lecture 11 - waste disposal and recycling ii

8/9/2019 Lecture 11 - Waste Disposal and Recycling II

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Hazardous Waste

Hazardous wastes - substances that pose a major safety problem for humans and the environment

• Hazardous wastes can be of different types:

o Carcinogenic - causes cancer

o

Ignitable (i.e., flammable), some substances may spontaneous igniteo Oxidant - causes strong chemical reactions

o Corrosive - like strong acids and alkaline, eat through storage containers

o

Toxic

o Radioactive

o Explosive

• Hazardous wastes were discarded and dumped in land fills

o

Usually they contaminate the soil and water

o Some hazardous wastes can still be dumped in landfills, if they are converted to a solid and are

stable

o Many industries create hazardous wastes

Petroleum wastes

Chemical industry

Dry cleaners

Hospitals

Car and truck repair shops

• Governmnets are becoming more stringent on what people can through away

o

Lead-acid batteries, i.e. car batteries

o Mercury-containing wastes

o Rechargeable batteries

o

Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) from older computer monitors and televisions

o

Cell phones and computers

The lithium ion batteries

o Refrigerant containing appliances such as a refrigerator, air conditioner or dehumidifier.

• Reducing hazardous wastes

o

Recycling

o Portland cement

Depending how the cement will be used, some wastes can be mixed in

o Neutralization

Acids and alkalines when mixed togather can neutralize each other to form salts

o Incineration - burn the wastes at high temperatures



Burn used oil and flammable solvents

o

Pyrolysis - burn the substances without oxygen

Breaks down chemicals into simple substances

Used for organic substances like pesticides, etc.

o

Special landfills Some wastes can be stored in salt domes, old mines, etc.

As long as they are geographically stable

Radioactive wastes - waste that emit radiation

• Radioactive wastes poses new problems

o Extremely harmful to humans and life forms in large concentrations

o They are costly to manage

o

Underground storage system are normally poses security threats

• Some wastes can be around for hundreds of thousands of years

o Plutonium-239 - produced from “spent” fuel at nuclear power plants

Remains hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of

years.

Can be used in nuclear weapons

o Iodine-131 has a short half-life of 8 days

After a month, it is no longer radioactive

• Sources of radioactive wastes

o Spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants

o

Processing from producing nuclear weapons

o Medical industry - uses radiation for some cancer treatments, etc.

o Coal power plants

The ash from burnt coal contains radioactive substances

Residues from the petroleum and natural gas companies

Radon and radium can coat the inside of pipes

Brownfields

Brownfields - are abandoned or unused industrial properties

•

The term brownfield was invented in 1992

• Land is contaminated with either pollution or a hazardous waste

• Brownfields include

1. Gas stations

Gasoline and diesel fuel leak, contaminating the soil

2. Dry Cleaners



Use strong solvents to clean clothes

Probably in old days, dry cleaners inappropriately dump used chemicals

3. Factories

Used dangerous chemicals which then were intentionally or accidentally disposed of

on the property.• Many put a low value on brownfields

• Brownfields may cost too much money to clean up

o

May have future liabilities from a lawsuit

Some may claim the land made them sick and they sue

o Clean up is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency

o Some states provide incentives to clean up property

New Jersey exempts property taxes for 10 years

o Brownfields may sit unused for decades

• Many U.S. cities had factories located near the center of the city

o These cities may clean up and reuse the brownfields

o Some cities turned them into parks, part of a highway, malls, and residential properties.

o Usually prohibited use for agricultural land

• Some owners do not want to try to clean up brownfields

o

They may unbury a surprise

Before 1960s, not unusual to bury drums and tanks of toxic wastes

Sometimes railroad cars were buried too.

Then clean up costs increase substantially with new discovery

• How are sites cleaned up

o Remove the storage tanks, bins, and railroad cars.

o

Use various microbes in soils and groundwater, Microbes convert the wastes into safer products

o

Use oxidants - chemicals that contain oxygen that help speed up decomposition

o phytoremediation - uses deep-rooted plants to soak up metals from the soils

As plants mature, they are removed as hazardous wastes



Chapter 19

This chapter discusses the main policies that deal specifically with the creation, use, transportation, and disposal

of toxic substances and how those policies affect environmental justice. There are many dimensions involved

here:

•

What are appropriate ways to dispose of toxic substances?

• How can the government ensure that all waste is appropriately disposed of in a way that does not

disproportionately disadvantage some socioeconomic groups?

• How do we prevent surreptitious dumping?

• Who should clean up old sites and how should the cleanup be financed?

• Should victims be compensated for damages caused by toxic substances under the control of someone

else? If so, by whom?

• What are the appropriate roles for the legislature and the judiciary in creating the proper set of

incentives?Nature of Toxic Substance Pollution

• Cancer. While many suspect the mortality rate for cancer may be related to increased exposure to

carcinogens, proving or disproving this link is very difficult due to the latency of the disease. Latency

refers to the state of being concealed during the period between exposure to the carcinogen and the

detection of cancer. Latency periods for cancer run from 15 to 40 years, and have been known to run as

long as 75 years.

• Reproductive Effects. Tracing the influence of environmental effects on human reproduction is still a

new science. A growing body of scientific evidence, however, suggests that exposure to smoking,

alcohol, and chemicals known as endocrine disruptors may contribute to infertility, may affect the

viability of the fetus and the health of the infant after birth, and may cause genetic defects that can be

passed on for generations.

Policy Issues

• Number of Substances. Of the tens of millions of known chemical compounds, approximately 100,000

are actively used in commerce. Many exhibit little or no toxicity, and even a very toxic substance

represents little risk as long as it is isolated.

• Latency. The period of latency exhibited by many of these relationships compounds the problem. Two

kinds of toxicity are exhibited: acute and chronic. Acute toxicity is present when a short-term exposure

to the substance produces a detrimental effect on the exposed organisms. Chronic toxicity is present

when the detrimental effect arises from exposure of a continued or prolonged nature.

• Uncertainty. Another dilemma inhibiting policy makers is the uncertainty surrounding the scientific

evidence on which regulation is based. Effects uncovered by laboratory studies on animals are not

perfectly correlated with effects on humans. Large doses administered over a three-year period may not



produce the same effects as an equivalent amount spread over a 20-year period. Some of the effects are

synergistic —that is, their effects are compounded by other variable factors.

Occupational Hazards (employees)

Many occupations involve risk, including, for some people, exposure to toxic substances.

•

According to this market incentives worldview, employees will only accept work in a potentiallyhazardous environment if appropriately compensated for taking that risk. Riskier occupations should

call forth higher wages. The increase in wages should be sufficient to compensate them for the increased

risk; otherwise they will work elsewhere. These higher wages represent a real cost of the hazardous

situation to the employer. They also produce an incentive to create a safer work environment, since

greater safety would result in a lower risk premium and, hence, lower wages.

• These workers would receive higher-than-average wages (to compensate them for the increased risk), but

paying these higher wages would be cheaper to the firm (and hence, consumers) than requiring every

workplace to meet the same risk standard. The risk-averse workers would be free to choose less risky

occupations.

• The efficient solution may not always be considered the most ethical solution, a point that has been

addressed in the courts. For example, if the employee is a pregnant woman and the occupational hazard



involves potential damage to the fetus, does the expectant mother have the right to risk the unborn

child, or is some added protection for the fetus needed?

• Information on the dangers posed by exposure to a particular toxic substance is a public good to

employees; each employee has an incentive to be a free rider on the discoveries of others. Individual

employees do not have an incentive to bear the cost of doing the necessary research to uncover the

degree of risk.

Product Safety (buyers)

•

One view holds that the market pressures on both parties (consumers and producers) are sufficient to

yield an efficient level of safety. Safer products are generally more expensive to produce and carry a

higher price tag.

• This theory also suggests that the market will not (and should not) yield a uniform level of safety for all

products. Different consumers will have different degrees of risk aversion.



• The problem with the market’s ability to provide such self-regulation is the availability of information

on product safety. The consumer acquires his or her information about a product generally from

personal experience, but also from labels and warnings. With toxic substances the latency period may be

so long as to preclude any effective market reaction. Even when some damage results, it is difficult for

the consumer to associate it with a particular source. While an examination of the relationships betweenpurchasing patterns of a large number of consumers and their subsequent health might well reveal some

suggestive correlations, it would be difficult for any individual consumer to deduce this correlation.

Third Parties

• The final case involves third parties, victims who have no contractual relationship to the source. Oil

spills are one example. Another occurs when groundwater is contaminated by a neighboring wastewater

treatment facility,

• Liability law provides one judicial avenue for internalizing the external costs in third-party situations. If

the court finds (1) that damage occurred; (2) that it was caused by a toxic substance; and (3) that a

particular source was responsible for the presence of the substance, the source can be forced to

compensate the victim for the damages caused.

• In principle, liability law can force potential sources of toxic discharges, including nonpoint sources, to

choose efficient levels of precaution. Unlike regulation, liability law can provide compensation to the

victims.

• Negligence. Negligence is probably the most common legal theory used by plaintiffs to pursue claims.

This body of law suggests that the defendant (the party allegedly responsible for the contamination)

owes a duty to the plaintiff (the affected party) to exercise due care. Interestingly, the test conventionally

applied by the courts in deciding whether the defendant has exercised due care, the Learned Hand

formula, is fundamentally an economic one. Named after the judge (yes, Learned Hand!) who initially

formulated it, this test suggests that the defendant is guilty of negligence if the marginal loss caused by

the contamination, multiplied by the probability of contamination, exceeds the marginal cost of

preventing the contamination.

• Strict Liability. Strict liability can be used by plaintiffs in some states and in some circumstances.

Under this doctrine, the plaintiff does not have to prove negligence. As long as the defendant’s activity

causes damage, the defendant is declared liable even if the activity is completely legal and complies with

all relevant laws.

lecture 11 - waste disposal and recycling ii

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