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8/9/2019 Lecture 11 - Waste Disposal and Recycling II
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/lecture-11-waste-disposal-and-recycling-ii 1/7
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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• 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.