INTRODUCTION
How DO THEY DO IT ? WASTE MANAGEMENTA Simplified Viewpoint
INTRODUCTIONWhat is WASTE ?Waste is defined as a product which
is no longer used in its primary role.. which the holder then
intends to, or is required to, discard. What is WASTE
MANAGEMENT?Waste management is the collection, transport,
processing, recycling or disposal of waste materials. The term
usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and is
generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the
environment or aesthetics.
2TYPES OF WASTERADIOACTIVE WASTE PLASTIC WASTEINDUSTRIAL WASTE
BIO- MEDICAL WASTE ELECTRONIC WASTERECYCLABLE WASTEDOMESTIC
WASTECOMMERCIAL WASTEHUMAN WASTETOXIC WASTE
Municipal solid waste
Non ferrous metal2%Plastic5%Ferrous
metal4%Rubber1%Glass7%Organic waste30%Textile4%Other21%Paper and
cardboard26%With rising urbanization and change in lifestyle and
food habits, the amount of municipal solid waste has been
increasing rapidly and its composition changing. The existing
landfills are neither well equipped or well managed and are not
lined properly to protect against contamination of soil and
groundwater.
RADIOACTIVE WASTESRadioactive wastes are waste types containing
radioactive chemical elements that do not have a practical purpose.
They are usually the products of nuclear processes, such as nuclear
fission.The majority of radioactive waste is "low-level waste",
meaning it contains low levels of radioactivity per mass or
volume.This type of waste often consists of used protective
clothing, which is only slightly contaminated but still dangerous
in case of radioactive contamination of a human body through
ingestion, inhalation, absorption, or injection.In the United
States alone, the Department of Energy states there are "millions
of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of
spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of
contaminated soil and water.
TYPES OF RADIOACTIVE WASTESRemoval of very low-level wasteLow
level waste (LLW) is generated from hospitals and industry, as well
as the nuclear fuel cycle. It comprises paper, rags, tools,
clothing, filters, etc., which contain small amounts of mostly
short-lived radioactivity. High level waste (HLW) is produced by
nuclear reactors. It contains fission products and transuranic
elements generated in the reactor core.Transuranic waste (TRUW) as
defined by U.S. regulations is, without regard to form or origin,
waste that is contaminated with alpha-emitting transuranic
radionuclides with half-lives greater than 20 years, and
concentrations greater than 100 nCi/g (3.7 MBq/kg), excluding High
Level Waste.
The nature and significance of radioactive wastesRadioactive
waste typically comprises a number of radioisotopes: unstable
configurations of elements that decay, emitting ionizing radiation
which can be harmful to human health and to the environment.The
radioactivity of all nuclear waste diminishes with time. The faster
a radioisotope decays, the more radioactive it will be. The energy
and the type of the ionizing radiation emitted by a pure
radioactive substance are important factors in deciding how
dangerous it will be.This is further complicated by the fact that
many radioisotopes do not decay immediately to a stable state but
rather to a radioactive decay product leading to decay chains.
ACCIDENTS INVOLVING RADIOACTIVE WASTESA number of incidents have
occurred when radioactive material was disposed of improperly,
shielding during transport was defective, or when it was simply
abandoned or even stolen from a waste store.At Maxey Flat, a
low-level radioactive waste facility located in Kentucky,
containment trenches covered with dirt, instead of steel or cement,
collapsed under heavy rainfall into the trenches and filled with
water.The scavengers and those who buy the material are almost
always unaware that the material is radioactive and it is selected
for its aesthetics or scrap value.WASTE MANAGEMENT CONCEPTThere are
a number of concepts about waste management which vary in their
usage between countries or regions.Waste hierarchy - the waste
hierarchy refers to the "3 Rs" reduce, reuse and recycle, which
classify waste management strategies according to their
desirability in terms of waste minimization. Extended Producer
Responsibility (EPR) is a strategy designed to promote the
integration of all costs associated with products throughout their
life cycle (including end-of-life disposal costs) into the market
price of the product.Extended producer responsibility is meant to
impose accountability over the entire lifecycle of products and
packaging introduced to the market.Polluter pays principle - the
Polluter Pays Principle is a principle where the polluting party
pays for the impact caused to the environment.With respect to waste
management, this generally refers to the requirement for a waste
generator to pay for appropriate disposal of the waste.
Plastic wasteThe quantum of solid waste is ever increasing due
to increase in population, developmental activities, changes in
life style, and socio-economic conditions.Plastics waste is a
significant portion of the total municipal solid waste (MSW).The
plastics waste constitutes two major category of plastics; (i)
Thermoplastics and (ii) Thermoset plastics.Thermoplastics,
constitutes 80% and thermoset constitutes approximately 20% of
total post-consumer plastics waste generated in India. However,
thermoset plastics contains alkyd, epoxy, ester, melamine
formaldehyde, phenolic formaldehyde, silicon, urea formaldehyde,
polyurethane, metalised and multilayer plastics etc
Management of plastic wasteA MARVEL of polymer chemistry,
plastics have become an indispensable part of our daily life. The
importance of this sector to the national economy can be gauged
from the fact that the domestic demand is expected to cross 4
million tonnes by 2001-2002, confirming plastics as the material of
choice in numerous applications due to depletion of already scarce
natural resources.The Government of Himachal Pradesh was one of the
earliest to introduce legislation prohibiting the throwing or
disposing of plastic articles in public places. Recycling of
plastic waste is a major activity in India through which thousands
of families earn a livelihood.
1213Ocean DumpingSource: The Independent
Sanitary Landfills
RefuseReduceReuseRecycleThe 4 Rs
REFUSEInstead of buying new containers from the market, use the
ones that are in the house. Refuse to buy new items though you may
think they are prettier than the ones you already have.REUSEDo not
throw away the soft drink cans or the bottles; cover them with
homemade paper or paint on them and use them as pencil stands or
small vases.
RECYCLEUse shopping bags made of cloth or jute, which can be
used over and over again.
REDUCE Reduce the generation of unnecessary waste, e.g. carry
your own shopping bag when you go to the market and put all your
purchases directly into it.
Waste handling and transport
Waste collection methods vary widely among different countries
and regions. Domestic waste collection services are often provided
by local government authorities, or by private companies in the
industry. Some areas, especially those in less developed countries,
do not have a formal waste-collection system. Examples of waste
handling systems include:InEuropeand a few other places around the
world, a few communities use a proprietary collection system known
asEnvac, which conveys refuse via underground conduits using a
vacuum system. Other vacuum-based solutions include the
MetroTaifun[3]single-line and ring-line automatic waste collection
system, where the waste is automatically collected through
relatively small diameter flexible pipes from waste collection
points spread out up to a distance of four kilometres from the
waste collections stations.InCanadianurban centrescurbside
collectionis the most common method of disposal, whereby the city
collects waste and/or recyclables and/or organics on a scheduled
basis. In rural areas people often dispose of their waste by
hauling it to a transfer station. Waste collected is then
transported to a regional landfill.InChina, Plastic pyrolysis or
Tirepyrolysisis: the process of converting waste plastic/tires into
industrial fuels likepyrolysis oil, carbon black and hydrocarbon
gas.End products are used as industrial fuels for producing heat,
steam or electricity. Pyrolysis plant is also known as: pyrolysis
unit, plastic to fuel industry, tire to fuel industry, plastic and
tire recycling unit etc.The system is used in USA, California,
Australia, Greece, Mexico, the United Kingdom and in Israel.For
example, RESEM pyrolysis plant that has been operational atTexasUSA
since December 2011, and processes up to 60 tons per day.
Can We Dispose of Radioactive Waste in Volcanoes?
Dumping all our nuclear waste in a volcano does seem like a neat
solution for destroying the roughly 29,000 tons of spent uranium
fuel rods stockpiled around the world. But there's a critical
standard that a volcano would have to meet to properly dispose of
the stuff, explains Charlotte Rowe, a volcano geophysicist at Los
Alamos National Laboratory. And that standard is heat. The lava
would have to not only melt the fuel rods but also strip the
uranium of its radioactivity."Unfortunately volcanoes just aren't
very hot."Lava in the hottest volcanoes tops out at around 2,400F.
(These tend to be shield volcanoes, so named for their relatively
flat, broad profile. The Hawaiian Islands continue to be formed by
this type of volcano.) It takes temperatures that are tens of
thousands of degrees hotter than that to split uranium's atomic
nuclei and alter its radioactivity to make it inert, Rowe says.
What you need is a thermonuclear reaction, like an atomic bombnot a
great way to dispose of nuclear waste.Volcanoes aren't hot enough
to melt the zirconium (melting point 3,371) that encases the fuel,
let alone the fuel itself: The melting point of uranium oxide, the
fuel used at most nuclear power plants, is 5,189. The liquid lava
in a shield volcano pushes upward, so the rods probably wouldn't
even sink very deep, Rowe says. They wouldn't sink at all in a
stratovolcano, the most explosive type, exemplified by Washington's
Mount St. Helens. Instead, the waste would just sit on top of the
volcano's hard lava domeat least until the pressure from up surging
magma became so great that the dome cracked and the volcano
erupted. And that's the real problem.A regular lava flow is
hazardous enough, but the lava pouring out of a volcano used as a
nuclear storage facility would be extremely radioactive. Eventually
it would harden, turning that mountain's slopes into a nuclear
wasteland for decades to come. And the danger would extend much
farther. "All volcanoes do is spew stuff upward,". "During a big
eruption, ash and gas can shoot six miles into the air and
afterward circle the globe several times. We'd all be in serious
trouble."
Why Cant We Launch Garbage into Space?
Now wouldnt that be a tidy solution to a big problem? Gather
together all the garbage, bundle it up and fire it off into space.
Maybe just dump it into the Sun. We could live in a world without
trash.There are just two problems: humans produce an enormous
amount of garbage; and rocket launches are extremely expensive.Its
been estimated that launching material on the space shuttle costs
about $10,000/pound ($22,000/kg). Even if engineers could bring
down prices by a factor of 10, it would still be thousands of
dollars to launch the garbage into space. Lets imagine a wonderful
dream world, where launch costs could be brought down to $1,000/kg
a factor of 1/20th the cost to launch on the space shuttle.It has
also been estimated that the United States alone produces 208
million metric tonnes of garbage per day per day! So, to launch all
that trash into space would cost the United States $208 trillion
per day per day!The gross domestic product of the United States was
$13.13 trillion in 2006, which works out to be about $36 billion a
day. In other words, the United States would need to spend 5,800
times its daily gross domestic budget, just to launch its trash
into space.What about nuclear waste? A nuclear reactor releases
about 25-30 tonnes of spent fuel every year. With our dream budget
of $1,000/kg, that would cost about $25 million to launch a single
reactors waste into orbit. According to Wikipedia, there are63
operating reactorsin the US, so it would cost about $1.6
billion/year to dispose of the nuclear waste generated.
CONCLUSIONWaste Management is crucial issue that needs
governmental attention immediately, the practices used in your
country to generate waste are too dangerous not only for our selves
but they could be disastrous for our children. At present very
little awareness exists amongst the stakeholders, it is crucial to
educate people and convince them to adopt practices for reduce,
reuse and recycle rather then generating
crapBIBLIOGRAPHYhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WastemanagementBritannica
Encyclopedia
http://www.tvhistory.tv/index.htmlwww.howstuffworks.com
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