CHAPTER 23 Hazardous and Solid Wastes: Sustainablemyresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/SCI275r7/Environmental... · hazardous waste was seen as a sign of progress. ... in particular

T he 3M Corporation, headquartered in Minnesota, is a model ofcorporate ingenuity and foresight. In 1975, the company starteda Pollution Prevention Pays program designed to reduce solid

and hazardous waste generated by the company. By substituting lesstoxic or nontoxic chemicals for solvents, by recycling everything theycould, and by modifying manufacturing processes, 3M has madesubstantial cuts. From 1990 to 2009, 3M has cut global emissionsof carbon dioxide by 77%. They have reduced the emission of volatileorganic chemicals (VOCs) by 96% since 1990. VOCs contribute tophotochemical smog and many are toxic to humans and otherspecies. The company has reduced solid waste by 68%. They havemade great strides in reducing water pollution, too. All in all, the com-pany has eliminated the release of more than 3 billion pounds of

Hazardous and SolidWastes: SustainableSolutionsHazardous Wastes:

Coming to Terms with theProblemManaging HazardousWastesSolid Wastes:Understanding theProblemSolving a GrowingProblem SustainablySpotlight on SustainableDevelopment 23-1: PlantsClean Up Toxic Chemicals

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23.3

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

CHAPTER 23

519

CRITICAL THINKING

ExerciseAs a hazardous-waste manager of a chemicalcompany, you are faced with a dilemma. Yourcompany produces over 400,000 pounds ofhighly toxic waste annually. The cost of dis-posal is several million dollars. An officialfrom a new waste disposal firm contacts youand says that he can dispose of the waste athalf the cost. When you ask him where it isgoing, he says that it will be shipped to a de-veloping nation, where it will be incinerated.He tells you that pollution controls on the in-cinerator where the waste will be burned arenot as sophisticated as those on the oneowned by the U.S. disposal company you’vealways used, but it doesn’t really matter be-cause there’s so little toxic waste burned inthe country anyway. What choice do youmake? What factors will affect your choice?

pollutants. These and other actions taken by thecompany saved more than $1.4 billion between1975 and 2009.

Although interest in reducing waste by recy-cling and using resources more efficiently is in-creasing, businesses are a long way from tappinginto the full potential of this strategy. Many con-tinue to throw away millions of tons of perfectlyusable material, including cardboard, wood, of-fice paper, and metals. Moreover, some companiescontinue to illegally and irresponsibly dump haz-ardous waste into the air, water, and soil.

This chapter discusses solid and hazardouswastes. Like other chapters in this book, it showshow individuals, businesses, and governmentshave traditionally addressed the problem of wasteand how limited these strategies are. It will alsoshow more sustainable approaches, measures thatmake sense from social, economic, and environ-mental perspectives.

Hazardous Wastes: Coming toTerms with the Problem

Hazardous wastes are waste products of homes, factories,businesses, military installations, and other facilities thatpose a threat to people and the environment. They are toxic,

23.1

carcinogenic, or mutagenic. For many years, pollution likehazardous waste was seen as a sign of progress. Today, manyindividuals view pollution in general and hazardous wastein particular as signs of unsustainable technologies or un-sustainable industrial systems (FIGURE 23-1).

KEY CONCEPTS

Love Canal: The AwakeningThe severity of the U.S. hazardous-waste problem caughtthe attention of the American public in the 1970s when toxicchemicals began to ooze out of a hazardous-waste dumpknown as Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. The storyof Love Canal began in the 1880s, when William T. Lovebegan digging a canal that would run from the Niagara Riverjust above Niagara Falls to a point on the river below thefalls. The canal was built to divert water to an electric powerplant to supply future industrial facilities that would be builtalong its banks. Unfortunately for Love, the canal was nevercompleted. Only a small remnant of the canal remained inthe early 1900s. In 1942, the Hooker Chemical Companysigned an agreement with the canal’s owner to dump haz-ardous wastes into the abandoned canal. In 1946, Hookerbought the site, and from 1947 to 1952 it disposed of over20,000 metric tons (22,000 tons) of highly toxic and car-cinogenic wastes, including dioxin.

In 1952, the story took an ironic twist. In that year thecity of Niagara Falls began condemnation proceedings on theproperty. This legal maneuver would allow the city to ac-quire the land to build an elementary school and residentialcommunity. Hooker sold the land to the city for $1 in

Hazardous wastes come from a variety of sources, among themfactories and even our homes. These toxic materials are nowviewed as signs of unsustainable practices.

FIGURE 23-1 Toxic hot spot in Stratford, CT. Inactive industrialsites like this one are often contaminated by a variety of haz-ardous chemicals. Cleanup of such sites can easily cost severalmillion dollars.

520 PART V. Learning to Live with the Earth’s Carrying Capacity

CHAPTER 23: Hazardous and Solid Wastes: Sustainable Solutions 521

exchange for a release from any future liability. Hooker in-sists that it warned against construction on the dump site it-self, but it allegedly never disclosed the real danger of buildingon it. Before turning the land over to the city, Hooker sealedthe pit with a clay cap and topsoil, once thought sufficientto protect hazardous-waste dumps.

Troubles began in January 1954, however, when work-ers removed the clay cap during the construction of theschool. In the late 1950s,rusting and leaking barrelsof toxic waste began to sur-face. Children playing nearthem suffered chemicalburns; some became ill and died. Hooker said that it hadwarned the school board not to let children play in con-taminated areas, but the company apparently made no effortto warn local residents of the potential problems.

The problem continued for years. Chemical fumes tookthe bark off trees and killed grass and plants in vegetablegardens. Smelly pools of toxins welled up on the surface. Inthe early 1970s, after a period of heavy rainfall, basementsin homes near the dump began to flood with a thick, blacksludge of toxic chemicals. The chemical smells in homesaround the dump site became intolerable.

Tests in 1978 on water, air, and soil in the area de-tected 82 different chemical contaminants, a dozen ofwhich were known or suspected carcinogens. In that sameyear, the state health department found that nearly one ofevery three pregnant women in the area had miscarried, arate much higher than expected. Birth defects were ob-served in 5 of 24 children. Another study, released in 1979by Dr. Beverly Paigen of the Roswell Cancer Institute,showed that over half of the children born between 1974and 1978 to families living in areas where groundwaterwas leaching toxic chemicals from the dump had birth de-fects. In this study, the overall incidence of birth defectsin the Love Canal area was 1 in 5, compared with a nor-mal rate of less than 1 in 10. The miscarriage rate was 25in 100, compared with 8 in 100 for women moving into thearea. Asthma was four times as prevalent in contaminatedareas as in uncontaminated areas in the region; the inci-dence of urinary and convulsive disorders was almostthree times higher than expected. The incidence of nasaland sinus infections, respiratory diseases, rashes, andheadaches was also elevated.

As a result of public outcry, the school was soon closed.The state fenced off the canal and evacuated several hundredfamilies (FIGURE 23-2). President Carter declared the site a dis-aster area. In May 1980, a new study revealed high levels ofgenetic damage among residents living near the canal. Anadditional 780 families were evacuated from outlying areas.

In 1987, the EPA announced plans to clean the sewersand dredge two creeks in the Love Canal area to remove sed-iments contaminated with toxins. In 1988 and 1989, thecreeks were diverted so they would dry. Bulldozers then re-moved the top 18 inches of mud, which was burned by thecompany in a special incinerator built especially for thisproject. All told, about 35,000 cubic meters of sediment was

burned, making this the largest single application of thermaldestruction in modern history. The removal of the sedimentscost $13 million, and sewer cleanup added another $5 mil-lion to the price tag. Incineration of the sediment cost over$26 million. Love Canal cost the state of New York and thefederal government approximately $272 million for cleanup,relocation of residents, and other expenses.

A 1980 study by the EPA showed that chemical con-tamination was pretty much limited to the canal area (theactual dump), an area immediately south of it, and two rowsof houses on either side of the canal (FIGURE 23-3). The lastgroup of residents to be evacuated, the report said, were prob-ably moved out unnecessarily. The EPA study also showed thatthe dump had contaminated shallow groundwater but notdeeper aquifers. The EPA concluded that further migrationof toxic chemicals was highly unlikely. Based on this studyand other work, the EPA and the state of New York declaredtwo-thirds of the evacuated Love Canal site “habitable” andproposed to sell the houses. Over 260 homes were reno-vated and sold to new owners. Approximately 150 acres eastof the site have been sold for light industrial use. Lois Gibbs,the Love Canal resident largely responsible for drawing pub-lic attention to the disaster and getting the state and federalgovernments to take action, argues that the decision to resettlethe area was improperly made. In fact, she claims that inassessing the habitability of the Love Canal site, the NewYork State Health Department compared it to only two othersites, both badly contaminated by industrial wastes, anddeemed it suitable for resettlement. Gibbs warns that reset-tling Love Canal will put more people at risk. According toGibbs, 18,000 metric tons (20,000 tons) of hazardous wastestill remain at the site. It will take 20,000 years for thesewastes to decompose. So far, there have been no medicalconcerns among new residents.

FIGURE 23-2 The price of pollution. Houses awaiting the bull-dozer in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, New York. Thistragedy not only cost the government (and taxpayers) millions ofdollars, it also resulted in considerable disruption of people’s livesas families were forced from their homes.

GO GREEN

Recycle oil from your car engine,if you change it yourself.


KEY CONCEPTS

The Dimensions of the ProblemIn the years following the Love Canal incident, health officialsfound that Love Canal was not an isolated incident, but justthe tip of an enormous hazardous-waste iceberg. In 1989,the EPA announced that the number of hazardous-waste siteswas approximately 32,000. The General Accounting Officeestimated that the number of hazardous-waste sites could bemuch higher, perhaps 100,000 to 400,000. These estimatesdo not include the 17,000 hazardous-waste hot spots on U.S.

Love Canal was a hazardous-waste disposal site in Niagara Falls,New York, similar to many others around the world. Leakagefrom the site caused serious health problems in residents livingnear it. The incident alerted the public and government officialsto the problem of improper hazardous-waste disposal.

military bases. Hazardous wastes have also been mixedwith oils that are sprayed on dirt and gravel roads in ruralareas to prevent dust. Tens of thousands, perhaps hun-dreds of thousands, of badly contaminated sites may existin Europe, especially in the former Eastern Bloc nations andthe nations that once were part of the Soviet Union. Canadais home to many contaminated sites, too. One of the worstof all is the Sydney steel plant in Nova Scotia. For nearly

100 years, the plant’s operators dumped waste from itsoperations in a nearby creek. Today, 34 hectares (85acres) of the tidal flats where the creek opens onto theocean contain an estimated 500,000 metric tons(454,000 tons) of toxic coal-tar from the facility. Cleanupwas estimated to cost $35 million, but the task provedfar more difficult and far more costly than anticipated.At this writing, the federal and provincial governmentshave spent over $52 million cleaning up the site and arestill not finished. Findings such as these have fueledwidespread concern about cancer.

Making matters worse, each year U.S. factoriescreate an estimated 32 million metric tons (35 mil-lion tons) of hazardous waste from large facilities—about one metric ton for every man, woman, and

child.1 But the United States is not alone. Eu-ropean countries and many less developed na-tions also produce tens of millions of tons ofhazardous waste each year. In 1985, 90% of thehazardous wastes in the United States wereimproperly disposed of, according to one es-timate. This waste ended up in abandonedwarehouses; in rivers, streams, and lakes; inleaky landfills that contaminate groundwater;in fields and forests; and along highways. No

current estimates are available, but the percentageis now believed to be much lower.

Nevertheless, improper waste disposal has left behinda long list of costly effects: (1) groundwater contamination,(2) well closures, (3) habitat destruction, (4) human dis-ease, (5) soil contamination, (6) fish kills, (7) livestock dis-ease, (8) sewage treatment plant damage, (9) town closures,and (10) difficult or impossible cleanups. Irresponsibleand ill-conceived waste disposal continuing today willcreate a legacy of polluted groundwater and contaminatedland that could persist for decades, perhaps centuries.

Three decades after the United States first awakened tothe hazardous-waste issue, most experts believe that the na-tion is in for a much longer, more difficult battle than oncewas anticipated. Why? There are many more sites that are farmore difficult to deal with than anybody ever anticipated. Theprice tag could also be much higher than expected. The U.S.

The Love Canal study area

Declaration area

Dec

lara

tion

area

Dec

lara

tion

area

Rin

g 2

Rin

g 2

FIGURE 23-3 Love Canal.Area within the green rectangle was closed off, and numerous families were evacuated after health studies showed elevated incidence of birth defects, stillbirths, and a variety of symptoms most likely attributable to toxic wastes from the hazardous-waste dump. Residents were also evac-uated from an outer region (the declaration area); but, tests haveshown that hazardous wastes have not migrated into this area andthat these residents may have been unnecessarily evacuated.

1 This includes only facilities that produce over 1,000 kilograms(450 pounds) of hazardous waste per year. Thousands of smallerfacilities also generate hazardous waste but are not required to re-port it.

Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) estimates that itwill cost $100 billion to clean up the 10,000 sites in theUnited States that pose a serious threat to health. Researchersat the University of Tennessee estimate the cleanup of allhazardous-waste sites in the United States by state and fed-eral programs will cost $750 billion.

KEY CONCEPTS

LUST—It’s Not What You ThinkYou feel dizzy. Your head spins. Your insides ache. You haven’tbeen yourself for weeks. What may be ailing you is LUST—but not the usual kind. Your symptoms may be caused by thelatest in a long list of hazardous chemical problems: ground-water pollution from a leaking underground storage tank,which EPA’s top acronymists dubbed LUST. Some time later,no doubt responding to complaints from citizens vigilantfor political correctness, they dropped the L, leaving UST: un-derground storage tanks.

Generally concentrated in heavily developed urban andsuburban areas, underground storage tanks are used pri-marily to store petroleum products such as gasoline, dieselfuel, and fuel oil. They’re found at gas stations, factories,and homes. Some are used to store hazardous wastes, too.

The problem with tanks is that moisture and soil acid-ity gradually corrode the steel they’re made of, causing themto deteriorate over time and leak petroleum byproducts,

The problem with hazardous wastes is twofold. First, tens ofthousands of hazardous-waste sites are in need of cleanup in theUnited States and other countries. These sites contaminategroundwater and can affect the health of people who live nearbyand consume the water. Cleaning them up will cost many billionsof dollars. Second, factories continue to generate millions oftons of hazardous waste each year.

toxic chemicals, and haz-ardous wastes. The mainconcern is the potential ef-fect on groundwater and hu-man health. Even a smallleak can contaminate largequantities of groundwater.For example, 1.5 cups of hazardous liquid leaking out of atank per hour can contaminate nearly 4 million liters (over1 million gallons) of groundwater in a day. Contaminatedgroundwater is very difficult—sometimes impossible—andexpensive to clean up.

Contaminated groundwater poses a problem to people andanimals (such as livestock) that drink it. Contaminated drink-ing water used for baths and showers can also be dangerous.Benzene, a component of gasoline that can cause cancer, is ab-sorbed through the skin when bathing. Showering generatesdangerous vapors that can cause skin and eye irritation.

Although there are many sources of groundwater con-tamination, according to the U.S. EPA, leaking undergroundstorage tanks are the number one cause of groundwater pol-lution, followed by landfills (FIGURE 23-4). A small leak cango undetected for long periods, causing considerable con-tamination. According to the EPA, the most significant ef-fects are seen in the shallow aquifers, the ones domestic wateris typically drawn from. A report by the New York Departmentof Environmental Conservation suggests that at least half ofthe state’s underground steel tanks containing petroleumproducts that are over 15 years old may be leaking. Nation-wide, 3 to 5 million underground storage tanks containing haz-ardous materials dot the United States. Since the undergroundstorage program began, 488,000 leaky tanks have been dis-covered. As of the end of 2009, about 80% or more than 388,000have been cleaned up, leaving 100,000 to be addressed. In2009, however, an additional 7,000 leaking tanks were

Injection well

Pumpingwell Sewer leakage

Factory

Ground water movement

Intentional input

Unintentional input

Leaky storage tank

Landfill

Septic tank Irrigation water containing pollutants

PesticideBuried fuel tank

Water table

Municipal well

Cesspooldischarge

Confining zoneShallow aquifer

Deep aquifer (fresh)

Confining zone

Leakage

Discharge of injection

FIGURE 23-4 Source of groundwater pollution. Groundwater is contaminated by a variety of sources such as septic tanks, farms,and abandoned industrial sites.

GO GREEN

Take unwanted paint, stains,finishes, and other hazardouschemicals to recycling or dis-posal facilities.


discovered, but the number of new leaking tanks discoveredeach year has dropped dramatically since the program began.

Major oil companies have already spent millions to cleanup polluted groundwater and soil and to install new tanksat gas stations. The cost of such actions can be exorbitant.Chevron alone estimates its replacement costs at about $100million. Unfortunately, half of U.S. service stations are ownedby independent dealers who generally are not financiallyable to replace the leaking tanks.

About 90% of the cleanup and replacement of leakingunderground storage tanks is being financed and performedby private industry. The rest falls on the shoulders of thestates. The EPA sets guidelines for cleanup and replacementand also provides financial assistance to help states. Today,all 50 states have created funds to pay for their part of thecleanup cost. State and federal funds are derived from taxeson gasoline.

KEY CONCEPTS

Managing Hazardous WastesTwo hazardous-waste problems face virtually all industrialnations and, to a lesser extent, the less developed countries(LDCs). First, how do they clean up existing hazardous-waste sites, leaking storage tanks, and polluted ground-water? Second, how do they deal with the enormous amountsof hazardous waste produced each year to avoid creatingnew sites and further contamination of groundwater?

The first problem requires immediate action. It’s oneplace where the Band-Aid approach is appropriate. That said,all solutions that fall into this category must be sustainable;they must not merely shift the problem from one location (acontaminated factory site) to another (a landfill where thehazardous wastes are dumped). The second problem calls forlong-term preventive measures that eliminate the productionof wastes.

KEY CONCEPTS

The Superfund Act: Cleaning Up Past MistakesIn June 1983, the 2,400 residents of the town of Times Beach,Missouri, agreed to sell their 800 homes and 30 businessesto the federal government for $35 million. Why? The roadsin Times Beach, like those elsewhere, had been sprayed with

Addressing the issue of hazardous waste requires both plans toclean up contaminated sites and preventive actions to greatlyreduce or eliminate hazardous-waste production in the firstplace.

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Hundreds of thousands of underground storage tanks have beeninstalled in industrial nations and are used to store many po-tentially toxic substances such as gasoline, diesel fuel, haz-ardous waste, and heating oil. Over time, steel tanks corrode andbegin to leak, contaminating groundwater used for cookingfood, drinking, and bathing.

oil containing hazardous wastes, including dioxin. How didthe oil get contaminated?

As noted earlier in the chapter, unscrupulous hazardous-waste disposal companies had mixed toxic chemical wasteswith waste oil and then spread it on dirt roads to controldust. In Times Beach, the dioxin levels in the soil were 100to 300 times higher than levels considered harmful duringlong-term exposure. The town had to go, and the federalgovernment bought it. Today, Times Beach is a ghost townbordered by a tall chain-link fence. Its only occupants are oc-casional EPA officials or scientists from companies that areexploring ways to detoxify the soil.

The $35 million purchase price for this contaminatedpiece of real estate came from a special fund known as the Su-perfund. It was created in 1980 by the Comprehensive Envi-ronmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act,CERCLA for short. Commonly called the Superfund Act, it andits two amendments (1986 and 1990) established a $16.3 bil-lion fund financed by state and federal governments and by taxeson chemical and oil companies. In 1995, though, the tax on busi-nesses expired and continued funding (about $1.2 billion/year)has come from general tax revenues and from companies re-sponsible for hazardous-waste sites. The money is earmarkedto clean up both leaking underground storage tanks that aredeemed a threat to human health and abandoned and inac-tive hazardous-waste sites, including hazardous-waste dumps,landfills, and contaminated factories, mines, and mills. Un-fortunately many regions still lack the money required to cleanup sites, so a lot of work is on hold.

Under CERCLA, the EPA is authorized to collect finesfrom parties responsible for the contamination—totaling upto three times the cleanup cost. Thus, this law makes own-ers and operators of hazardous-waste dump sites and con-taminated areas, as well as their customers, responsible forcleanup costs and property damage. Under the law, all busi-nesses, hospitals, schools, cities, and other parties that de-posited hazardous waste at a site are liable for a portion ofthe cleanup cost, based on the type and the volume of wastethey deposited. CERCLA requires a sharing of costs even atlicensed hazardous-waste disposal facilities where hazardouswastes were legally disposed of in previous years. As one in-dustry representative put it, “You are liable for your waste for-ever.” If a company or party is no longer in business, theremaining parties must pay the cost.

Superfund has clearly had an impact. As of 2007, over347 sites have been cleaned up and work continues on an-other 1,156 sites.

KEY CONCEPTS

Problems with the Superfund Program Despite these suc-cesses, the Superfund program has been riddled with prob-lems. One of the most significant is cost. Stabilizing a leaking

The Superfund Act provides money to clean up hazardous-wastedumps and other contaminated sites. This money comes from atax on oil and petrochemicals and is replenished by fees chargedto those responsible for the contamination, including the own-ers and operators of waste sites and the companies that paid tohave their waste disposed of in them.


pond designed to hold hazardous wastes costs the EPA$500,000. A study to determine what chemicals are leakingfrom a site can cost $800,000.

A second problem is that it has created a legal night-mare, described as a “massive web of litigation between theEPA, waste depositors, and insurance companies.” Of thefunds paid in the years the program has been operating,nearly 60% have been for legal fees. This money has largelybeen spent on identifying liable parties to get them to pay theirfair share—not on cleanup.

Initial mismanagement by top EPA officials also delayedserious action by the agency in the early years. Officials ne-gotiated with owners of hazardous-waste dumps to beginprivate cleanups, but critics say that they let some compa-nies off too easily and required only superficial cleanups.Officials waived future liability in some cases. Thus, if prob-lems develop in the future, companies will bear no respon-sibility. Investigations conducted in 1983 led the EPA’s topleadership to resign or be fired because of the issue. OneEPA official went to jail for perjury.

The Superfund Act has also been criticized because, al-though it provides money for cleanup and financial com-pensation for property damage, it fails to provide avenuesfor victims of illegal dumping of hazardous wastes andtheir families to be compensated for personal injury ordeath. According to former senator George Mitchell, “Un-der the legislation, it’s all right to hurt people, but nottrees.” Many people believe that a fund similar to worker’scompensation is needed for victims.

According to the OTA, the EPA has often opted for quick-fix solutions to clean up areas. Three-quarters of the cleanups,they say, are inadequate in the long term. In Love Canal, forinstance, the EPA simply put a clay cap over the dump site anddug a ditch around it to collect hazardous wastes that escape.In other sites, contaminated soil was excavated and hauled offto another landfill. Incineration and biological destruction ofthe wastes might have been more long-lasting solutions.

KEY CONCEPTS

Alternative Cleanup Funding Options Some critics ofCERCLA argue that the law has created an adversarial rela-tionship among many parties that is counterproductive andinefficient. Too much money is spent on litigation and toolittle on cleanup. Although critical of CERCLA, these indi-viduals do not suggest we abandon the program, only thatwe find options that put the money to better use.

One proposal calls for a federal hazardous-waste taxlevied on each ton of hazardous waste disposed of, incin-erated, or treated. This money would generate revenuefor cleanup of the most heavily contaminated sites. Therewould be no need to try to assign responsibility for con-

The cleanup of hazardous-waste sites under the Superfund Acthas proven extremely slow, costly, and litigious. Much of themoney spent has gone to legal fees. The Superfund Act has beencriticized because it provides money for cleaning up property butno compensation for health damage. Many of the cleanups areconsidered inadequate.

tamination and no need for the lengthy litigation that of-ten results.

The American Association of Property and Casualty In-surers has proposed funding cleanup via a small fee on eachnew commercial insurance policy written in the UnitedStates. Their calculations suggest that this would generatemore than $4 billion a year that could be used for cleanup.Both this and the previous alternative might allow the EPAto redirect its efforts to cleanup.

KEY CONCEPTS

What to Do with Today’s Waste:Preventing Future ProblemsThe high cost of cleanup strongly suggests the need for ac-tive preventive measures to avoid further contamination.Several possibilities exist.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act: PreventingImproper Disposal Cleaning up hazardous-waste sites isan essential first step in protecting health and creating a sus-tainable future. It should help reduce further contamina-tion of groundwater. Efforts are also needed to prevent illegaland improper waste disposal. In 1976, the U.S. Congresspassed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act(RCRA). This law is designed to monitor hazardous wasteto eliminate illegal and improper waste disposal.

Under RCRA, the EPA was designated the nation’s haz-ardous-waste watchdog. The EPA’s first role was to deter-mine which wastes were hazardous. RCRA also called onthe agency to establish a na-tionwide reporting systemfor all companies handlinghazardous chemicals. Thisrequirement created a trailof paperwork that follows hazardous wastes from the mo-ment they are generated to the moment they are disposedof—a so-called cradle-to-grave tracking. Congress believedthat this requirement would make it difficult for waste gen-erators to dump hazardous wastes improperly. RCRA alsodirected the EPA to set industry-wide standards for pack-aging, shipping, and disposing of wastes. Only licensed fa-cilities could receive wastes.

Unfortunately, RCRA’s implementation has been slow. Itwas not until 4 years after Congress adopted the law thatthe EPA came up with its first hazardous-waste regulations.To the dismay of many, the regulations were full of loop-holes, and about 40 million metric tons (44 million tons) ofpollutants annually escaped control.

Because of public pressure, in 1984, Congress passeda set of amendments to eliminate RCRA’s loopholes andensure proper waste disposal. For example, under the orig-inal law, if a company produced under 1,000 kilograms

Rather than spending millions of dollars to identify responsibleparties, the Superfund program might work better with a no-faultpolicy—one that provides funds to clean up sites regardless ofwho is liable.


GO GREEN

Use nontoxic cleaning agents,paints, stains, and finishes.

(2,200 pounds) of hazardous wastes per month, it coulddump them in a local landfill. The amendments changedthe rules so that any individual or company that generatedmore than 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of hazardous wastea year must follow the same guidelines imposed on largewaste producers.

The 1984 amendments also declared a national policyto reduce or eliminate land disposal of hazardous waste.Congress made it clear that land disposal technologies mustbe a last resort. The 1984 amendments gave preference toreuse, recycling, detoxification (such as incineration), andother measures discussed shortly. These approaches arebringing the United States closer to a sustainable waste man-agement system.

The 1984 amendments to RCRA also addressed leakingunderground storage tanks. After May 1985, for example, allnewly installed underground tanks had to be protected fromcorrosion for the life of the tank. The lining of the tank mustconsist of materials compatible with stored substances. Fur-thermore, owners and operators must have methods for de-tecting leaks, must take corrective action when leaks occur,and must report all actions.

KEY CONCEPTS

Weaknesses in RCRA Despite these changes, RCRA stillhas many loopholes. Some critics believe that its definitionof hazardous wastes is too narrow. Michael Picker of the Na-tional Toxics Campaign, for example, thinks that municipalwaste (garbage) should be classified as hazardous waste be-cause it contains toxic chemicals such as pesticides, ore, andheavy metals like lead (from batteries). Leachates (watercontaining contaminants) seeping from some municipallandfills are as toxic as those coming from regulated hazardous-waste facilities. According to John Young of theWorldwatch Institute, more than one of every five hazardous-waste sites on the U.S. Superfund cleanup list is a munici-pal landfill.

Picker also thinks that sewage and untreated waste-water handled by publicly owned sewage treatment plantsshould be considered a hazardous waste. Toxic chemicals inthe sewer system, released by factories (legally and ille-gally) and homeowners, can escape into the air and intowaterways. Agricultural wastes, mostly pesticides, are alsonot regulated. In California, for example, rules require thatleftover pesticides be diluted and sprayed into the envi-ronment. Mill and mine tailings are also excluded frommost regulatory control. By expanding the definition ofwhat is toxic and by instituting better controls, the gov-ernment could greatly cut back on the influx of hazardousmaterials into the environment.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act established a na-tionwide reporting system to monitor hazardous wastes fromtheir production until their disposal. This provision seeks toeliminate illegal and improper hazardous-waste disposal. Recentamendments call for an elimination of land disposal of haz-ardous wastes and regulations to prevent leaking undergroundstorage tanks.

One lesson environmentalists have learned in the past4 decades is that passing a law is not a guarantee of protec-tion. Why not? For one thing, agencies responsible for ad-ministering and enforcing new laws don’t always performas they are instructed. Some drag their feet because theydon’t approve of the law. Additionally, agencies may be sounderfunded and so overworked that they can’t take onnew responsibilities or, if they do, they do a shoddy job.The EPA is a case in point. Understaffed and underfunded,the EPA today struggles to implement RCRA and the hand-ful of other laws aimed at protecting public health and theenvironment. Since the agency was formed, its workloadhas more than doubled, but funding has until quite recentlyremained at more or less the same level (adjusted for infla-tion). EPA’s funding was drastically scaled back under theBush administration.

KEY CONCEPTS

Exporting Toxic Troubles Another lesson we’ve learned inthe last few decades is that tough environmental legislationoften has unanticipated effects elsewhere. For example, reg-ulations that add to the cost of disposing of hazardous wasteshave caused some companies to find ways to prevent wasteproduction, but the very same regulations have caused un-scrupulous companies to illegally dump their wastes or to ex-port toxic wastes (including incinerator ash) abroad. In the1980s, these wastes often ended up in cash-hungry LDCs orEastern Bloc nations, neither of which had adequate lawsrequiring proper hazardous-waste disposal. Today, Euro-pean and U.S. companies are believed to be the most heav-ily involved in illegally exporting toxic wastes. Because thetrade is presumed to take place illicitly, no reliable recordsexist regarding the quantities of materials being exported. Inthe United States, the export of hazardous wastes is not onlycommon, it is on the rise, according to Hilary French of theWorldwatch Institute. The problem with exporting waste isthat many of the countries that receive waste don’t knowwhat is in it, don’t know how toxic the materials really are,and don’t have facilities to store it or dispose of it properly.

In 1986, Congress amended RCRA by establishing pro-cedures to notify importing countries and obtain prior writ-ten consent. However, these regulations may be insufficientand EPA officials think that hundreds of tons of hazardouswastes are still being exported illegally.

Exporting hazardous waste to a nation without its fullconsent goes against principles of international law. Ac-cordingly, numerous African nations have passed laws ban-ning the import of hazardous wastes. In some countries,importing hazardous wastes is punished by stiff jail terms andmultimillion-dollar fines. In Nigeria, an importer can be put

Additional steps may be needed to further reduce environmen-tal contamination by hazardous wastes, among them broaden-ing the definition of what is hazardous so that municipal waste,sewage, pesticides, and mine waste are included. Passing a lawto protect the environment does not always result in immedi-ate or expected gains for a number of reasons, notably a lack offunds or personnel to carry out the work.


to death. The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and22 Latin American countries have also joined forces to stopthe dumping of hazardous wastes on their soils.

In 1990, the European Economic Community (EEC) (acoalition of European nations) agreed to ban exports of toxicand radioactive waste to 68 former European colonies. Manyof the less developed nations who were part of the accord alsoagreed not to import hazardous wastes from non-EEC mem-bers. As of September 2010, 175 nations have signed anagreement (the Basel Convention) that bans the transfer ofhazardous wastes to less developed nations, includingCanada, Mexico, and 13 European nations. The United Stateshas signed the agreement but our participation has not beenratified by Congress. Although these are important steps for-ward, many less developed nations are still open to imports,representing a potentially huge repository for hazardouswastes from the industrial nations. Signing an agreement willalso not stop the illegal flow.

KEY CONCEPTS

Dealing with Today’s Wastes: A Variety of OptionsIn 1983, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a pres-tigious body composed of the nation’s leading scientists, is-sued a report outlining options for handling hazardous

Tighter regulations for the disposal of hazardous wastes in theUnited States and other nations have led to commendable ef-forts to reduce waste production by some companies, but to il-legal dumping by less scrupulous ones. Some companies exporthazardous wastes to less developed nations with little or nooversight of such practices. Although many less developed na-tions ban such activities, many still accept wastes.

wastes (FIGURE 23-5). This section discusses the variousoptions and illustrates some of the most effective means ofdealing with the problem, notably reducing or eliminat-ing hazardous waste, showing that you don’t have waste ifyou don’t make it.

KEY CONCEPTS

Process Manipulation, Re-cycling, and Reuse As illus-trated in Figure 23-5, atthe top of the NAS list arein-plant options, generallyrelatively simple and cost-effective changes that reduce hazardous-waste production.All qualify as highly sustainable practices because theyreduce hazardous-waste output—avoiding the need to dis-pose of waste.

In-plant options include three general actions. Thefirst, process manipulation, involves alterations in manu-facturing processes to cut waste production. One alter-ation of manufacturing is known as substitution.Substitution involves the use of nontoxic or less toxic sub-stitutes in manufacturing. Cleo Wrap, the world’s largest pro-ducer of gift wrap, for example, switched to nontoxic inksand cut its annual production of hazardous waste by 140,000kilograms (300,000 pounds). Industries can also change thechemical composition of their products, eliminating thosethat are harmful or that might produce harmful byproductsduring manufacturing. Nontoxic household cleaners are agood example. Another type of process manipulation in-

Many options exist for getting rid of waste. The most sustainableapproaches involve steps that reduce or eliminate hazardous-waste output. You don’t have waste if you don’t make it.

In-plant options

Conversion of hazardous to less hazardous or nonhazardous

Perpetual storage

Processmanipulation

Recycleand reuse

Ocean andatmosphericassimilation

Chemical,physical, and

biological

Thermaltreatment

Landtreatment

Incineration

Arid regionunsaturated

zone

Undergroundinjection

Surfaceimpoundments

Salt formations Waste pilesLandfill

FIGURE 23-5 Hazardous-waste options. A three-tier hierarchy of options for handling hazardouswastes. The top tier includes in-plant options that reduce the production of hazardous waste in the first place. It contains the most desirable options. The middle tier converts hazardous materials into nonhazardous or less hazardous substances. Perpetual storage, the lowest tier, is the least desirable but often the cheapest alternative.

GO GREEN

Consume less! All products youbuy result in the production ofhazardous or solid wastes.


volves the monitoring of manufacturing processes to locateand fix leaks that are emitting toxic chemicals into the en-vironment. Exxon Chemical, for example, installed float-ing lids over vats that contained volatile organic compounds,greatly reducing losses from evaporation. According toOTA, U.S. industries could reduce or prevent more than 50%of their hazardous-waste generation through process manipulation.

The second and third in-plant options are the reuse andrecycling strategies. In some instances, companies can cap-ture toxic wastes and, with little or no purification, reusethem to manufacture other products or sell them to othercompanies for reuse. In metal finishing, nickel that’s left be-hind in rinse water can be recovered and reused or sold. Forplants that cannot afford onsite technologies, shared facili-ties or third-party recyclers can provide an economical al-ternative. Regional waste exchanges—including both privateand government-operated facilities that put waste produc-ers in touch with companies that need their waste—can as-sist in the exchange of potentially hazardous wastes, savecompanies money, and protect the environment.

The reuse and recycling strategies help cut the outputof waste by putting perfectly good materials to use. Thesestrategies may save companies millions of dollars a year inmaterials costs. In addition, they eliminate the cost of wastedisposal, cut down on potential environmental and healthdamage, and eliminate costly cleanups.

KEY CONCEPTS

Conversion to Less Hazardous or Nonhazardous Sub-stances Waste reduction, recycling, and reuse can makea significant dent in waste production. Unfortunately, notall waste can be eliminated, reused, and recycled. Somewaste will always be produced. The NAS recommendedthat, where appropriate, remaining wastes be destroyed ordetoxified—that is, converted to less hazardous or non-hazardous materials.

Detoxification can be accomplished for certain typesof waste by land disposal, applying them to land. Whenmixed with the top layer of soil, some waste materials can bebroken down by chemical reactions, by oxidation from sun-light, or by bacteria and fungi in the soil. Some nondegrad-able wastes may be absorbed onto soil particles and heldthere indefinitely (we think). Others may migrate into deeperlayers. A word of caution: Land treatment is an expensive op-tion, requiring care to avoid polluting ecosystems, poison-ing cattle and other animals, and contaminating groundwater.Also, studies show that changes in conditions that bind tox-ins to soil particles may change, causing a sudden and unan-ticipated release into the environment. Plants can also removetoxic materials from contaminated soil, as explained in Spot-light on Sustainable Development 23-1.

Changes in manufacturing processes such as substitution andprocess manipulation are often the simplest and most cost-effective means of reducing or eliminating hazardous wastes.Waste output can also be dramatically reduced by recycling andreusing wastes.


Another option available for organic wastes is inciner-ation. High-temperature furnaces at stationary waste dis-posal sites, on ships that burn wastes at sea, and on mobileincinerators can be used to burn toxic organic wastes suchas PCBs, pesticides, and dioxin (FIGURE 23-6). In these fa-cilities, oil and natural gas are used as fuels. Hazardous sub-stances are injected into the furnace or mixed with the fuelbefore combustion.

Mobile hazardous-waste incinerators can be used toclean up contaminated sites or to deal with wastes stored inwarehouses. Permanent hazardous-waste incinerators canalso be established to deal with wastes from a variety of pro-ducers. Such facilities may also be used to provide energy forcommunities and factories. However, many communitiesobject to hazardous-waste incinerators, fearing the release oftoxicants from spills during transport or leaks at the plants.Incinerators may not always perform adequately, and oper-ating personnel may bypass regulations. Low-level releasesfrom smokestacks may also result in a long-term exposureto hazardous chemicals. Recent studies also show that whenhazardous waste is burned, unburned waste and other chem-ical compounds in the exhaust may combine to form toxicair pollutants. Incinerators also require fuel and producecarbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Low-temperature decomposition of some wastes, in-cluding cyanide and toxic organics such as pesticides, of-fers some promise. In this technique, wastes are mixed withair and maintained under high pressure while being heatedto 450° to 600°C (840° to 1100°F). During this process,

FIGURE 23-6 Chemical waste incinerator. This incinerator inthe United Kingdom is used to destroy toxic organic wastes fromfactories. High-temperature combustion and good pollution con-trols help to reduce emissions from the facility.

organic compounds are broken into smaller, biodegradablemolecules. Valuable materials can be extracted and recy-cled. One advantage of this process is that it uses less energythan incineration.

Chemical, physical, and biological agents can also beused to detoxify or neutralize hazardous wastes. For ex-ample, lime can neutralize sulfuric acid. Ozone can be used

to break up small organic molecules, nitrogen compounds,and cyanides. Toxic wastes can be encapsulated in water-proof plastic and disposed of in landfills. Many bacteriacan degrade or detoxify organic wastes and may prove help-ful in the future. New strains capable of destroying a widevariety of organic wastes may be developed through ge-netic engineering.

SPOTLIGHT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

23-1 Plants Clean Up Toxic Chemicals

Several small rafts float in a pond near the Chernobyl nu-clear power plant, the site of the world’s most costly nuclearreactor accident. The raft contains sunflowers, whose rootsdangle in the water. These rafts are not intended to makethe pond more aesthetically appealing, but to decontami-nate the radioactive water.

This is just one of dozens of similar efforts worldwideto use plants to clean up soils and waters contaminated byhazardous materials such as lead, selenium, oil, and ra-dioactive substances.

Cleaning up contaminated sites with plants is techni-cally referred to as phytoremediation. It relies on plants’ abil-ities to absorb, store, and in some cases even detoxify toxicsubstances. The plants are often assisted by bacteria andsingle-celled fungi. These organisms help to break downsome chemicals. The sunflowers in the radioactive pondnear Chernobyl act as a kind of biological sponge. The rootsabsorb the radioactive cesium. Radioactive strontium con-tained in the water is taken up and is stored in the shoots.After 3 weeks or so, the plants are removed and discarded.This technique costs a fraction of what the more elaboratefiltering mechanisms do.

Plants can also be used to remove radioactive cesiumand strontium from contaminated soils. One species, knownas Indian mustard, is particularly effective (FIGURE 1).

Lead-contaminated soil can also be cleansed by plants,but because lead forms strong chemical bonds with soilcomponents, scientists must first apply a special agent torelease the lead so that it can be taken up by plant roots.After absorbing all of the lead they can, the plants are re-moved and properly disposed of. Eventually, scientists wouldlike to see the lead such plants contain recycled. Plantscould, for example, be added to lead smelters. The organicmatter would burn off, leaving behind the lead for reuse.

Experiments are also underway to use plants to cleanup contaminated groundwater. One of the most commonlyencountered groundwater pollutants is a chemical known asTCE (trichloroethylene). This dry cleaning agent and de-greaser was widely used before being banned.

Scientists have found that TCE can be removed by poplartrees whose roots extend 12 to 15 meters (40 to 50 feet)into the ground. Studies have shown that poplars can re-move 95% of the TCE in experimental settings.

Another serious contaminant is selenium, a toxic sub-stance that is leached from irrigated soils in California andother arid regions. Irrigation water draining from farm fieldscan have extremely high concentrations of this substance,too high to release the water safely into lakes and streams.To handle this waste, special evaporation ponds have beenbuilt as a kind of low-tech repository. In these ponds, theselenium-rich water evaporates, leaving behind the toxicmetal. Over time, selenium concentrations can become quitehigh. Wildlife that inhabit the ponds can suffer enormously,as described in Chapter 11.

Scientists are now experimenting with artificial wetlandsplaced upstream from the evaporation ponds. These wetlandscontain plants that remove selenium and could greatly re-duce the selenium levels deposited in the evaporationponds. A 36-hectare (90-acre) wetland built by ChevronCorporation in California currently removes up to 75% of theselenium from the 10 million liters (2.6 million gallons) ofwastewater the company pumps through it every day.

Plants aren’t the answer to hazardous waste cleanup,but they could be a welcome tool in the gigantic task ofcleaning up the hundreds of thousands of contaminatedaquifers and sites throughout the world.

FIGURE 1 Indian mustard absorbs radioactive contaminants inthe soil in this field.


KEY CONCEPTS

Perpetual Storage In-plant modifications and conversiontechniques that destroy or detoxify wastes cannot rid us ofall of our hazardous waste. By various estimates, 25 to 40%of the waste stream will remain even after the best efforts toreduce, reuse, recycle, and destroy it—although some com-panies have achieved far better reductions.

Residual hazardous waste could be stored by one of a halfdozen options (Figure 23-5). For example, residual wastecould be dumped in secured landfills, excavated pits linedby impermeable synthetic liners and thick, impermeablelayers of clay. To lower the risk of leakage, landfills shouldbe placed in arid regions—neither over aquifers nor nearmajor water supplies. Special drains must be installed tocatch any liquids that leak out of the site. Groundwater andair should be monitored regularly to detect leaks.

Growing public opposition to this strategy makes itmore difficult for companies to find dump sites. Some ob-servers have labeled this the NIMBY syndrome: Get rid ofthe stuff, but Not In My BackYard. Paradoxically, it seems thatmost of us want the products available in an industrial econ-omy that inadvertently generates waste, but few of us wantthe wastes dumped (or even burned) nearby.

Even though the EPA has issued tough regulations forhazardous-waste landfills, critics argue that landfills are onlya temporary solution. No matter how well constructed theyare, they will eventually leak. In an attempt to reduce prob-lems for future generations, the EPA has drawn up a list ofchemicals that cannot be disposed of in landfills.

Landfills are one of the cheapest waste disposal optionstoday and are therefore often favored by industry. The sav-ings they offer today are very likely to be charged to futuregenerations, though.

Other methods of perpetual storage include (1) use ofsurface impoundments and specially built warehouses thathold wastes in ideal conditions and prevent any materialfrom leaking into the environment; (2) deposition in geo-logically stable salt formations; and (3) deposition deep inthe ground in arid regions where groundwater is absent.

KEY CONCEPTS

Disposing of Radioactive WastesHigh-level radioactive wastes are some of the most hazardousof all wastes, but they have long been ignored by many coun-tries. High-level radioactive waste is generated by commer-cial nuclear power plants and weapons production facilities.

Not all waste can be eliminated by prevention, recycling, ordetoxification. Perpetual storage remains the final, yet leastsustainable, option.

Hazardous wastes can be converted to nontoxic or less toxicsubstances by chemical, physical, and biological means, such asneutralization, combustion, low-temperature thermal decom-position, and bacterial decay. Such measures, although effec-tive, present some problems and are clearly not as desirable aspreventive measures.

Lower-level wastes come from research laboratories and hos-pitals. Many radioactive wastes have a long lifetime. Otherscan concentrate in animal tissues. Virtually all pose a seriousthreat to human health, as described in Chapter 14.

High-level radioactive waste is not a problem that will goaway, even though the nuclear power industry and nuclearweapons manufacturing are declining (Chapter 14). Thewaste already produced and now stockpiled at nuclear reac-tors and the continued operation of the existing power plants,fuel processing facilities, and nuclear weapons facilities ne-cessitates long-term, low-risk storage of nuclear wastes.

Recognizing the need to do something with nuclear wastesrather than continuing to stockpile them at power plants orweapons facilities, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste PolicyAct in 1982. This law established a timetable for the Depart-ment of Energy (DOE) to select a deep underground disposalsite for high-level radioactive wastes. The DOE focused its at-tention on a site in Nevada called Yucca Mountain. Located onfederal land about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of LasVegas, Yucca Mountain was proposed to someday be home toa huge underground storage site excavated in the volcanicrock, costing an estimated $7 to $8 billion (FIGURE 23-7).

The DOE had hoped to open the site in 2010. In orderfor federal decision makers to approve the site, though, theymust be relatively sure that earthquakes and volcanic erup-tions will not threaten the stability of the repository. In2009, the Senate passed a bill to close Yucca Mountain af-ter 25 years and $13.5 billion spent.

Several other options are available to deal with high-level radioactive waste. Radioactive waste, for example, canbe bombarded with neutrons in special reactors to convertsome of it into less harmful substances. However, existing re-actors do a poor job of altering cesium-137 and strontium-90, two of the more dangerous byproducts of nuclear fission.

Seabed disposal has been used in the past by the UnitedStates and European countries, but is now forbidden. Still,some scientists suggest that the seabed may provide a site forradioactive wastes; the effects are difficult to predict.

The problems of disposal suggest to some that nuclearpower should be phased out. Cleaner, less costly measuresto produce energy should be developed. As noted earlier,though, we need to establish cost-effective and low-riskmethods to dispose of (safely store) the vast amounts ofwaste that have already been generated.

In the United States, low-level radioactive waste fromhospitals and research laboratories is packaged and shippedto three disposal sites—in Nevada, Washington, and SouthCarolina—where it is buried in the ground. Medium-levelwaste from nuclear power plants and weapons facilities is an-other matter altogether. In the 1980s, the DOE began con-struction on a medium-level radioactive waste depositorycalled WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). WIPP is the firstgeological repository for the disposal of radioactive waste pro-duced by the U.S. defense programs—nuclear weapons re-search and production. It also houses waste from thedisassembly of nuclear weapons. The waste slated for disposalin the site consists mostly of protective clothing, tools, glass-ware, and equipment contaminated with waste. It does not


house high-level radioactive waste orspent nuclear fuels.

WIPP is an experimental projectof DOE monitored and regulated bythe Environmental Protection Agency.This $700 million facility was carvedout of a thick salt deposit 630 meters(2,100 feet) below the ground insoutheastern New Mexico near Carls-bad. Radioactive waste is held in steelcanisters.

In 1993, the DOE started receiv-ing wastes to test the safety of thesite. The facility will eventually hold 6.2 million cubic feet ofradioactive waste. In 1998, the EPA gave final approval for thesite, saying that it complies with disposal regulations and is safeto contain wastes for 10,000 years.

Although the site has been opened for 12 years, manycitizens are concerned about accidents that could occur asradioactive waste is shipped to WIPP from federal weaponsfacilities in California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada,New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Wash-ington. Most of the waste disposed of at the site is gener-ated as nuclear weapons are disassembled. To reduce therisk of transportation accidents, DOE requires wastes to beshipped in special casks certified by the Nuclear RegulatoryCommission and subjected to a series of tests to demon-strate their ability to survive severe crashes and puncturesfollowed by fires or immersion in water.

Unlike many other hazardous wastes, most nuclearwastes cannot be reused or recycled. Process modification canhelp reduce waste output, but for the most part the problemhas to be addressed at the end of the pipe. The end of the coldwar and the decline in the nuclear arsenals of the UnitedStates and the former Soviet Union have dramatically re-duced production at nuclear weapons facilities. Nuclearwaste from power plants could also decline as they are phasedout in the United States and elsewhere, as discussed in Chap-ter 14. Nonetheless, huge volumes of waste already existand must be dealt with somehow.

KEY CONCEPTSDisposing of radioactive waste will be a problem for a long time,even though nuclear power and nuclear weapons production areon the decline. Safe, permanent repositories are needed to storehuge amounts of waste produced by power plants and other facilities.

Some Obstacles to SustainableHazardous-Waste ManagementHazardous-waste production has dropped steadily since 1980in the United States. This encouraging trend has resulted in largepart because of efforts to reduce hazardous-waste productionby process modification, recycling, and reuse.

For years, one of the main problems with hazardouswaste was that much of it was highly diluted in water releasedby various industrial processes. This dilute waste streamwas typically pumped into deep wells, from which hazardoussubstances may leak into groundwater. Besides contami-nating drinking water, industrial wastes pumped into deepwells can increase the incidence of earthquakes. Two Ohiogeologists believe that industrial waste injected into theground by a chemical company in Ohio may have createdunderground pressure that triggered the 4.9-Richter-scaleearthquake that shook northeastern Ohio and a nearbynuclear power plant in 1986. Their studies suggest thatpumping waste into the sandstone increased fluid pres-sure in the pores of a bed of rock that lies directly above thecrystalline bedrock, causing the earthquake along a faultin the bedrock.

The sheer volume of polluted water has made it hard toregulate. Removing the hazardous substances from the wa-ter is extremely costly, so most plant owners are unwillingto make the investment in wastewater treatment.

Today, underground injection of hazardous waste con-tinues, but at a greatly reduced level, about 5% of the totalrelease. By far, the most significant release occurs in the air.It accounts for nearly 30% of all toxic chemicals releasedinto the environment.

FIGURE 23-7 An aerial view of YuccaMountain, Nevada. This site was onceslated to become home to much of thenation’s radioactive waste. Questionsabout the adequacy of the site and thepotential problems created by shippingwastes to it from all parts of the countryand other issues caused the federal gov-ernment to abandon plans to use theYucca Mountain site in 2009.



The push to reduce hazardous waste release into theenvironment has stirred considerable interest in incinerators.Incinerators are equipped with pollution control devicesand can remove many of the chemical pollutants. They canalso be used to generate energy and reduce environmentalpollution by hazardous materials. In rural areas, they provideemployment. Companies that want to locate them in ruralareas often offer help in financing schools, roads, watersupply systems, and other needed projects as incentivesto local communities.

One person’s solution, however, often becomes anotherperson’s problem. Incinerators often require landfills to dis-pose of highly toxic residues. Leaks may pollute the site andseep into groundwater, which is used for irrigation and drink-ing. Although plants typically have state-of-the-art pollu-tion control equipment, small amounts of toxic substancesmay be emitted and over time could accumulate in the soil,ecosystems, and crops downwind. An incinerator becomesa hazardous-waste magnet, drawing shiploads in by truck andtrain from neighboring cities and states. Accidents couldcause spills, environmental damage, injury, and evacuations.

Although proponents of incineration think that the ru-ral siting strategy may be shrewd business, it ultimately di-verts attention from finding permanent solutions, such asprocess modification, reduction, recycling, and reuse. Theseare environmentally more acceptable and, in the long run,are more sustainable strategies for dealing with a nation’shazardous wastes.

KEY CONCEPTS

Individual Actions CountAs with all environmental issues, individuals can partici-pate in many ways. For example, each of us can contributeby recycling oil, not dumping it in sewers or in vacant lots.We can properly dispose of paints, paint thinners, and otherpotentially toxic wastes. Many cities and counties providetoxic roundups, periodic collection dates during which theywill take toxic household products for disposal free of charge.Some of these products, such as paints, can be reclaimedand used again.

One of the best strategies is to avoid toxic chemicalssuch as pesticides and cleaning agents in the first place. Youcan cut back on potentially hazardous materials by pur-chasing environmentally safe cleaning products and insec-ticides. Reducing your consumption of nonessential goods,whose production invariably creates toxic wastes that poi-son our land and water, also helps.

You can also learn about waste sites in your area andbecome active in grassroots organizations working on re-duction, recycling, and safer disposal methods. Together,millions of Americans using resources wisely can make sig-nificant inroads into the hazardous-waste problem.

Hazardous-waste production appears to be on the decline, butcompanies still release large quantities into the air, water, andland.

KEY CONCEPTS

Solid Wastes: Understandingthe Problem

Each year, human society produces mountains of munici-pal solid wastes: discarded paper, metals, leftover food,and other items that come from businesses, hospitals, air-ports, schools, stores, and homes (FIGURE 23-8). The prob-lems are especially acute in the more developed nations. In2008, for instance, Americans generated 226 million met-ric tons (250 million tons) of municipal solid waste—enoughgarbage to fill the Superdome in New Orleans three timesa day. On a more individual level, in 2010 Americans pro-duced on average approximately 464 kilograms (1,021 pounds)per person—over 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds) per person perday. A city of 1 million people could fill the Superdome once

23.3

Individuals can help reduce the hazardous-waste threat by prop-erly disposing of hazardous materials, avoiding their use when-ever possible, using nontoxic alternatives, and cutting downon nonessential consumption—because the production of goodsoften results in the generation of hazardous waste at factories.

FIGURE 23-8 Mountains of trash. Environmental activist LynnLandes standing in front of a landfill in Tullytown, PA. Environ-mentalists and residents who live near the landfills complain thatPennsylvania’s policy of allowing other states easy access to itslandfills has made the state a magnet for the trash of others.

every year. The composition of the U.S. municipal wastestream is shown in FIGURE 23-9.

Municipal solid waste production has increased sharplysince 1980, but growth slowed in the 1990s. From 1990 to2008, for instance, municipal solid waste production onlygrew by about 22% while resource recovery (recycling andcomposting) climbed to around 150%. Despite the largequantity of municipal solid waste produced by Americans,municipal solid wastes still make up only about 4 to 5%of the total solid waste discarded in the United States eachyear. Nonetheless, the continued growth and the sheervolume of waste create major problems in many cities,where land for disposal is growing scarcer and more costlyby the day.

Garbage disposal is also of concern to those interestedin building a sustainable future because it squanders theEarth’s resources. The more that is thrown away, the moreminerals that must be mined. The more we throw away, themore trees that must be cut. The more plastic we discard, themore oil wells that must be drilled. Each of these activitiesproduces enormous waste itself and equally impressiveamounts of environmental damage.

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once noted that“solid wastes are the only raw materials we’re too stupid touse.” In the United States, 54% of the municipal solid wasteis buried in landfills. Nearly 32% of America’s trash is currentlyrecycled and composted. Another 13.6% is burned in incin-erators. Landfill disposal not only wastes valuable resources,it costs communities millions of dollars each year. Landfill-ing the disposable diapers used in the United States, for ex-ample, costs the nation an estimated $350 million a year. Formost local governments, the cost of trash disposal is usuallyexceeded only by the costs of education and of highway con-struction and maintenance.

Like so many other problems, municipal solid waste isthe product of many interacting factors: (1) large popula-

tions; (2) high per capita consumption; (3) low productdurability; (4) our heavy dependence on disposable prod-ucts; (5) low reuse and recycling rates; (6) a lack of personaland governmental commitment to reduce waste; (7) widelydispersed populations, in which producers of recyclableand reusable items are separated from those willing to pur-chase these materials; and (8) relatively cheap energy andabundant land for disposal.

KEY CONCEPTS

Solving a Growing ProblemSustainably

Actions to reduce our output of solid waste generally fallinto three broad categories (FIGURE 23-10). The traditionalresponse to solid waste is known as the output approach. Itconsists of ways to deal with trash flowing out of cities andtowns. Most often, this means incinerating trash or dump-ing it in landfills. A more sustainable strategy is known as theinput approach. This consists of activities that reduce theamount of materials entering the production–consumptioncycle—for example, efforts to reduce consumption and waste,say, by increasing product durability. The third approach,also essential to building a sustainable society, is the through-put approach. It consists of ways to direct materials back intothe production-consumption system, creating a closed-loop(cyclic) system akin to those found in nature. Reuse and re-cycling fall under this category.

KEY CONCEPTS

The Traditional Strategy: The Output ApproachThe most widely used strategy throughout the world isthe output approach, landfilling and incineration. Land-filling and incineration are end-of-pipe controls. Likemany others discussed in this book, they are not sustain-able in the long run.

KEY CONCEPTSWorldwide, most trash is still dumped in landfills.

Solid waste management strategies fall into one of three cate-gories: those that deal with waste after it has been produced,those that divert waste back into the production–consumptioncycle, and those that prevent waste generation in the first place.

23.4

More developed nations produce enormous amounts of solidwaste each year, much of which is burned or landfilled, squan-dering precious resources and creating an enormous and costlywaste disposal problem in urban areas. Waste production is in-creasing in many countries such as the United States; recoveryrates (recycling and composting) are growing much faster, atrend that bodes well for the future.

Paper andpaperboard

28.2%

Yard wastes13.7%

Food wastes14.1%

Plastics12.3%

Other wastes3.5%Rubber, leather,

and textiles8.3%

Wood6.5%

Glass 4.8%

Metals8.6%

FIGURE 23-9 Anatomy of U.S. waste. This pie chart shows thecomposition of U.S. municipal solid waste by weight, after re-covery of some recyclable and compostable materials. (Datafrom U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2009.)



THROUGHPUT APPROACHES

Use

Reuse Compost

Recycle

DiscardedFinished product

INP

UT

AP

PR

OA

CH

ES

OUTPUTAPPROACHES

Sanitary landfillIncineration

Raw materialMining

Reducedconsumption

Increasedproduct durability

Decreased material in products

FIGURE 23-10 Strategies for reducing solid waste. There are manyways of dealing with waste. The strategies fall within one of threegroups: output, input, and throughput. In most cases, a combinationof all three must be applied to alleviate the solid waste problem. Ef-forts should concentrate on the input and throughput solutions, whichwill go a long way in helping to create a sustainable society.

Dumps and Landfills Until the 1960s, garbage dumpswere prevalent features of the American landscape. Public ob-jection, however, to wafting odors, rat- and insect-infestedmidden heaps, and dark plumes of smoke that billowed outof burning dumps forced cities to look for other ways to dealwith their growing trash problem. The federal governmentcontributed to the demise of the dump by passing RCRA, dis-cussed earlier. Besides addressing hazardous waste, RCRA alsorequired all open dumps to be closed or upgraded by 1983.

The open dump has been replaced by the sanitary land-fill. A sanitary landfill is a natural or humanmade depres-sion into which solid wastes are dumped, compressed, anddaily covered with a layer of dirt. Because solid wastes are nolonger burned, as they were in many open dumps, air pol-lution is greatly reduced. Because trash is covered each daywith a layer of dirt, odors, flies, insects, rodents, and poten-tial health problems are eliminated or sharply reduced.

Despite their immediate benefits, landfills have somenotable problems. First and most important, landfills re-quire land. In the United States, the trash from 10,000 peo-ple in a year will cover one hectare (2.47 acres) about 1.2meters (4 feet) deep. Around many cities, usable land is inshort supply or is expensive. Second, landfills, like dumps,require a great deal of energy for excavation, filling, andhauling trash. Third, they can pollute groundwater. Toxichousehold wastes (paint thinner, pesticides, and other poi-sons) and feces (from disposable diapers, kitty litter, andbackyard cleanup of Rover’s messes) are discarded in mu-nicipal landfills, where they can leak into groundwater. Land-fills are a major source of groundwater contamination andmany retired landfills are listed as Superfund sites, as youlearned earlier in the chapter. Fourth, they produce methanegas from the decomposition of organic materials. Methanecan seep through the ground into buildings built over ornear reclaimed landfills. Methane is explosive at relatively lowconcentrations. Fifth, landfills sink or subside as the organictrash decays, requiring additional regrading and filling.Buildings constructed on top of reclaimed landfills may suf-fer serious structural damage. Sixth, they have low socialacceptability. Quite understandably, most people don’t want

the noise, traffic, and blowing debris that come with even thebest-managed landfills.

Although landfilling is ultimately an unsustainable strat-egy, there are many ways to make it more environmentallyacceptable. Energy requirements, for example, can be cutby new methods of waste collection. Packer trucks now re-duce waste volume by 60%, meaning that fewer trucks areneeded to haul garbage to landfills. This saves on fuel con-sumption and pollution.

Vacuum collection systems can also be used to save en-ergy in dense urban settings, especially apartment complexes.Solid waste is dumped into pipes that carry it to a central col-lection point. One such system is in operation in Sundbyberg,Sweden. Garbage is whisked away from wall chutes to a cen-tral collection facility, where the glass and metals are re-moved by an automated process. The burnables areincinerated, providing heat for the 1,100 apartments using thesystem. A similar system handles 45 metric tons (50 tons)of waste per day at Disney World in Florida. Today, over 400such systems are in operation in Europe in hospitals, apart-ment buildings, and housing tracts.

Water pollution prob-lems can be reduced by lo-cating landfills away fromstreams, lakes, and aquifers.Test wells around the site canbe used to monitor the move-ment of pollutants, if any,away from the site. Special drainage systems and carefullandscaping can reduce the flow of water over the surface ofa landfill, thus reducing the amount of water penetrating it.Impermeable clay caps and liners can reduce water infiltra-tion and the escape of pollutants. In addition, pollutantsleaking from the site can be collected by specially builtdrainage systems and then detoxified. The toxic seepage isshipped to hazardous-waste facilities.

Methane gas produced in landfills can be drawn off andsold as fuel, supplementing natural gas. Subsidence damageto buildings built on reclaimed sites can be reduced by re-moving organic wastes before disposal and by allowing organicdecay to proceed for a number of years before construction.

GO GREEN

Recycle all wastes. Start a com-post pile if you can—and buyrecycled products wheneverpossible.

KEY CONCEPTS

Ocean Dumping For years, many city officials have viewedthe world’s vast oceans as a huge garbage dump for wastes,including municipal garbage and human sewage. At onetime, U.S. municipalities dumped their trash in 126 offshoredump sites. Although most of the solid waste dumped at seawas mud and sediment from dredging of harbors, estuaries,and rivers, considerable amounts of industrial hazardouswastes, radioactive wastes, municipal wastes, and sludgefrom sewage treatment plants were dumped at sea. Even to-day, city planners are trying to find ways to justify dumpingsome of their trash offshore. Some propose building offshore“islands of trash” from discarded automobiles, demolishedbuildings, and other solid wastes to support hotels and air-ports. Others talk of (and build) artificial reefs of discardedstone, toilets, cement slabs, and automobiles.

Ocean dumping of many wastes in U.S. waters declinedas a result of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctu-aries Act passed by Congress in 1972. The long-term goal ofthis act was to phase out all ocean dumping, especially ofsewage and solid wastes. In 1977, the EPA issued regulationscalling for an end by 1981 to all dumping of industrial wastesand sludge in the Atlantic Ocean, where 90% of the wastedisposal was occurring. Although hazardous-waste and solidwaste dumping declined sharply, sewage sludge disposal re-mained a significant problem because New York and othercities continued to dump sludge in the ocean for many years.

In 1988, the U.S. Congress passed the Ocean DumpingBan Act (1988), which called for an end to sewage sludge dis-posal at sea by December 21, 1991. The EPA negotiatedagreements with local jurisdictions that phased out oceandumping of sewage sludge by June 1992 (FIGURE 23-11).Unfortunately, many other countries continue to view theoceans as a vast repository for their waste.

KEY CONCEPTS

Incineration Incineration is another output control widelyused in many industrial countries. In Denmark, 60% of themunicipal solid waste is incinerated. The Netherlands andSweden both burn about one-third of theirs. The UnitedStates burns nearly 14% of its solid waste.

Burning trash can reduce the waste volume by two-thirds, cutting requirements for landfill space. Incinera-tion can also be used to produce heat and electricity. Because

Oceans have long been viewed as a huge waste dump site for avariety of wastes, including radioactive materials. This practiceis no longer legal in the United States, but it continues in othercountries.

Open garbage dumps have been replaced by sanitary landfills,pits into which garbage is dumped and then covered daily witha thin layer of dirt to eliminate odors and pests. Although san-itary landfills are unsustainable, they can be made more envi-ronmentally acceptable by locating them away from groundwatersupplies, collecting and treating toxic leachate, capturingmethane gas, and other steps.

of this, incinerators are often called waste-to-energy (WTE)plants. One ton of garbage is equivalent to about one bar-rel of oil. But even with the energy gain, WTE plants costmore to build and operate than landfills. WTE plants arealso much more expensive than recycling programs. Na-tionwide, recycling projects cost about one-third as muchas incinerators. Each incinerator must be individually de-signed to accommodate the local mixture of burnable(leaves) and nonburnable refuse (steel cans). Operatingthese incinerators is made more difficult because the mix-ture varies from season to season. In the spring and fall, forexample, yard and garden waste increases dramatically. Butall yard waste does not behave the same. Wet leaves, for ex-ample, do not burn well. To avoid problems caused by wetleaves and other similar materials, municipalities may re-quire homeowners to separate combustible material (drybranches) from wet organic matter (grass clippings).

Another problem with incinerators is that they may emittoxic pollutants, especially when plastics are burned. An-other major problem with garbage incinerators is that the ashthey produce may be hazardous to human health. Test datashow that the ash from incinerators contains dioxins andtoxic metals, such as lead and cadmium, in concentrationsthat may be harmful to humans. Consequently, some scien-tists and environmentalists argue that ash from garbage incinerators should be reclassified as a hazardous substanceand disposed of in hazardous-waste facilities, which is muchmore costly than dumping in ordinary landfills.

Ash disposed of in ordinary landfills may, over the years,begin to leak into groundwater, polluting public and pri-vate drinking water supplies. Cleaning up these sites couldcost many millions of dollars.

Many municipalities are opting for incinerators in whichnonburnable materials such as glass and steel cans are re-moved before combustion, rather than for mass burn facil-ities, in which the entire waste stream is burned withoutseparation. Separation of noncombustible wastes permitsrecycling and increases the combustion efficiency of incin-erators. It is also much cleaner and is more efficient thanmass burn, although it still produces hazardous materials.

Vol

ume

in m

illio

ns o

f wet

tons

0

9

Year

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

19921989198519801973

Sewage sludge

Other wastes

FIGURE 23-11 Signs of improvement. Ocean dumping of sewagesludge has declined significantly in recent years. Other wastedumping was largely brought to a halt in the early 1980s.


WTE plants are a step in the right direction, but they arenot as cost-effective and sustainable as waste management pro-grams that rely on waste reduction, composting, and recycling.Incinerators also rank low on the social acceptability scale.Residents of Lowell, Massachusetts defeated an incineratorthat its city council was planning to build because they found,among other things, that Lowell produced only 225 metrictons (200 tons) of waste per day, whereas the plant would re-quire 1,350 metric tons (1,215 tons) to operate. That meantthat the city council would have had to enter into agreementwith neighboring towns to accept their trash to meet theneeds of the plant. Lowell would have become a municipalsolid waste magnet. Citizens in Spokane, Washington werenot so lucky. Their city council approved a massive inciner-ator that requires a considerable amount of outside trash tokeep it running.

Incinerators may seem like a good way to solve the grow-ing trash problem, but critical thinking suggests the need fora long-term view of the problem. The most important ques-tion today is not just how to reduce landfilling, but how tocut our waste; conserve valuable resources; protect our air,water, and land; and ensure vital wildlife habitat. In short,how do we create a sustainable system of waste manage-ment? Clearly, incinerators reduce trash but don’t contributesignificantly to the goals of sustainability.

KEY CONCEPTS

Sustainable Options: The Input ApproachIn Chapter 3, you learned that sustainable solutions are thosethat often approach problems by addressing their rootcauses—that is, by confronting them at their source. In solidwaste, as in hazardous waste, the most effective and sus-tainable strategies are those that seek to reduce the amountof materials entering the production–consumption systemin the first place. This strategy is called source reduction. Thethree main source reduction strategies include measures that(1) increase product life span, (2) reduce the amount of ma-terials in goods and their packaging, and (3) reduce con-sumption (demand for goods).

KEY CONCEPTS

Increasing Product Life Span: Making More Durable Prod-ucts The trouble with today’s products is that, as writerJohn Ruskin noted, “There is hardly anything in the worldthat some man cannot make a little worse and sell a littlecheaper.” In the long run, however, cheaply made goodsend up costing consumers more than well-made and slightly

Source reduction techniques reduce the amount of waste enteringthe waste stream and represent the most sustainable waste man-agement strategy.

Garbage can be burned in incinerators, which greatly reducestrash. This option, however, even when linked to energy pro-duction, is viewed by many as an unsustainable way of dealingwith municipal solid waste.

more expensive goods. The rapid turnover may be prof-itable to businesses, but it is unsustainable from an eco-logical standpoint. Planned obsolescence of productsdestroys the air, water, and land. More durable toys, gar-den tools, cars, and clothing require less frequent replace-ment and thus decrease resource use. It’s a great personalstrategy and also can be a profitable business strategy becauseconsumers who are fed up with shoddy products will grav-itate to well-made ones.

KEY CONCEPTS

Reducing the Amount of Material in Products and PackagingIn the United States, packaging (including bottles) uses 90% ofthe glass, 50% of the paper, 11% of the aluminum, and 8% ofthe steel consumed, according to Concern, Inc., a citizens’ groupbased in Washington, D.C. All told, 31% of the municipal solidwaste (by weight) is discarded containers and packaging.

Of course, packaging is necessary, but much of it is su-perfluous and wasteful. (Consider the package containingthe latest software you bought.) The Campbell Soup Com-pany realized this and redesigned its soup cans; today,they use 30% less material than they did in the 1970s.Some beverage companies now package drinks in asepticcontainers, boxes constructed of several thin layers ofpolyethylene, foil, and paper (FIGURE 23-12). The con-tainers hold milk, juices, and wine and keep them fresh forseveral months without refrigeration. Aseptic containersrequire less energy, too. Canned drinks, for instance, mustbe pasteurized for 45 minutes, whereas the contents ofaseptic packages are sterilized out of the package for only1 minute. This not only greatly reduces energy demand butpreserves flavor. Furthermore, beverages in aseptic con-tainers like soy milk do not require refrigeration duringtransportation and storage, which also lowers the energydemand. Being lighter than cans also helps cut down ontransportation costs. Aseptic containers can be recycled,but access to recycling programs that handle them is fairlylimited.

Virtually all products can be redesigned to reduce waste.Many large newspapers, for example, have gone to a more eco-nomical design that has cut the use of newsprint by 5%.Smaller cars and trucks emerged in the 1970s and early1980s in the United States and are popular in many countries.In the United States, however, the trend in the 1990s and2000s has been toward larger and larger vehicles such as theFord Expedition and Chevy Suburban (FIGURE 23-13). Notonly do they consume more minerals, they are less efficientand consume much more energy to operate. Smaller com-puters and calculators have also helped save valuable mate-rials. Smaller houses could help as well.

KEY CONCEPTSEfforts to make products smaller and more compact can signif-icantly reduce resource demand.

Higher quality, more durable goods last longer and consequentlyreduce the amount of waste. Manufacturers and consumers can playsignificant roles by making and buying more durable products.


Reducing ConsumptionH. W. Shaw once wrote,“Our necessities are few,but our wants are endless.”Critics of modern-day so-ciety argue that ceaselessefforts to satisfy our end-less wants are a big part ofthe solid waste dilemmathe United States, Canada,and other countries face.By cutting back on con-sumption, individuals canhelp reduce solid wastesand many other problemsdescribed in this book.

Reductions in con-sumption will requireshifts in our attitudes.The attitude that “new isalways better” leads manyconsumers to purchasenew goods when old onesstill work. The fashion industry thrives on its ability toconvince the public that new fashions are “in”—and thatanyone wearing the old is “out of fashion.” Advertiserscapitalize on this strategy as well, and many consumersfall into the trap. Chapters 3 and 24 detail other attitudi-nal factors that contribute to the solid waste dilemma.

Another way to reduce consumption is through out-right bans. Some cities, for example, have taken steps to

reduce waste by banning objectionable materials—notablyplastics. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; Berkeley andPalo Alto, California; Newark, New Jersey; and other citieshave passed ordinances to ban many plastics, prompting theplastics industry to take measures to develop recycling facilities.

Each of us can make a personal effort to reduce con-sumption with little noticeable change in lifestyle. There arelimitless possibilities; all we have to do is try them.

KEY CONCEPTS

The Throughput Approach: Reuse,Recycling, and CompostingIn natural systems, all waste is food material for other or-ganisms. In short, there is no waste. Everything is recycled.Creating a sustainable society, say many experts, will requiresteps to greatly increase recycling efforts to emulate nature.

Recycling is part of the throughput approach. The sec-ond part of this approach is reuse. Both strategies remove use-ful materials from the waste stream and channel them backto manufacturers (in the case of recycling) or to end users(in the case of reuse) (Table 23-1).

KEY CONCEPTS

The Reuse Option Reuse is the return of operable or re-pairable goods into the market system for someone to use.In most cities, organizations such as Goodwill and the Dis-abled American Veterans pick up used products, includingclothes, shoes, silverware, plates, pans, books, tools, bicycles,and appliances. Many ofthem provide drop-off sta-tions or pick up goods atyour home. These productsare cleaned and then resoldto the needy and the frugal.Profits go to help the needy. For-profit secondhand stores alsoprovide consumers with options for buying children’s cloth-ing and toys, furniture, appliances, plumbing supplies, anda host of other products. Check them out. You can often getgreat bargains!

Packaging materials—such as cardboard boxes, bot-tles, and grocery bags—can also be reused, saving both en-ergy and materials. Shopping bags can be reused byindividuals. Reusable beverage containers can be sterilized,refilled, and returned to the shelf, sometimes completingthe cycle as many as 50 times. Disposable and recyclablebottles and cans have virtually eliminated the reusablecontainer from the market in more developed countries,although this technique is popular in less developed nations.

The throughput approach diverts waste from the waste streamfor recycling and reuse.

One of the most effective means of reducing solid waste is to re-duce consumption—buy what you need.

FIGURE 23-12Aseptic con-tainer. Asepticcontainers like thisone are convenient andenergy efficient but arefairly difficult to recycle.

FIGURE 23-13 An oversized SUV. This sport utility vehicle, likemany other models on the market today, uses an incredibleamount of resources to build and gets about 12 miles per gallon.

GO GREEN

Donate old (usable) clothes andother items to Goodwill or sim-ilar organizations.



Table 23-2 compares the energy demand of refillableglass bottles (used 10 times) with various other packagingoptions. As illustrated, when it comes to energy demand, re-cycling is generally more efficient than one-time use (com-pare the energy required to make an aluminum can from rawore versus recycled scrap). Reusing glass bottles only 10times, though, is four times more efficient than recycledglass.

Besides saving energy, the reuse option (1) reduces theland area needed for solid waste disposal, (2) provides jobs,(3) provides inexpensive products for the poor and the thrifty,(4) reduces litter, (5) decreases the amount of materials con-sumed by society, and (6) helps reduce pollution and envi-ronmental degradation.

KEY CONCEPTS

The Recycling Option In human societies, recycling refersto the return of materials to manufacturers, where they canbe melted down or chopped up, refashioned into the origi-nal finished material, and then incorporated into products.Paper, for instance, is shredded, immersed in water, de-inked, and then used to make more paper. Recycling con-serves resources, alleviates future resource shortages, reducesenergy demand, cuts pollution, saves water, and decreasessolid waste disposal and incineration.

Consider some examples of the benefits: Each 1.2-meter(4-foot) stack of newspaper you recycle saves a 12-meter(40-foot) Douglas fir tree. Recycling a ton of newspapersaves 17 trees. Paper recycling uses one-third to one-half asmuch energy as the conventional process of making paperfrom wood pulp. Small savings can add up to make hugechanges. If the United States, for example, increased paperrecycling by 30%, we would save an estimated 350 milliontrees each year. Paper recycling has an added benefit of re-ducing the air pollution generated in making paper by 95%.

Reusing materials and products cuts down on resource demandand offers many other economic and environmental benefits. Cit-izens can participate in two ways, by donating used products andbuying used goods.

Aluminum recycling offers great benefits as well. Asnoted in two previous chapters, aluminum recycling requires95% less energy than making aluminum from raw ore (bauxite). Thus, a manufacturer can make 20 aluminumcans from recycled metal with the same energy it takes tomake one can from bauxite ore. Aluminum recycling pro-duces 95% less air pollution as well. Similar environmentalbenefits are available from recycling other metals and plastics.

Japan is a world leader in recycling. Currently, aboutone-half of that nation’s waste is composted and recycled. Inthe United States and many other countries, however, recy-cling efforts are a long way from achieving their full poten-tial, although there are exceptions. One exception is theautomobile. In the United States, approximately 90% of allcars are recycled. Lead in car batteries is another exception,with about 95% of all batteries making their way back intothe manufacturing process. Despite these impressive statis-tics, in 2008, nationwide only about 7% of the plastic, 23%of the glass, 56% of the paper and cardboard, and 21% ofthe aluminum was recycled. Recycling rates for many prod-ucts could easily double or triple. Plastic recycling could in-crease 10 to 20 times.

Table 23-1Reuse and Recycling of Solid Wastes

Material Reuse and Recycling

Paper Repulped and made into cardboard, paper, and a number of paper products. Incinerated to generate heat.Shredded and used as mulch or insulation.

Organic matter Composted and added to gardens and farms to enrich the soil. Incinerated to generate heat.Clothing and textiles Shredded and reused for new fiber products or burned to generate energy. Donated to charities or sold at

garage sales.Glass Returned and refilled. Crushed and used to make new glass. Crushed and mixed with asphalt. Crushed and

added to bricks and cinder blocks.Metals Remelted and used to manufacture new metal for containers, buildings, and other uses.

Source: Modified from B. J. Nebel (1981). Environmental Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, p. 297.

Table 23-2Energy Consumption per Use for 12-Ounce Beverage Containers

Container Energy Use (BTUs)

Aluminum can, used once 7050Steel can, used once 5950Recycled steel can 3880Glass beer bottle, used once 3730Recycled aluminum can 2550Recycled glass beer bottle 2530Refillable glass bottle, used 10 times 610

Source: Modified from L. R. Brown, C. Flavin, and S. Postel (1991). Sav-ing the Planet: How to Shape an Environmentally Sustainable Economy.New York: Norton, Table 4-1, p. 71.

KEY CONCEPTS

Recycling’s Growing Popularity Recycling is widely prac-ticed in Europe and Japan. Many major U.S. cities have de-veloped recycling programs to reduce landfilling. In 2008,there were over 8,659 curbside recycling programs, downfrom 9,704 in 2001. Seven states—Minnesota, New Jersey,New York, Maine, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia—report total recycling rates of 40% or more. Sixteenstates report recycling rates of 30 to 39% (Table 23-3). Im-pressive as this is, many other countries are doing much bet-ter. Japan, for example, currently recycles about half of itsgarbage. One suburb of Tokyo, for instance, currently recy-cles and composts 90% of its garbage.

KEY CONCEPTS

Types of Recycling Programs Cities and towns offer avariety of recycling options. Some use drop-off sites, whereresidents can deposit their recyclables on the way to workor to the grocery store (FIGURE 23-14). In some locations,recycling companies will actually pay for some materialssuch as aluminum and copper. Drop-off centers can be suc-cessful, but generally only if containers are convenientlyplaced—for example, at train stations, near parks, or nearheavy-use intersections. Many colleges and universitiesalso offer recycling programs with recycling containers lo-cated in the hallways of classroom buildings.

Curbside recycling, in which recyclables are period-ically picked up by trash haulers at the curb, is by far themost successful type of recycling program (FIGURE 23-15).Participation rates as high as 60 to 80% can be expectedif recyclables and trash are picked up on the same day.One study in Canada showed that curbside recycling re-quires about 10% less energy than a drop-off program.

Unsorted trash can also be collected and shipped to re-source recovery centers, where it is separated by machinesor people. This technique, called end-point separation, is gen-erally more costly than source separation in which people sortrecyclables at home or in the office. Moreover, complete sep-aration may not be possible at these facilities, thus loweringthe value of recyclable materials.

A growing number of recycling programs are being runby private haulers. Toronto, for example, is home to a pro-gram run by Waste Management, Inc. In my area, all threeprivate trash haulers offer curbside recycling.

KEY CONCEPTSRecycling programs generally involve drop-off sites or curbsidepickup, which may be run by private industry or by city andtown governments.

Many states now recycle 30% or more of their municipal solidwaste.

Many products can be returned to recycling facilities, wherethey are shipped to factories to be used to make new prod-ucts—a process that offers many social, economic, and envi-ronmental benefits. Although recycling is on the rise, mostcountries have barely tapped the full potential of recycling.

Table 23-3How’s Your State Rate?

Recycled RecycledState (%) State (%)

Minnesota 45 Rhode Island 27New Jersey 43 New Hampshire 26New York 43 North Dakota 26Maine 42 Pennsylvania 26South Carolina 42 Michigan 25South Dakota 42 Connecticut 24Virginia 40 Hawaii 24Florida 39 Alabama 23Arkansas 36 Indiana 23Wisconsin 36 Delaware 22Tennessee 35 Utah 22Texas 35 West Virginia 20Iowa 34 Louisiana 19Massachusetts 34 Colorado 18California 33 Arizona 17Georgia 33 Ohio 17Washington 33 Mississippi 14Kentucky 32 Nevada 14North Carolina 32 Kansas 13Maryland 30 Oklahoma 12Missouri 30 District of Columbia 8Oregon 30 Alaska 7Vermont 30 Montana 5Nebraska 29 Wyoming 5Illinois 28 Idaho n/a

Source: Environmental Protection Agency.

FIGURE 23-14 Drop-off site. This roadside center is convenientlylocated so that people can drop off recyclables on the way tonearby shopping centers.


Obstacles to Recycling. From an energy and resource stand-point, recycling is generally not as good an option as reuse,but it is far better than burning materials and infinitely bet-ter than throwing them away. If recycling is such a goodidea, why don’t Americans, Canadians, and other people domore of it? The reasons are complex.

First, some industrial societies grew up with abundantresources. Steeped in the frontier notion that “there’s alwaysmore,” industrialists and political leaders have traditionallyseen little need for recycling,except perhaps in times ofwar when raw materials werein short supply. Given theseemingly inexhaustible sup-ply of materials, factorieswere primarily set up to han-dle virgin material. The entireproduction–consumptionsystem was built without re-cycling in mind. Corporateempires were built on the prof-its of extractive industries, themining companies, and those companies today wield enor-mous political power. Changing this ingrained and wastefulsystem will not be easy.

Second, the nation’s tax laws today support extraction anddiscourage recycling. As pointed out in Chapter 16, U.S. lawswork against recycling. Even today, for example, mining com-panies receive generous tax breaks (depletion allowances) thatgive them an unfair advantage over recyclers. These tax breaks

often make virgin materials cheaper than recycled ones. Log-ging companies that supply wood for paper mills (and otheruses) are also heavily subsidized by the federal government—and thus by the taxpayer. Logging roads in national forests,for instance, are built with public money, and timber sales onpublic land have long been made below their cost (Chapter 12),further benefiting virgin paper industry over recycling. Federalsubsidies create unfair economics. Hard-rock mining compa-nies can also purchase federal land at $5.00 an acre, thanks tothe Mining Act of 1872. They are also not required to pay anyroyalty to the government for extracted minerals, which arti-ficially reduces the price of minerals and metals.

The traditional extractive industries receive anotherhidden subsidy that’s far more difficult to quantify. It is calledan economic externality—a cost that is passed on to the pub-lic from pollution and other harmful effects of these activi-ties. Because the traditional ways of making paper, steel cans,and other products produce more pollution, they have a big-ger impact on our health and our environment than doesrecycling, which uses less energy and produces far less pol-lution. The higher environmental cost of virgin materials,however, is not completely reflected in the price of the prod-uct. It is, instead, paid in federal taxes that go to clean up ourair and water. It is paid in higher health bills and in dozensof other ways that few of us are aware of.

Another difficulty is the built-in transportation pricedifferential, mandated by law, for scrap metal and ore. For ex-ample, ore travels more cheaply than metal bound for a re-cycling mill.

In some locations, such as the U.S. West, cheap land-fill costs were once a barrier to overcome. In Colorado, forexample, landfill tipping fees—the cost to dump a ton oftrash in a landfill—once ranged from $4 to $7 per ton. Re-cycling costs $30 to $50 a ton. On the East and West Coasts,landfill tipping fees ranged from $40 to $100, making recycling far more profitable. As landfills were closed and new, more expensive sites were developed, however,tipping fees began to rise. In the northeastern United States,tipping fees now average $67 per ton. In most of the rest ofthe nation, where undeveloped land is more abundant, tip-ping fees now average $42 to $44 per ton. In addition, manyinterior states are a long way from the nation’s paper recy-cling mills, making it more expensive and less profitable torecycle paper.

Recycling suffers from an image problem as well. In the1970s, many recycled paper products were of inferior qual-ity. Many people who used them were dissatisfied and soonreturned to virgin materials. Since that time, however, recy-cled paper products have improved immensely. Recycled of-fice paper, stationery, and computer paper are indistinguishablefrom virgin stock. Still, the notion that recycled paper is in-ferior sometimes persists.

Plastics pose a special problem for recycling. Most plas-tic is perfectly recyclable. The problem is that there are morethan 45 different types of plastic commonly used for pack-aging. Making matters worse, some packages contain two ormore types of plastic, making it difficult to recycle. A plas-tic ketchup bottle, for example, has five layers of plastic,


FIGURE 23-15 Curbside recycling. Many cities have curbside re-cycling programs, which make recycling very convenient. Trashand recyclables are often picked up by different trucks.

GO GREEN

At the end of the academic year,don’t throw away perfectly us-able items. Donate them throughhttp://www.freecycle.org or tolocal charities. You can alsocontact http://www.dumpandrun.org. This organization col-lects discards and sells them toincoming students the nextyear, donating the proceeds tocharity.

each one different, each one providing a special featureneeded to make a perfectly squeezable bottle to deliver ourketchup.

One way plastic manufacturers have helped promoteplastic recycling is by placing codes on plastic packaging sothat individuals and recyclers can tell exactly what type ofplastic it is made of (FIGURE 23-16). In most cities, only twoor three of the most widely used plastics are recycled.

KEY CONCEPTS

Overcoming the Obstacles. Despite these barriers, U.S. re-cycling efforts are on the rise and are bound to increase sub-stantially. In 1988, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyannounced a nationwide goal of reducing the solid wastestream by 25% through waste reduction and recycling by1994, a goal reached a year early. In 2004, however, the ratehad climbed to 29.7%. In 2009, it inched upward to 33.8%.

Lofty government goals are only part of the equation,though. Rising energy prices, decreasing landfill space, and de-pletion of high-grade ores will all increase recycling in com-ing years. Public awareness through education from schools,environmental groups, and the media can also help. Policychanges are also needed to eliminate preferential freight ratesand subsidies for timber harvesting and mining.

To be successful, recycling programs must also be con-venient and cost-effective. Recycling also requires individualcommitment and action. Separating trash before collection re-quires a little effort, but not much more than the effort we ex-pend to separate our white clothes from our colored clotheswhen we do our laundry. I like to think of source separation as

Although recycling is a promising strategy for waste management,many obstacles hinder its full implementation. Some of the mostimportant are federal laws and subsidies that give the raw ma-terials industry an unfair economic advantage over recycling.

the small price we have to pay for the riches the Earth gives us.It is a small sacrifice that pays off in a better world and a sus-tainable future.

To promote recycling among citizens, cities and townscan create several economic incentives. In Seattle, residentspay disposal fees based on the amount of trash they produce.Those who compost and recycle and fill a micro trash can(12 gallons) pay $16.55 per month. Those who fill a single32-gallon trash can pay $26.40. Residents who fill two trashcans pay $52.80 per month.

KEY CONCEPTS

Procuring Recycled Materials: Closing the Loop. Besidesovercoming the barriers just described, to make recyclingsuccessful, we must also develop markets for recycled ma-terials. In other words, we must close the loop. What doesthis mean?

Creating markets for recyclables causes an importantshift in the production–consumption system and our im-pact on the Earth. Most human economies are linear in de-sign, as illustrated in FIGURE 23-17a. They are dependent onresources extracted from the environment, which are thenfashioned into products, used, and then disposed of. A sus-tainable industrial system based on recycling is cyclic (FIG-URE 23-17b). It resembles the nutrient cycles in ecosystems.In such a system, materials flow cyclically through the system—from production facility to consumer and backfor reuse a lot like carbon or nitrogen in ecosystems.

Although some raw materials will need to be extractedand some wastes will invariably be produced in a sustainablesystem of production and consumption, the goal of a sus-tainable economy is to maximize the amount of materialthat is recycled within the economy. As you shall soon see,this will mean a shift away from employment at both endsof the system and toward the middle, where the recycling oc-curs (both pickup and remanufacturing).

Building an industrial ecosystem—that is, a system ofcommerce that is an analog of the natural ecosystems—means even greater increases in the amount of materialthat is returned by end users; but this is not enough. To cre-ate a truly cyclic economy, companies must be willing to usethe materials picked up in curbside programs or drop-offsites, as noted above. Financial incentives and disincen-tives can be used to promote remanufacturing. For in-stance, Colorado offers a tax credit to companies thatpurchase equipment that allows them to incorporate re-cycled materials into the manufacturing process. In addi-tion, people like you and I must be willing to purchaserecycled paper and other materials to help support manu-facturers. If recyclers cannot find a market for their mate-rials, all the recycling in the world is of no use.

Expanding the amount of garbage that is recycled will requireremoval of some of the legal and economic barriers and subsi-dies that give benefits to companies that use virgin materialsrather than recycled ones. Commitment on the part of citizensis also vital to making recycling a success.

FIGURE 23-16 Plastic code. The codes on the bottom of virtually allplastic containers tell the type of plastic the product contains, mak-ing it easier for individuals and recyclers to tell one from another.


in the past decade, municipalitiesstarting many new recycling pro-grams have discovered that there areno markets for some materials or thatthe payments they will receive areinadequate to support their pro-grams. When New York State beganrecycling plastic soft drink bottles,it couldn’t find a buyer; the recyclingprogram became an expensive tripto the landfill. Over time, though,markets developed, and the softdrink bottles are now ground up andused to make carpeting, filler for pil-lows, jackets, and other products. Inthe late 1980s, many cities found that newsprint recycling efforts werecrippled by a dramatic decline innewsprint prices. Over the past 2 de-cades, gluts of recyclable materialshave always seemed to end, as mar-kets develop in response to risingsecondary material supplies. In thelate 1980s and early 1990s, over 70 paper product mills that rely onrecycled paper opened in the UnitedStates or were modified to handlerecycled paper.

Recycled newsprint can be usedto make a variety of useful productsbesides new newsprint. For instance,it can be used to make egg cartons,cereal boxes, map tubes, drywall,

ceiling tiles, animal bedding, and insulation. The insulationfilling the rafter spaces in my environmentally sustainablehome is 100% recycled newsprint and cardboard. Cities andtowns can encourage companies to manufacture these prod-ucts from waste, thus putting locally available wastes to gooduse and helping build stable, self-reliant regional or stateeconomies.

Individuals can help expand markets by purchasing re-cycled products. Governments can also help. When addedtogether, local, state, and federal governments account foran estimated 40% of the U.S. gross national product—that is, the nation’s total annual output of goods and ser-vices. Government is the single most important purchaserin the U.S. economy. Think of the impact that local, state,and federal governments could have if they all started buy-ing recycled paper. The demand they created would greatlyincrease production, lower costs, and create supplies forthe rest of us.

Today, all 50 states and the District of Columbia haveprocurement programs, purchasing millions of reams of re-cycled office paper and paper products. New York, for ex-ample, allows state agencies to purchase recycled paper ifit comes within 5% of the cost of virgin stock; California al-lows purchase if it comes within 10%. These are called pricepreference policies. In these two states, about one-fourth


In November 1990, Germany’s minister for the envi-ronment issued a decree calling for an 80% reduction in theamount of packaging entering the waste stream. To meetthese goals, retailers are required to collect packaging ma-terials and recycle them. This puts pressure on manufac-turers to reduce excess packaging wherever possible andperhaps to help develop markets to use the recyclables. Topromote public participation, the government is also levy-ing a small deposit (equivalent to about 30 cents in U.S.currency) on most packages. Retailers can avoid the de-posit and take-back requirements if industry establishes al-ternative collection and recycling systems that meet theestablished goals.

Laws requiring deposits on beverage containers, com-monly known as bottle bills, can also dramatically increaserecycling rates. At this writing, eleven U.S. states have bot-tle bills. In such states, over 90% of the glass and aluminumcontainers are returned for recycling. Container deposit leg-islation is also on the books in the Netherlands, Scandinavia,Russia, Canada, Japan, parts of Australia, and a handful ofless developed nations.

Recycling programs in the United States are currentlyhindered by small markets for some materials. For example,

FIGURE 23-17 Systems of production and consumption. By reducing waste, reusing, com-posting, and recycling, individuals and businesses can convert (a) the linear production systeminto (b) a cyclic one. Jobs will shift away from the ends of the linear system to the center,where recycling and composting are done. Jobs at all levels of income will be created in recy-cling and composting industries.

Landfill

Mines, forests,farms

(b) Cyclic production system: The industrial ecosystem

Manufacturingand processing

Stores Homes Landfill

Mines, forests,farms

(a) Linear production system

Manufacturingand processing

Stores Homes

Wastes

Wastes

of all the office paper, tissue, paper towels, and cardboardpurchased by state agencies are made from recycled stock.On average, the states pay only about 2% more for office pa-per. Who knows what they saved in reduced pollution andhealth bills?

In October 1991, President George Bush signed an ex-ecutive order that required all federal departments and agen-cies to purchase products made with recycled materialswhenever possible. This order also requires federal agenciesto name recycling coordinators to increase recycling of dis-carded items by the nation’s 3 million federal employees.

Unknown to many, the Resource Conservation and Re-covery Act called on federal agencies to purchase recycled ma-terials in 1976, but only if the products were reasonablypriced. Unfortunately, two problems thwarted progress. First,the law called on the EPA to publish a list of guidelines fora dozen or so recycled products. However, the EPA did notbegin drawing up the guidelines for over a decade—andonly then after it was sued by environmentalists. The jobwas not completed until 1989.

The second problem was interpretation of the “reason-able cost” provisions to mean the lowest cost. Given federaltransportation policy, the smaller markets, and the failure ofcurrent pricing systems to reflect external costs (amongother problems), recycled products are often slightly moreexpensive. Colorado officials, however, have found thatsome items are cost-competitive or even cheaper. Further-more, money saved on one product, can be used to pay theslightly higher price of another, thus keeping state spendingconstant.

As recycling becomes more common, more and moremanufacturers are bound to shift to recycled materials. Re-cycling facilities are bound to open in many states, creatingjobs and economic opportunities. In the not-too-distant fu-ture, recycling could well be the chief source of materials tomake consumer products.

It may be surprising to many, but recycling is muchmore prevalent in the less developed countries than in theindustrialized nations. The poor raid the dumps for food,clothing, and materials for shelter; they also seek out dis-carded metals and other goods that they can sell. The moredeveloped nations can help promote recycling as they as-sist less developed nations in their efforts to increase theireconomic well-being. Information on the energy and mate-rial savings, as well as the technologies for recycling, couldhelp convince these countries and businesses to adopt re-cycling policies.

KEY CONCEPTS

Composting. Another valuable throughput strategy thatreduces waste and recycles materials is composting, the

One of the most important boosts to recycling is purchasingproducts made from recycled materials, an activity in which gov-ernments, businesses, and individuals can all engage. Governmentscan help strengthen the markets by providing incentives to com-panies that use recycled materials or by requiring them to use acertain percentage of recycled content in their products.

process in which nutrients from organic wastes such asleaves, grass clippings, cardboard, and paper are returned tothe soil. Composting is a form of nutrient recycling.

In most large-scale operations, organic matter is col-lected from various sources, stockpiled, mixed with some dirt,and then allowed to decompose. The resulting product, com-post, is a nutrient-rich, organic material that can be used tobuild soil fertility. Composting may occur in backyards, inneighborhood facilities, or in large municipal operations.

In 2008, 3,510 municipal composting operations werein business in the United States, up from 3,227 in 2001, ac-cording to the EPA. In Seattle, for example, zoo officialscompost all of the manure produced by the zoo’s many an-imals. When decomposed, the manure forms a rich, organicsoil supplement they call ZooDoo, which is sold to garden-ers and homeowners for use around the yard. Yard wastecomposting programs exist in virtually every state in theUnited States. Despite this success, most large-scale com-posting programs are in Europe—in the Netherlands, Bel-gium, England, and Italy—and in Israel.

Widespread composting, combined with recycling, canresult in substantial reductions in municipal waste. Nation-wide, organic wastes such as leaves, grass clippings, andkitchen scraps constitute about 25% of the garbage dumpedinto landfills or burned in incinerators, During the fall, com-postable waste can make up 75% of the waste stream. Com-posting these wastes would not only reduce landfilling butcould save considerable amounts of energy needed to trans-port wastes to landfills. Composting is often cheaper thanlandfilling and can help recycle nutrients to farmland, closingthe loops of an extremely important nutrient cycle. In New Jer-sey, composting in Morris County costs municipalities $16 to$32 per ton, much less than landfilling, which costs over $110per ton. Collecting and composting leaves and yard waste inMinneapolis and St. Paul costs the cities about $65 a ton, com-pared to landfilling at $90 a ton.

Despite their obvious benefits, large-scale compostingoperations have some drawbacks. First, they require largetracts of land because they can produce odor and createbreeding sites for pests. Because of this, composting facili-ties are usually sited far from homes. This adds significantlyto the transportation costs and energy consumption. Large-scale composting facilities are often expensive undertakings,in part because of the need to sort out the noncompostablematerials such as plastics, metals, and glass. They also needto invest in machinery to turn the compost regularly to ac-celerate decay.

To make municipal composting more cost-effective,cities and counties could rely on labor from convicts, wel-fare recipients, or the unemployed. Citizens could be re-quired to sort out recyclable metals, plastics, and glass, thuseliminating the cost of separating the wastes later.

Composting can be practiced very successfully at home.Gardeners can make their own compost piles of leaves, grassclippings, and vegetable wastes from the kitchen. By mixingthese materials with a little soil (which contains the bac-teria that do the breakdown) and by watering the pile fromtime to time to keep it moist, homeowners can produce a



nutrient-rich soil supplement for lawns and gardens—eliminating the need for artificial fertilizer. A commerciallyavailable container or a simple wooden enclosure helps keepneighbors’ dogs or neighborhood raccoons and skunks outof the pile. Home composting also eliminates the need tohaul wastes to central facilities.

Another waste product of cities and towns is sewagesludge. As noted in Chapter 21, sludge is typically dumpedin landfills, wasting very valuable soil nutrients. Fortunately,sludge can be combined with municipal solid waste (leaves,paper, grass clippings, and so on) and composted. Thisprocess, called co-composting, destroys viruses and bacte-ria in the sludge, so the product can be sold for use on farmsor on gardens and lawns. Co-composting is expected to be-come increasingly popular in the United States and othercountries because it costs less and is more ecologically soundthan landfilling.

KEY CONCEPTS

The Economic Benefits of Recycling, Reuse, and Com-posting John Young of the Worldwatch Institute once wrotethat “more efficient use of materials could virtually elimi-

Composting is a way of returning the nutrients contained in or-ganic matter such as yard waste and food scraps to the soil.This strategy not only reduces the need for landfilling, it helpsnourish soils, creating a more closed-loop system.

nate incineration and dramatically reduce dependence onlandfills. It could also substantially lower energy needs. . . .Taken together, source reduction, reuse, and recycling can-not only cut waste but also foster more flexible and self-reliant economies. Decentralized collection and processingof secondary materials can create new industries and jobs.”

In fact, numerous studies show that recycling creates farmore jobs than the traditional strategies of landfilling and in-cineration. A study in New York showed that recycling 10,000tons of trash through curbside recycling programs produced,on average, 36 new jobs. Landfilling or incinerating that trashproduced only about one job each. While some jobs will belost in the front end of the production–consumption system—that is, at the mines and in the forests where raw materialsare extracted—many more jobs will be opened up in the mid-dle, the recycling portion. As Young points out, while the eco-nomic health of nations is often measured by the amount ofmaterials they consume, prosperity doesn’t have to be so tightlylinked to consumption. We can live well and live sustainably.

KEY CONCEPTS

We are poisoning ourselves and our posterity.—Barry Commoner

Recycling is not only good for the environment, it often costsless than other strategies and creates many jobs.

CRITICAL THINKING

Exercise AnalysisThis is a clear-cut case of dollars versus environmental protection that hinges on ethics—values. You arefairly sure that the incinerator in the developing country will produce toxic emissions and that spills alongthe way are also possible. Lax rules may result in considerable environmental contamination. Furthermore,waste from the incinerator will very likely be dumped in an open pit, where it could leak into the ground-water. In essence, your economic savings will be passed on as an economic liability to unsuspecting resi-dents of the receiving nation.

A savings of a million dollars is fairly substantial, however. Your boss will no doubt take notice andmay even give you a sizable raise for saving the company so much money. How do you decide? Which ismore important: protecting the environment of another country or saving your company money andmaybe setting yourself up for a raise? Do you feel a sense of intragenerational equity? What other optionsare available to you?

CRITICAL THINKING AND CONCEPT REVIEW1. Summarize the major events occurring at Love Canal.

Who was to blame for this problem? What might havebeen done to avoid it?

2. You are appointed to head a state agency on haz-ardous-waste disposal. You and your staff are to makerecommendations for a statewide plan to handle haz-ardous wastes. Draw up a plan for eliminating dump-ing. Which techniques would have the highest priority?How would you put your plan into effect?

3. Discuss the major provisions of the Resource Conserva-tion and Recovery Act (1976) and the ComprehensiveEnvironmental Response, Compensation, and LiabilityAct (1980), the so-called Superfund Act. What are theweaknesses of each?

4. Describe the pros and cons of hazardous-waste man-agement strategies, including process modification, re-cycling and reuse, conversion to nonhazardous or lesshazardous materials, and perpetual disposal.

5. Debate the following statement: “All hazardous wastes should be recycled and reused to eliminate disposal.”

6. A hazardous-waste site is going to be placed in yourcommunity. What information would you want to knowabout the site? How would you go about getting theinformation you need? Would you oppose it? Why orwhy not?

7. List personal ways in which we can each contribute tolessening the hazardous waste problem.

8. Discuss some of the options we have for getting rid ofradioactive wastes. Which ones seem the most feasibleto you? Why?

9. Debate the following statement: “Victims of improperhazardous-waste disposal practices should be compen-sated by a victim compensation fund developed by tax-ing the producers of toxic waste.”

10. Describe the three basic approaches to solving thesolid waste problem. Give examples of each one. Whichis (are) the most sustainable? Why?

11. Describe the pros and cons of landfilling, incineration,source reduction, composting, reuse, and recycling.

12. What shifts in activities would result from changingthe linear production–consumption system to a cyclicone? How will this affect jobs? In your opinion, are theproposed shifts necessary? How can we soften the blowof such a change?

13. Critically analyze this statement: “Recycling is not asgreat as advocates would have you think. Recyclingtakes energy, for example, to pick up materials and re-process them. It produces waste and pollution.”

KEY TERMS aseptic containersco-compostingcompostcompostingComprehensive Environmental

Response, Compensation andLiability Act (CERCLA)

detoxificationgross national producthazardous wastesincinerationinput approachland disposal

low-temperature decompositionMarine Protection, Research, and

Sanctuaries Actmunicipal solid wastesNIMBY syndromeNuclear Waste Policy ActOcean Dumping Ban Actoutput approachprice preference policiesprocess manipulationrecyclingResource Conservation and Recovery

Act (RCRA)

reusereuse and recycling strategiessanitary landfillsecured landfillssource reductionsubstitutionSuperfundSuperfund Actthroughput approachwaste-to-energy (WTE) plants

Connect to this book's website:http://environment.jbpub.com/9e/The site features eLearning, an online reviewarea that provides quizzes, chapter outlines,and other tools to help you study for yourclass. You can also follow useful links for in-depth information, research the differingviews in the Point/Counterpoints, or keep up on the latest environmental news.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGTo save on paper and allow for updates, additional readingrecommendations and the list of sources for the informationdiscussed in this chapter are available at http://environment.jbpub.com/9e/.


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CHAPTER 23 Hazardous and Solid Wastes: Sustainablemyresource.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/SCI275r7/Environmental... · hazardous waste was seen as a sign of progress. ... in particular