Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 1
Waste and Waste Management
Solid waste
UAU102F
Throstur Throsteinsson Environment and Natural Resources, University of Iceland
Modern Trends
“Industrial ecology is the means by which humanity can deliberately and rationally approach and maintain a desirable capacity, given economic, cultural and technological evolution. The concept requires that an industrial system be viewed not in isolation from its surrounding systems but in concert with them. It is a systems view in which one seeks to optimize the total materials cycle from virgin material, to finished material, to component, to product to obsolete product and ultimate disposal. Factors to be optimized include resources, energy, capital” (Graedel and Allenby)
Goal of IE The study of relationships among industrial systems
and their links to natural systems
Goals
1) To use biological analogies to understand how industrial systems evolve over time - and how to influence evolution.
2) To minimize the environmental impact of industrial activity through efficient design and technological change through the dual action of product competitiveness and environmental interactions.
Features of IE
1. Industry as a system, each component feeds of another
2. Movement towards ecological metabolism
• Increase energy and material efficiency
3. Industry a dynamic entity, continually changing - should change towards an environmentally friendly structure
4. Industry the agent of change!
Features of IE
5. Industry integrated with the environment, not removed from biosphere
6. Waste should not exist
7. Should facilitate links between industrial actors
Industrial Symbiosis
8. Advocate the triple bottom line
• People, planet, profits
• Corporate social and environmental responsibility
• Ensure profits at the same time
IE Tools
Life cycle analysis (LCA), Life cycle costing (LCC)
Environmental cost assessment (ECA), Total cost assessment (TCA)
Design for the environment (DFE)
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by McDonough and Braungart.
Advocate for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 2
Waste Management
Integrated Waste Management
Includes:
To prevent or divert the materials from the waste stream
Reduce, reuse, recycle (RRR)
Composting
Disposal of materials that enter the waste stream
Landfill
Incineration
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce the amount and toxicity of trash you discard.
Reuse containers and products; repair what is broken or give it to someone who can repair it.
Recycle as much as possible, which includes buying products with recycled content.
Easy to do?
Reduce
Waste prevention, or "source reduction,” means consuming and throwing away less. It includes:
Purchasing durable, long-lasting goods;
Redesigning products to use less raw material in production, have a longer life, or be used again after its original use.
Source Reduction refers to any change in the design, manufacture, purchase, or use of materials or products (including packaging) to reduce their amount or toxicity before they become municipal solid waste.
Reuse
Reusing items How?
Using durable coffee mugs.
Using cloth napkins and diapers…. Beneficial?
Refilling bottles.
Reusing boxes.
Turning empty jars into containers for leftover food.
Purchasing refillable pens and pencils.
Recycling
Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources.
Materials like glass, metal, plastics, and paper are collected, separated and sent to facilities that can process them into new materials or products
How to promote RRR?
Education
Formal recycling programs Must be convenient
Various economic incentives e.g. Pay per bag
How high is too high?
Deposit-refund systems
Benefits of RRR
Saves natural resources.
Reduces fossil energy use
Reduces disposal costs
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 3
Composting
Biochemical process in which organic materials decompose in a controlled environment into a humus a rich soil like material.
Yard trimmings
Household organic waste
Composting really is nature’s way of recycling organic waste into new soil, which can be used in vegetable and flower gardens, landscaping and many other applications.
Disposal
Combustion
Landfills
Combustion
Burn at a high temperature (over 900 – 1000 degrees Celsius) to consume all combustible materials, leaving only ash and non-combustibles to be disposed in landfills.
Ideally reduces the volume by 75 to 95%.
In practice the reduction is closer to 50% due to incomplete incineration, supply issues and maintenance
Combustion
Waste to energy systems – create energy in the form of steam or electricity from the combustion – a system called energy recovery.
Not a clean process – potential pollution:
Ash
Dioxin
Nitrogen and sulfur oxides
Heavy metals (cadmium, mercury)
Landfills
Open Dumps vs. Sanitary landfills
Open:
Trash piled up without being covered or otherwise protected. Often a health hazard
Sanitary:
Are designed to concentrate and contain refuse without creating a hazard to public health or safety
Confining the waste
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 4
Landfills - basics What happens in landfills?
Degradation of MSW
Anaerobic or aerobic
Creation of gasses
Creation of leachate
From water percolating down from the surface or with groundwater moving laterally through the refuse
Hazardous
Is noxious, mineralized liquid capable of transporting bacterial pollutants.
Reduced by covering landfill, lining the landfill properly and with compaction
Landfills - possible pollutants
Methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and nitrogen gases
Heavy metals such as lead, chromium, and iron can be retained in the soil.
Soluble materials such as chloride, nitrate and sulfate can readily pass through the waste and soil to the groundwater system.
Overland runoff can pick up leachate and transport into streams and rivers.
Plants can absorb heavy metals and other toxic materials
Streams, rivers may become polluted if polluted groundwater seeps out or via surface run-off
Toxic materials can be passed to other areas by wind
Landfill - site selection Topography
Location of the groundwater table – should bury above the water table.
Amount of precipitation – as little as we can. In arid regions.
Type of soil and rock – as impermeable as we can have it – e.g clay.
Are there other considerations?
Sanitary Landfill Landfills
Must do this well:
Been known to contain hazardous materials that cannot leak out.
18% of all Superfund sites in the USA are old landfills
Federal legislation in the USA with regard to landfills that opened after 1993 requires e.g.
Specific sites, liners, leachate collection, monitoring
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 5
Solid Waste
Definition: Waste is something that has no apparent, obvious or significant economic or beneficial value to humans. Thus we throw it away:
Personal
Temporal
Income-related
Based on technology
5 Main Solid Waste Types
Municipal waste
Industrial waste
Hazardous waste
Medical waste
Radioactive waste
Municipal and Industrial Waste
MW generated by households, schools, and commerce
Product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances
IW, industrial waste, that is not air-born and is not classified as either municipal waste or hazardous waste
Manufacturing waste
Agricultural waste – e.g. plastics in Iceland.
Mining waste
Coal combustion waste
Municipal Waste per Capita
400
420
440
460
480
500
520
540
560
580
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Gen
erat
ion
(kg/
cap
ita)
Total EU-27 + EFTA
Iceland
Waste peak
http://www.nature.com/news/environment-waste-production-must-peak-this-century-1.14032
MSW Composition
In USA:
Paper largest source
Followed by:
Yard trimmings
Food scraps
Plastics
In EU
Organics/food scraps
Followed by:
Paper
Plastics
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/MSWcharacterization_508_053113_fs.pdf
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 6
Waste Management in Iceland - MSW
Municipal waste management in Iceland (2013 EEA report)
Development – more student presentation
1970’s
Open Pit Burning
Small open dumps all over the country
1990’s
Concrete boxes, preventing waste to blow away
Still incineration at relatively low temperatures.
Landfills plus high heat incineration
http://english.ust.is/media/skyrslur2006/Waste_Management_in_Iceland_21_feb_06.pdf
The Icelandic Recycling Fund
No landfill- and incineration taxes but instead a Recycling Fund that is used to recycle or dispose certain products to finance the fund:
A recycling fee is levied on the products recognized in the law as being e.g. Hazardous.
Used to finance collection, transport from the sites and recycling, recovery or disposal.
Hazardous Waste
Management
Hazardous Waste
Most possess at least 1 of 4 features to be HW: Ignitability: The potential for a waste to ignite or cause a fire
(a flash point of 140 degrees F or less)
Corrosivity: The potential for liquids acids or bases to corrode steel or harm living organisms through corrosive properties (pH 2 or less or 12.5 or more)
Reactivity: the potential for the waste to explode or generate highly poisonous gases.
Toxicity: Whether a waste contains constituents at designated levels that have been determined to be excessively toxic to health through e.g. drinking water.
E.g. flammable solvents, pesticides, from batteries
Radioactive Waste - Management
1. Low level radioactive waste
Incinerated at very high heat, ash disposed of in specific landfills
2. Medium level radioactive waste – the plant itself.
a. Decommissioning
b. Solidifying in shallow depositories
3. High level radioactive waste – spent fuel
i. Short term solutions
a. De-containment
b. Safe storage
c. Entombment – safe enclosure
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 7
Radioactive Waste - Management
ii. Long-term Solutions.
A) Long term storage without any reprocessing:
Vitrification – transformation into glass
Geologic disposal
In stable underground geo-formations (Yucca mountain, Nevada)
In Ice (Greenland)
B) Commercial scale reprocessing
Medical Waste
Any solid waste that is generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals, in research pertaining thereto, or in the production or testing, including but not limited to:
blood-soaked bandages
culture dishes and other glassware
discarded surgical gloves - after surgery
discarded surgical instruments - scalpels
needles - used to give shots or draw blood
removed body organs - tonsils, appendices, limbs, etc.
Usually incinerated at high heat with energy recovery
Love Canal
Love Canal is a section of Niagara Falls, NY near the Niagara river.
The canal was part of a larger vision of William Love, who in 1892 dug up the area in order to allow water to flow through Niagara and produce a sprawling industrial city.
In the mid 1890’s investors pulled out leaving the Love Canal unfinished and basically a big ditch.
Love Canal
The Hooker chemical company bought the canal/ditch in 1940’s as a chemical dump site.
Some 25,000 tons of chemicals are dumped in this ditch for at the moment there are no residents around the “clay bathtub” as it was deemed.
In 1953, Hooker stopped dumping the chemicals and covered it with dirt.
Love Canal
The School Board of Niagara approaches Hooker Chemical to sell the patch of land in and around Love Canal for a new school and a park.
After much negotiation (pressures), Hooker sells the land for $1 in 1953 telling the new owners about the dump underneath.
The 99th Street School is constructed directly on top of the canal in 1953 and houses are build around the school.
Love Canal
Niagara Falls has a very high water table and 1976-1977 was an unusually rainy year.
That being said, residents began to notice chemicals leaking into their basements.
The EPA analyzed nearby basements and found benzene, a serious health risk as well as other chemicals such as chloroform.
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 8
A few of the chemicals founds in basements
• 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
• benzenehexachlorides
• tetrachlorobenzenes
• dichlorobenzenes
• pentachlorbenzene
• polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs)
• chloroform
• benzene
• methylene chloride
• lindane
(hexachlorcyclohexane)
• tetrachloroethylenes
• trichloroethylene
• DDT
• Toluene
Love Canal
Evidence of increased incident of cancer
All Love Canal families were evacuated - and site sealed.
Superfund law passed
Occidental Petroleum sued and agreed to pay US government $129 million to fund cleanup
Love Canal Infrared Hazardous waste - Examples
Various things we use in the house are considered hazardous and should never be put in the trash. Examples:
• Oven cleaners
• Drain cleaners
• Wood and metal
cleaners and polishes
• Toilet cleaners
• Tub, tile, shower
cleaners
• Bleach (laundry)
• Pool chemicals
• Flea repellents and
shampoos
• Bug sprays
• Houseplant insecticides
• Moth repellents
• Mouse and rat
poisons and baits
• Antifreeze
• Adhesives and glues
Management
1. Source reduction Substitution
Modification
In-line reclamation (e.g. acids and solvents)
2. End-of pipe management Reclamation
Treatment
Incineration
Storage
Disposal
Management
Reclamation
Is the process of obtaining a reusable product from waste. Sold and used elsewhere. HW can be used as fuel in cement kilns e.g.
Treatment
A process or method that is designed to change the physical, chemical or biological character of the waste. E.g. acids can be neutralized and heavy metals separated from water, and broken through oxidation.
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 9
Management
Storage
Hold and accumulate waste prior to treatment.
Disposal
Deep-well injection (below freshwater sources)
Surface impoundment (e.g. lagoon at hazardous waste facility – lined with clay and plastic)
Land application – biodegradable waste spread on land (only petroleum waste, organic chemical plant waste) – biopersistence high, less suitable. Microbial breakdown (limited to 20cm)
Landfilling – Secure landfill. Controls leachate. Lined landfill, system of internal drains, monitoring wells
EWASTE
Contains dangerous levels of e.g. lead, arsenic, mercury, Cd
Where does E-waste go?
Recycled – where?
Expensive process
Shipped abroad
50-80% of all e-waste in USA shipped to China, India, Pakistan
Basel Convention
The Basel Convention (Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal) is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of HW between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to LDCs. It does not, however, address the movement of radioactive waste.
Didn’t ban exports, but merely required a notification and consent system known as "prior informed consent" or PIC
Environmental Justice
NIMBY (not in my back yard) - argument used in practice mostly by affluent households
Studies show that landfills, contaminated sites are disproportionately found in these areas:
Minorities, low income
Lacking political power
National and an international issue
Please Read!
"'Dirty' Industries:
Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?
I can think of three reasons:
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 10
Please Read!
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non- tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
Please Read! 3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable."
Please read!
"The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.”
Who wrote this?
Written by the chief economist for the World Bank Lawrence Summers in 1991.
Was an internal memo that was leaked to the environmental community, which in turn, publicized it.
Trade in HW is a business - multiple stories of floating waste-dumps
Hazardous waste in Iceland
Contaminated sites found in Iceland Point source oil contamination (various areas)
Hringrás area in Reykjavik (scrap metal)
Heiðarfjall, Langanes (former Nato area)
Stafnes near Keflavik (former Nato area)
Leirdalur (east of Reykjavik)
Nickel area in Keflavik
Shipyard in Reykjavik
Vellirnir – Hafnarfjörður – moss study (2013 in the news)
Hazardous waste in Iceland
However, very little is known and a study was commissioned (Meyles and Schmidt at UST, 2005) - which was competed in 2005 - showed e.g:
Don’t know how many contaminated sites there are.
Lack of strategies and policies to deal with HW
No funding to clean up sites.
No liability rules
Some risk assessment, but no specific methods
No specific remediation plan.
UAU102F Fall 2013
Throstur Thorsteinsson ([email protected]) 11
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Norðurlands eystra:
-Sites in total: 39 plus many
places with animal carcasses
-Sites known as definitely
contaminated: 19
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Austurlands:
-Sites in total: 102
-Many sites under
suspicion, but no proven
present contamination
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Suðurlands:
-Sites in total: 6
-Sites under strong
suspicion: 1
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Reykjavíkur:
-Sites in total: 13
-Sites known as definitely
contaminated: 10
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Hafnarfjarðar og Kópavogs-
svædis:
-Sites in total: 18 plus all fuel
filling stations in the area
-Sites known as definitely
contaminated: 9
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Suðurnesja:
-Sites in total: 13
-Sites known as
definitely contaminated:
8
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Kjósarsvædis:
-Sites in total: 4 plus all
fuel filling stations
-Sites under strong
suspicion: 4
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Vesturlands: No
information available
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Vestfjarða: no
information available
Heilbrigðiseftirlit
Norðurlands vestra:
-Sites in total: 26
-Sites definitely known as
contaminated: 1
-Many more under strong
suspicion
What to do? - Nationally
1. Set targets for identification of sites, classification (very high risk, high risk, moderate risk, low risk) and prioritisation.
2. Set categories (clean, suspect, contamination confirmed) and boundaries for remediation, accreditation of samplers and researchers (standardisation!), safe land-use related to contamination level? (limit –values) and site-definition, identification of desired background levels and allowed environmental load on national/regional basis.
3. Set Legal Framework (defining old and new cases) and prioritising/budgettising/granting for those cases that the polluter is not known or liable (national and regional level).
The Law - HW
Law number 55/2003: Waste management
Objective: Decrease the quantity of waste by preventing generation, increase recycling and recovery and reduce the quantity of waste deposited in landfills.
Local authorities are responsible
Ban landfilling of scrap metals, end-of life vehicles, liquid wastes, hazardous waste, contagious and radioactive waste and tires.
July 16 2009, all landfill operators must either comply with the regulation or shut down their operations.
Some Recent Headlines
New Delhi/Brussels, 12 May 2006: The Supreme Court of India has issued notice to the Government of India to prevent entry of SS Norway in its present condition, until the toxic ship was in compliance with its October 2003 order regarding ship breaking.
“The massive ocean liner SS Norway is thought to contain between 1,200 and 1,300 tons of asbestos contaminated material - far more than the Clemenceau - and significant quantities of toxic PCB contaminated material as well. “
Some Recent Headlines
Europe’s new dumping ground (http://www.sundayherald.com/58240)
The tsunami, uncovered a hidden and altogether more serious problem for Somalis: along more than 400 miles of shoreline, the turbo-charged wave churned up reinforced containers of hazardous toxic waste that European companies had been dumping a short distance offshore for more than a decade”
Some Recent Headlines
Profits for Europe, Industrial Slop for Africa (http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,437842,00.html)
“Europe wouldn't take the ship's stinking, poisonous cargo. So it sailed to Africa and dumped the toxic mess into an Ivory Coast lagoon. Just the most recent example of western nations using Africa as a toxic waste dump.” 8 people died as they came into contact with the waste.
“The worst is when it rains. The water flows through the streets of Abidjan, the capital city of Ivory Coast, located next to a series of lagoons. With the water comes a toxic soup of industrial poison -- a dark, glistening mess reeking of sulfur and rotten eggs. The caustic fumes it releases cause vomiting, nosebleeds, headache and rashes. “
![[133] Hjálmarsdóttir - 1 December 2011, Kampala, Uganda...Erla Hlín Hjálmarsdóttir, PhD Candidate, University of Iceland, Iceland, e-mail: ehh6@hi.is, Tel: +354-5871551 Abstract/Summary](https://img.pdfslide.us/doc/110x75/60d48944bcab3f506918d8f2/133-hjlmarsdttir-1-december-2011-kampala-uganda-erla-hln-hjlmarsdttir.jpg)
