municipal waste - 200 million metric tons/year (1.8%) or 2 kg/person/day.The United States produces 11 billion tons of solid waste each year.

  • Composition of U.S. Domestic Waste

  • The Waste StreamWaste stream is the steady flow of varied wastes we all produce.In spite of recent progress in recycling, many recyclable materials end up in the trash. A major problem is refuse mixing where recyclable and nonrecyclable materials, hazardous and nonhazardous materials are mixed and crushed together is the collection process.

  • PART 2: WASTE DISPOSAL METHODSLow to High Preferences of Waste Disposal Are:Open DumpsOcean DumpingLandfillsExporting WasteIncineration

  • Open DumpsOpen dumping is a predominant method of waste disposal in developing countries.Illegal dumping classifies as a type of open dumping.Groundwater contamination is one of the many problems with open dumping.

  • Sanitary LandfillsLandfills control and regulate solid waste disposal with less smell, litter and verminRefuse compacted and covered everyday with a layer of dirt. Dirt takes up as much as 20% of landfill space.Since 1994, all operating landfills in the US have been required to control hazardous substances.More than 1,200 of the 1,500 existing landfills in the U.S. have closed, and many major cities must export their trash.

  • Exporting Waste and Garbage ImperialismAlthough most industrialized nations in the world have agreed to stop shipping hazardous and toxic waste to less developed countries, the practice still continues.Within rich nations, poor neighborhoods and minority populations are more likely to be the recipients of Locally Unwanted Land Use (LULUs).Toxic wastes are sometimes recycled as building materials, fertilizer or soil amendments.

  • Incineration and Resource RecoveryIncineration is burning refuse to reduce disposal volume by 80-90%.Energy recovery is possible through heat derived from incineration. Steam from this process can be used for heating buildings or generating electricity.Refuse-derived fuel is when waste is sorted to remove recyclable and unburnable materials. This yields refuse with a higher energy content than raw trash.Mass burn means everything smaller than major furniture and appliances is loaded into furnace. It results in greater problems with air pollution.Residual ash has toxic components including dioxins.High construction costs and environmental regulations have resulted in closures and waste exportation.

  • Mass-Burn Garbage IncineratorInitial construction costs are usually between $100 and $300 million for a typical municipal facility. Tipping fess are often much higher at incinerators than tipping fees at landfills.

  • PART 3: SHRINKING THE WASTE STREAMReduce, Reuse and Recycle (the 3 R's)Reusing is a wash & refill process unlike recycling.Recycling success stars are aluminum & auto batteries.Problems include fluctuating market prices & contamination.Recycling is better than dumping or burning.

    Recycling is the reprocessing of discarded material into new, useful products.

  • Recycling BenefitsSaves money, raw materials, and land.Encourages individual responsibility.Reduces pressure on disposal systems. Japan (an island nation short on land) recycles about half of all household and commercial wastes.Lowers demand for raw resources.Reduces energy consumption and air pollution.Benefits ExampleRecycling 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%.

  • Municipal Waste, 1995

  • Source Separation in the Kitchen

  • U.S. Recycling Rates

  • U.S. Recycled Materials - 1994

  • Ways Other Than Recycling to Shrink the Waste StreamComposting is the biological degradation of organic material under aerobic conditions.Energy can be obtained from waste.Demanufacturing is the disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer products such as computers & household appliances.Reuse is exemplified each time you clean a bottle and drink from it again. A reusable glass container makes an average of 15 round-trips between factory and customer before it has to be recycled.Generating less waste by not consuming originally or using more compostable and degradable packaging.

  • Shrinking the Waste StreamExcess 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.

    Producing less wasteSome environmentalists think that society currently places too much emphasis on recycling, thus ignoring better solutions such as reduced consumption and reuse.

  • Composting

  • DemanufacturingDemanufacturing is the disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer productsRefrigerators and air conditioners produce CFC's. The CFC's can be recycled, thus avoiding their release too the environment.Computers and other electronics produce both toxic and valuable metalsA problem is that electronics that are turned in for recycling in the U.S. are sometimes dumped in developing countries where their components end up as environmental toxins.

  • ReuseBetter than recycling or composting.Salvage from old houses is an increasingly popular trend in construction.Glass and plastic bottle potential for reuse is poorly realized.Large national companies favor recycling over reuse.

  • Producing Less WasteReduction in consumption is the best way to reduce our waste stream.Excess packaging of food and consumer products is one of our greatest sources of unnecessary waste.Photodegradable plastics break down when exposed to UV rays.Biodegradable plastics can be decomposed by microorganisms. There are problems with photodegradable and biodegradable plastics.

  • PART 4: HAZARDOUS AND TOXIC WASTESHazardous wastes are discarded solids or liquids with substances that are fatal in low concentrations, toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic. This includes corrosive, explosive, reactive and flammable materials.U.S. industries generate about about 265 million metric tons of officially classified toxic wastes each year.Chemical and petroleum industries are the biggest sources of toxins

  • U.S. Hazardous Waste Producers

  • Hazardous Waste Disposal LegislationResource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Comprehensive program requiring rigorous testing and management of toxic and hazardous substances with cradle to grave accounting.Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund Act)Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) created a Toxic Release Inventory. The act requires manufacturing facilities to report annually on releases of hundreds of types of toxins.

  • Tracking Toxic and Hazardous Wastes

  • Superfund SitesEPA estimates 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S. and by 2000, 1,551 sites were placed on the National Priority List for cleanup with with Superfund financing. Superfund is a revolving pool designed to:Provide immediate response to emergency situations posing imminent hazards.Clean-up abandoned or inactive sites.

  • Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).Modified in 1984 by Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act.Aimed at rapid containment, cleanup, or remediation of abandoned toxic waste sites.Toxic Release Inventory - Requires >20,000 manufacturing facilities to report annually on releases of more than 300 toxic materials.In order to act the government does not have to prove anyone violated a law, or what role they played in a superfund site.Liability under CERCLA is strict, joint, and several, meaning anyone associated with a site can be held responsible for the entire clean-up cost.

  • National Priority List (NPL) & BrownfieldsEPA estimate: 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S.General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that there are > 400,000 seriously contaminated sitesNPL sites are waste sites that are especially hazardous to human health or environmental qualityHow clean is clean? Brownfields are large areas of contaminated properties that have lost their potential value. Because of the presence of assumed pollutants, the areas are considered liability risks. This business attitude discourages redevelopment and can be >30% of the land within urban areas. In many cases, property owners complain that unreasonably high purity levels are demanded in remediation programs.

  • Bioremediation

  • Options for Hazardous Waste ManagementProduce less waste using 3 R'sPhysical treatments (isolation)IncinerationChemical processing (transformationBioremediation (microorganisms)Permanent retrievable storageSecure landfills

  • When Hazardous Waste Management Options To Cleanup Fail, Storage Is RequiredWays to Store Permanently are:Retrievable StorageCan be inspected and periodically retrieved.Secure LandfillsModern, complex landfills with multiple liners and other impervious layers and monitoring systems.To guard and monitor these sites for leakage is very costly.

  • Secure Landfills

    This is Chapter Thirteen of Environmental Science, ESC110. It includes material on solid and hazardous waste. Originally garbage was something that people accepted as part of their existence. This was easier to do when resource consumption was lower. Nomadic people settled somewhere else when the smell became unbearable. As knowledge of disease and its association with waste and garbage increased, human societies distanced themselves from garbage mounds or dumps. With the massive amount of resource consumption occurring today along with the awareness of toxic properties associated with waste, garbage dumps have taken on an isolated and contained out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude. In this picture a child from a developing country is picking through an open dump for a livelihood. He quite likely lives with his family in the shanty town on the horizon in the background. Tens of thousands of people live in such habitats in third world countries picking through the garbage for food and other items to support themselves.In shark contrast, the scientific study of waste (garbology) has created new fields of scientific research and endeavor. Scientists at U.W. meticulously go through Native American shellfish dumps looking for clues as to population size, dietary habits, disease and length of residency. The text (page 300) notes interesting work from the University of Arizona where scientists dig trenches and bore holes into contemporary municipal dumps to evaluate content and decomposition rates. Processing, recycling and containing waste has led to the development of many intriguing careers symbolized by what was originally considered a euphemistic title of sanitation engineer. Today such careers are essential, challenging and rewarding. As the text notes, waste is everyone's business.The following are objectives and required readings. After reviewing these slides, and reading the chapter, it might help to review these objectives again.The following are key terms for Chapter 13. After reviewing these slides, and reading the chapter, please review them. You can also consult the McGraw-Hill Course Glossary if you have a link to the internet.Topics in Chapter 13 include waste and what it is, methods of disposal of waste, how to reduce waste, and hazardous and toxic waste. The amount of waste produced by society is staggering, particularly in an affluent society such as the U.S. For instance, the U.S. produces about 11 billion tons of solid waste each year, or about 40 tons per person per year. That's about 500 times as much as the average person weighs. This does not mean that the average person set out this much waste with their garbage; in fact, most of the waste is generated by the industries and activities that produce things for society. For instance, agricultural waste accounts for about 50 % of the total, mining and primary metal processing about 30%. Industrial and municipal waste are much smaller amounts, totaling 400 (3.6%) and 180 million (1.7%) metric tons per year, respectively. Of the industrial waste, 60 million metric tons are toxic or hazardous.The bad news is that total production and consumption per person increased in the last half of the twentieth century (upper graph). The good news is that consumption per capita (red line, upper graph) leveled off from 1990 to 2000, and the percent of waste recycled increased in an exponential fashion (lower graph). In the U.S. we generate twice as much waste per person as in Europe and Japan and 5-10 times as much waste as people in developing countries.The waste stream is a term that describes the steady flow of varied wastes that we produce. This includes domestic garbage, yard waste, and industrial, commercial and construction refuse. In this slide we consider the composition of waste generated by homes. Of this part of the waste stream, paper makes up the largest amount of U.S. domestic waste, at about 38%. Yard waste, which is nearly entirely recycled in Seattle, makes up about 18%. Most of the materials in the domestic waste stream can be reused and recycled, including paper, metals, glass, and plastics by direct recycling. Yard waste and food waste can be recycled by composting to reuse their organic and nutrient components. The remaining 14% vary in their suitability for reuse and recycling. The total amount of waste material that is recycle in Seattle is about 50% of the waste stream, and it has proven very difficult to increase recycling above this amount. One of the major problems with recycling the waste stream is the contamination of material in one part of the waste stream, such as paper, with another part, said as food waste. For instance, it is much more difficult to recycle a piece of the cardboard pizza container that has cheese and tomato all over it than it is to recycle uncontaminated cardboard. In situations where solid waste is separated into different types of recyclable materials, there is a tendency for people to throw non-recyclables into the recyclable waste boxes. For instance, non-recyclable coffee cups thrown into high-quality paper containers at UW are a significant problem in recycling paper. Given that society will continue to produce waste, there are a number of ways in which it can be disposed of, either non-beneficially with no recovery of value, or beneficially with significant value recovered from the waste. The most common, but least preferred type of waste disposal is the open dump method shown above. These are usually unregulated. The text notes that in the infamous Smoky Mountain open dump of Manila, in the Phillippines, thousands of people live and are supported by this 100 foot high refuse heap. Open dumps support birds, rats, flies, etc.Municipal refuse, industrial waste, sewage and sewage sludge were dumped directly into our lakes and oceans. The City of Victoria, Canada still dumps raw sewage directly into the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Federal laws prevent such dumping today. Highly contaminated dredge spoils are still deposited directly into the oceans. Our society is gradually coming to the realization that even deep abyssal ocean plains are no longer considered innocuous places to dump our wastes. Vast quantities of packaging, components of jetsam, fishing gear (including nets) and other items are cast to the seas. Rather than being somehow miraculously processed by the oceans, these items find their way to poison, entrap and otherwise deface the habitats of our ocean flora and fauna, including coral reef ecosystems.The least desirable form of dealing with waste, environmentally, are open dumps where material is simply thrown in the closest place available. For instance, in many situations where waste disposal is informal, there is an area near the home or just outside town where it's piled up. One potential benefit of this method of disposal is that local people, such as these children shown, will tend to rummage through the trash and pick out valuable material. Obviously, the negative impacts on health are likely to outweigh the benefits of material recycling. Such open dumps are undesirable because there is no control over the type of material disposed here and local contamination of soil and water is certain. Most developed countries forbid open dumping. It is estimated that 200 million liters of motor oil are poured into the sewers or soak into the ground each year in the U.S. This equals fiive times the volume of oil released by the Exxon Valdez spill in the Prince William Sound of Alaska.

    Sanitary landfills are an engineering solution to the problem of open dumps. Basically, waste material is collected at the homes of the people that produce the waste, and hauled to a central location. This location may be a transfer point or the landfill itself. In the case of Seattle, material hauled to the transfer station is then placed into large trucks, transported to railroad cars and then to southern Washington where it is finally buried. The expense is considerable, at about $100 per ton. Most cities do not bury their trash in landfills near the city, but instead export the trash to another area. This provides the potential for employment dealing with the city's trash as most cities are relatively more wealthy then areas remote from cities; however, this process has also been cited as an example of a wealthy society exporting its problems onto poorer areas. Historically, landfills have been a convenient, inexpensive waste-disposal option. Increasing land and shipping fees, and demanding construction and maintenance requirements are increasing costs. Suitable landfill sites are become scarce. Increasingly, communities are rejecting new landfills. Old landfills are quickly reaching capacity and closing. Since 1994, U.S. landfills required to control hazardous substances. The fill area is enclosed with impermeable clay or plastic lining and drains catch basins are monitored for toxins. Another strategy for preventing environmental problems for landfills is to be more vigilant in site locations. Faults, permeable soils (especially those feeding aquifer recharge zones), rivers, lakes and floodplains are avoided.

    Exporting trash sometimes takes place on a large-scale. For instance, in the past many industrialized nations have exported toxic material and garbage to less developed countries, which sometimes are glad to accept the material for a small fee. This has been termed "garbage imperialism". LULU, or locally unwanted land use, is a term applied when a neighborhood or nation that is poor and politically weak handles the hazardous materials and wastes from a wealthy politically powerful neighborhood or nation. In other cases, materials that might be toxic for one reason another, are recycled as building materials, fertilizer or soil amendments. In some cases this recycling is well justified, in other cases, it may simply be a means of avoiding higher disposal costs. Although most industrialized nations have agreed to stop shipping hazardous and toxic waste to less-developed countries, the practice still continues. Garbage imperialism also operates in wealthier countries. Indian reservations increasingly being approached to store wastes on their lands.

    The previous chapter considered energy, and one way that energy can potentially be produced is by incinerating waste material rich in organic material (particularly paper) that yields energy when combusted. Even after burning, there is waste material produced in the form of ash, but the reduced volume and destruction of potential pathogens can be partially beneficial. However, air pollution and the difficulty of disposing of ash are among the most serious problems associated with incineration. In addition, it is very difficult to cite a new incinerator in the U.S.This figure shows the processes and material in a typical mass-burn garbage incinerator. There are incinerators such as this northwest Washington near Highway 20 and in eastern Washington near Spokane. In particular, the western Washington incinerator has significant problems with extremely wet municipal waste been very difficult to combust due to the high water content, as it takes a large amount of energy to first evaporate the water before combustion of the organic materials in the refuse can take place. With either refuse-derived fuel or mass burn incinerators, residual ash and unburnable residues end up as 10-20% of the original volume thus reducing final disposal costs. It costs so much to built environmentally suitable incinerators, that there is actually pressure on municipalities to keep the garbage flowing through the facility. This has resulted in some cities actually buying garbage and have even discouraged recycling efforts. Toxins produced by incinerators include dioxans, furans, lead and cadmium, especially in the lighter fly ash. Toxin production can be significantly decreased by removing batteries with heavy metals and plastics with chlorine before burning. Button batteries used in hearing aids, watches and calculators have lots of mercury. Pollution control methods are not guaranteed to be 100% effective.

    In the picture seen here 2 workers are sorting recyclable items onto a truck a site just as common today as an outright garbage truck. Because of the problems associated with disposing of waste material, society is placing an increasing emphasis on shrinking the waste stream. Producing less waste in the first place is more desirable than having to deal with waste after it's produced because of the disadvantages and drawbacks of any waste disposal method. Again, we list the three R's in terms of their desirability: reduce, reuse, and recycle, in that order. The complexity of the problem with recycling can be exemplified with pop bottles. Of the 24 billion plastic soft drink bottles sold annually in the U.S. are (polyethylene terphthalate (PET), which can be melted and remanufactured into many items (carpet, fleece clothing, plastic strapping and nonfood packaging), but a single polyvinyl chloride (PVC) bottle can ruin an entire truckload of PET if melted together.

    The three R's, in order of preference, are reduce, reuse, and recycle. These all apply directly to shrinking waste. Reducing waste is the most desirable preference because it requires less resource use to begin with. Reusing resources is the next most desirable preference. Finally, recycling recovers some or all benefits of the material being recycled. Recycling is usually, but not always, a better alternative to either burying or burning wastes. Recycling can save money, energy, raw materials, and land space. Problems with recycling systems usually include the expense of collecting recyclables, separating them into their individual recyclable components, and finding markets for these materials. In cases where large amounts of recyclables are produced quickly, such as through a municipal "change of heart", markets can be glutted, and recyclables not utilized. This happened a few years ago with plastic recycling in Seattle, where Seattle collected plastics into a warehouse, but was unable to sell the material. Finally, the plastics were landfilled. It sometimes takes time for markets for recyclables to develop, and now much of Seattle waste plastic is recycled into new products. Despite all the economic and environmental benefits of recycling aluminum, Americans still throw away more than a million tons of aluminum annually. This is an astounding number as the text notes. The amount of aluminum thrown into the trash in the U.S. is enough for 3,800 Boeing 747 airplanes.

    This figure shows the relative amounts of municipal waste that are recycled, incinerated, and landfilled, in Japan compared to the U.S. The high cost of land and resources in Japan leads to higher rates of recycling. Japan is probably the most successful country at recycling. Incentives to recycling and reusing include market incentives and public policies. Source separation can help in the recycling of materials because it can avoid contamination and lead to higher value of recyclable components. However, handling of individual recyclables separately can be inefficient, and much effort is being made to separate individual recyclable components from mixed waste streams in factories. For instance, the north end of Seattle above the Lake Washington Ship Canal used to separate recyclables into newspaper, cancer and glass, mixed paper, yard waste, and garbage. Nowadays in Seattle, newspaper, cans and glass and mixed paper all all mixed together into a single container. Recycling rates of selected U.S. materials show that some of the most troublesome items in terms of heavy metals (auto batteries), mine tailings and energy (aluminum and steel) have higher recycle percentages. Somewhat disturbing, however, is the fact that plastic containers and tires are recycled at low rates.The types of materials recycled expressed as a percentage of the totaled recycled in the U.S. in 1994 are shown here. Note that among the most recycled materials, as reflected in the large amount in the way stream, include paper. The next largest component is compost, which is produced from the abundant yard waste and municipal waste stream. Composting yard waste and obtaining energy from waste mean that there is no need to buy fertilizer and resource consuming energy. Both lead to less waste production. Similarly, demanufacturing can mean less mining and fewer toxic materials in the landfills. Reusing and reduction are simple enough to understand, but often involve a change in one's lifestyle. Some clever applications of this concept include making photodegradable and biodegradable plastics that simply decompose when deposited as litter.Is recycling a solution or simply a way of feeling good about a problem that you are really not solving. Maybe more emphasis should be placed on reducing consumption?The properties of compost are nearly legendary among gardeners. The process of composting is relatively simple. Organic material is mixed, kept moist, well aerated, and microbial degradation of the organic material breaks the compost down and eventually forms material more like soil than the original organic components. Finished compost, mixed with soil, provides important sources of nutrients and water holding capacity, biologic activity, and other properties that sometimes make it seem magical in terms of plant growth. Here is portrayed a typical compost system that can be used by any backyard composting. There could be tremendous savings in waste if everyone simply composted their kitchen and yard waste.Demanufacturing is the disassembly for reuse of parts and components and consumer items. These include televisions, refrigerators, computers, and many other manufactured items that have valuable parts. For instance, because chlorofluorocarbons have been banned from manufacturing, they are now worth as much as a hundred dollars per pound. It now pays to recover them from old refrigerators and air conditioners. Computers and other electronic equipment typically contain valuable metals such as gold, copper, and silver. Components can sometimes be used directly, such as power supplies and ram chips, and sometimes as the raw materials that are used to make ram chips. This professor often takes some of his older computers to other countries when he travels there, as what is worthless in the United States might be highly valued in other countries. Reuse of materials is better than recycling or composting, because the material does not have to be remanufactured, thus reducing energy consumption. You are probably most familiar with the reuse concept through large bottled water containers that you may have delivered and picked up at you home. Seattle schools just this year have discovered that pipes in many of their buildings are yielding water high in lead. They have switched their students to drinking water from 10 gallon plastic bottles. The water is purified with ozone. There is presently a market for "recycled" (reused) building materials, such as wood, doors, cabinets, toilets, wiring, and other materials. Phinney Ridge Community Center is a local Seattle coordinator of reused home materials such as doors, bricks, windows, etc. An additional benefit is that reused materials are typically much cheaper than new materials. Recycling is sometimes favored by larger corporations because there are economies of scale associated with recycling that are not possible with reusing. This economic reality means that it is more practical for smaller companies to wash and reuse, but they are out competed by recyclers. Producing less materials in the first place is the most advantageous program of all. When raw materials are not extracted, transported, process, and manufactured into things that society uses, there is not only less resource depletion, but less energy utilized and less waste produced. For instance, producing a 2,500 pound Honda Civic automobile utilizes far less resources and production energy than producing a Ford Excursion, which weighs almost twice as much and thus uses almost twice as much in raw materials. Not only that, but the Honda Civic gets twice the gas mileage, which means it uses less oil to operate. My kids like a product called "lunchables". These consist of something like a sandwich, cheese and crackers, and the desert, all package together. It also includes a drink. In order to withstand rigorous of marketing, transportation, and kid abuse, lunchables are wrapped in many layers of cardboard and plastic. This means that most of the lunchable is packaging, not food. The same can be said of many items sold in stores, where much of what you buy is packaging. There most certainly is a role for packaging, as much of the food and products manufactured by society are ruined before use, and packaging can sometimes prevent this. However, in the case of lunchables and many other items packaging is primarily for advertisement, not protection. Biodegradable plastics often do not decompose completely, leaving small particles that release toxins into the environment. In modern, lined landfills they don't decompose at all. They make recycling less feasible and lead people to believe that littering is not a problem (just toss it into the environment and it will go away).Hazardous and toxic wastes are another classification of waste materials. A hazardous waste is defined as discarded materials which were solid or liquid, and that contain substances known to be fatal to humans in low concentrations, toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic to humans and other living things. It's also hazardous if it's flammable with a flash point of less than 60C, corrosive, explosive, or highly reactive when mixed with other chemicals. When a waste material is classified as hazardous or toxic it must receive special handling to avoid problems associated with its properties, and about 265 million metric tons of waste are classified as hazardous or toxic each year in the U.S. This pie chart demonstrates how significant the chemical and petroleum industries are in terms of generating the largest amounts of toxic substances in the U.S. 71% is from chemical and petroleum but metal processes and mining account for 22%. All other industries account for only 7% of hazardous wastes in the U.S.

    There are two Federal laws that largely regulate hazardous waste in the United States: the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA (pronounced "rick-ra"), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, sometimes called CERCLA (pronounced "sir-kla"), often called Superfund. The CERCLA act of 1980 was modified in 1984 into the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, SARA (pronounced "sarah"), which sought to allow rapid response to environmental cleanup after spills rather than costly litigation. To say the least, these laws have been helpful in cleanup, and particularly helpful to lawyers and environmental consulting firms. The Superfund is a revolving pool of money designed to: 1) provide an immediate response to emergencies from toxins that impose imminent hazards; and 2) clean up or remediate abandoned or inactive sites. It circumvents lengthy litigations.These laws require that all toxic and hazardous waste generated in the U.S. be tracked from "cradle to grave" by meticulous paper trails. It is not possible in a modern society to eliminate toxic and hazardous wastes from their uses, and these laws seek to minimize environmental and human health problems associated with the production and use of toxic materials. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains a priority list of already seriously contaminated sites in the U.S. One of the major purposes of Superfund is to eventually clean up these sites. Total costs for hazardous waste cleanup in the U.S. are estimated between $370 billion and $1.7 trillion. For years, most of the funding has gone to legal fees, but this situation has improved over past several years. Studies of Superfund sites reveal minorities tend to be over-represented in these neighborhoods suffering from imminent hazardous waste problems (National Priority Sites or NPL).Although originally too much of the money designated to the Superfund went to litigation, today a much greater proportion is applied directly to cleanup. It also, through the Toxic Release Inventory and NPL, allows problem areas such as Love Canal, New York to be identified, evaluated and cleaned before the inevitable law suits are resolved.There are presently about 1400 sites listed, whereas the EPA estimates that there are perhaps 36,000 sites that could be listed. Other estimates suggest that there are perhaps 400,000 sites when all are identified. Very few sites have been cleaned up, and in many cases will not be, given present levels of available technology. One promising technology is the use of bioremediation, in which microbes and other organisms can destroy or accumulate toxic materials and aid in clean up. A lack of well-defined criteria (precedents) for pollution cases results in a state of limbo for much otherwise valuable real estate.

    Hazardous waste remediation requires digging up and moving the soil to an incinerator or landfill. Contaminated ground water must be pumped out of the ground and replaced. These are very expensive endeavors. Obviously, having organisms do this cleanup work for you is preferable both in terms of cost and result. Bioremediation (biological waste treatment) with bacteria and fungi are potent detoxifiers and accumulate heavy metals. They even metabolize PCBs. New research in bioremediation involves phytoremediation (cleanup with plants) and making heterotrophic plants with bioengineering techniques. The slide here symbolizes the contaminant from the barrels being metabolized by poplar trees through the aid of fungal hyphae associated with the plant roots. Sometimes air can be pumped into contaminated ground water stimulating the microbes to become metabolically active and consume the toxins. Sometimes this is an alternative to pumping water out of the ground. In general, bioremediation costs half as much as landfills and treating contaminated soil.There are several potential options for dealing with hazardous waste. Of course the most desirable is to produce less of it. Alternatively, there are a number of ways of treating hazardous wastes, including physical and chemical treatments, incineration, storing them indefinitely until disposal, and what are called "secure landfills". These have special designs that theoretically eliminate the potential for any environmental contamination or human contact. In particular, siting or locating incinerators, hazardous wastes storage, and disposal sites is politically very difficult . The terms NIMBY or " Not In My Back Yard" and NIMTO or "not in my term of office" clearly apply to the siting of hazardous waste sites. It is particularly difficult for a politician to take a stand on siting hazardous waste facility, even if it is badly needed by society, because of the universal resistance to having a site located near where one lives. Producing less waste is in contrast with the other options that focus on converting hazardous substances to less harmful forms.Some hazardous waste are just too dangerous to be unmonitored for any length of time. Radioactive substances certainly fit into this category. Some waste is even stored with the intent of being a temporary residence for the waste. New storage facilities must be found by later dates (or generations).Secure landfills have special provisions for containing hazardous waste, including clay and and fabric liners below and above the buried waste. Normally, water that leaches waste is collected and treated below the landfill. Monitoring wells look for the seeping of landfill constituents into groundwater. Such facilities should be sited using the best possible logic and circumstances, and not according to political whim.