Hazardous waste has become a larger and larger problem as the world continues to turn. It not only affects the environment, but also all things that inhabit it. The more waste that is produced everyday, the more in danger the environment and our lives become.
In the following paragraphs, I will discus exactly what hazardous waste is considered to be, along with the different types of substances commonly used or produced. Also, I will include where hazardous waste comes from or how it is produced and what the effects these substances can do the environment and human life. Different methods of treating and disposing of these wastes will also be discussed along with possible methods for the future.
The main portion of this document will be placed on the proper treatment and disposal of hazardous waste. It is very important that this kind of waste is regulated and treated properly. Even small amounts of any hazardous waste can have devastating effects on the environment and the lives within it. There are many ways of handling it at the current moment, but there are more, and possibly better, methods that are not being used at this point in our history.
I hope to bring awareness of this deadly topic to the attention of not only the companies that produce and handle hazardous wastes, but also to the community and higher officials that oversee laws on hazardous waste regulation.
What Is Hazardous Waste?
Definition of hazardous waste
Hazardous waste is defined as any solid, liquid, or gas waste that is harmful to the environment and/or human life. These substances are very dangerous, no matter the amount or concentration being dealt with. They may cause death, moderate to serious illness, numerous types of injuries to humans, and destruction to the environment.
Substances are considered to be hazardous if they are ignitable (capable of burning or causing a fire), corrosive (able to corrode steel or harm organisms due to extreme acidic or basic properties), reactive (able to explode or produce toxic cyanide or sulfide gas), or toxic (contains substances that are poisonous). Due to these potential risks, hazardous wastes are required to be processed separately from ordinary everyday wastes. (www.hhw.org)
These types of wastes can be of any color, size, shape, and odor imaginable. Because of this, hazardous wastes are very hard to recognize. A great deal of household hazardous wastes are commonly discarded as normal everyday wastes. This is why the general public needs to become more aware of the hazards of toxins and the hazardous wastes in their homes. If used, handled, or stored improperly, the dangers of household hazardous wastes can be great enough to cause great deals of damage, illness, and possibly death.
What Types of Hazardous Wastes Are There?
There are many different types of hazardous wastes that naturally and synthetically appear in the world. Different types refer to the method in which the hazardous are produced and used. The following four types of hazardous wastes are the most common types that are dealt with and discussed when speaking about hazardous waste.
Industrial Hazardous Waste
Nearly every company in the world generates some type of hazardous waste in one form or another. Even if a company generates few to no hazardous waste substances, the industry will use products from other industries that do produce hazardous wastes. This indirectly contributes to the usage and or production of hazardous wastes for the company that produces few. It is a vicious never-ending cycle that life just cannot avoid. One industry depends on another industry to make parts and substances for their product.
For example, making a computer circuit board generates spent electroplating baths that contain metals and salts, which are highly hazardous. In order to make the board, computer chips need to be produced. The process of producing computer chips uses acids or other caustic chemicals and solvents. As you can see, one item depends on the production of another, and the cycle continues for many other products. (www.epa.gov)
Agricultural Hazardous Wastes
Agriculture produces such hazardous wastes as pesticides and herbicides along with the materials used in their application. In order to make plants grow better and larger, industries use fertilizers. This brings to attention another problem. Fluoride by-products and produced with the production phosphate fertilizers. This fluoride may cause health problems in humans and animals. (www.epa.gov). This shows in order to make things better, we must first produce harmful substances. How much better do we actually make things if we must first produce these harmful toxins?
Not only do man-made substances pose a threat to the environment, but also so do natural substances. Such is the case in animal manure. This manure has soluble nitrate that may dissolve into ground water, thus contaminating drinking water for wells. These nitrates can cause serious health problems in humans.
Household Hazardous Wastes
Household hazardous wastes make up the biggest portion of hazardous wastes in the country. Just a few of the most common of these wastes include the following: toxin plants, flammable solvents, caustic cleaners, toxic batteries, pesticides, drugs, mercury from broken thermometers, and insulation materials (asbestos particles). (www.epa.gov). All of these wastes can cause illness and possibly death. Free-floating asbestos particles can cause lung disease or cancer if inhaled.
Pictured below are just a few everyday household hazardous waste products. Some of these items are not considered to be hazardous to the average household owner. This is why the awareness of these product’s dangers must be emphasized more to the consumers.
Some waste disposal services do not accept these wastes in fear that they may contaminate the soil or water surrounding the site of disposal. If this is the case, the household may be asked to dispose of the substances in another method separate from the normal wastes. (Moyers, pg. 59-60)
Medical Hazardous Wastes
In the medical field, hazardous waste must be separated from ordinary wastes in order to meet sanitary requirements. Anything contaminated with human blood or tissue is considered to hazardous waste as well as any other chemical substances. This may include scalpels and glassware (sharps), outdated or unused drugs, chemical wastes from testing labs, and radioactive isotopes used for diagnosis and treatment. (www.epa.gov)
What Causes The Damaging Effects Of Hazardous Waste?
Soil Pollution
Hazardous waste pollutes the soil by means of sludge from municipal sewage disposal areas. The sludge may have toxic elements contained within it if it was mixed with industrial wastes from local domestic sewage. This sludge is then used as a fertilizer in crop fields. The sludge contaminates the soil of the fields and is taken up by the growing plants within the soil, thus contaminating the plants. (Palmisano/Barlaz pg. 55)
Air can be contaminated by different methods. The easiest method is to be contaminated from direct emissions of hazardous wastes. Evaporation of toxic solvents from plants and cleaning agents is a fairly common problem around the country. Evaporating wastes can be trapped in the water vapor within the air. When this water vapor condenses, it forms acid rain. (www.encarta.com). The diagram below shows how hazardous vapors directly enter the atmosphere creating acid rain clouds. The rain then falls to the ground and does damage to anything it comes in contact with.
Also, as stated before, the asbestos that becomes free floating in the atmosphere
when insulation from a house or other source is disturbed can cause problems within the lungs of humans and animals. These problems include lung cancer and disease. (Palmisano/Barlaz pg.62)
The simplest method for water contamination is when hazardous waste is directly added or comes in contact with bodies of water. As the water continues to flow, the contamination flows along with it causing water to become polluted at a rapid rate. Once a body of water has come in contact with a hazardous substance, it is difficult to isolate a specific area that needs to be treated. Small particles may rapidly dissipate and the body of water is quickly contaminated.
Natural hazardous wastes are also produced within bodies of water. Phosphates and nitrates can become fertilizers for algae growing in the water. These phosphates and nitrates poison the algae and make them produce deadly toxins. (Palmisano/Barlaz, pg.75-79)
Underground water can also become easily contaminated. Underground plumes of hazardous contaminates such as solvents can leak out of their underground storage tanks to pollute the underground water that is brought up to the surface by wells. This underground water can also be polluted by hazardous substances carelessly poured on top of the surface soil. These wastes then seep into the water below and thus contaminate it. (Salcedo, pg.128-130)
What Are The Effects Of Hazardous Waste?
Effects Of Soil Pollution
Soil affects people that live on it, plants that grow on it, and the animals that live on it. The plants will take up the pollutants in the soil while they continue to grow. The toxic substances will show up in the animals that eat the plants in the field and in the humans that also eat the plants. The toxins in animals, if strong enough, will also show up in humans if they eat the animal. These toxins cause health problems such as cancer, heart disease, blood disease, and in some cases can be serious enough to lead to death. (Salcedo, pg. 156)
Effects Of Air Pollution
Air pollution is very dangerous because air is what humans, animals, and plants depend on in order to survive. Wen humans inhale air that has been contaminated with hazardous vapors, it can cause lung diseases and slowly begin to affect their respiratory system function. The same effects can happen to animals that breathe the same air as us humans do. Plants need elements in the air in order to survive and produce oxygen. If the air the plants is absorbing is contaminated, the oxygen it produces will also be contaminated. The plant will also be poisoned and slowly begin to die.
When acid rain is produced and falls to the earth, it has damaging effects on everything it come into contact with. The damage is done over spans of time, but the effects are devastating. Acid rain corrodes buildings, statutes, trees, and anything else in its path. Sulfuric acid is the acid that makes up acid rain. Sulfuric acid is a combination of water and sulfur dioxide. (www.encarta.com)
Effects Of Water Pollution
If water that has been contaminated with hazardous substances is toxic enough, it has the power to kill living elements immediately. Any amount of toxicity in water has the ability to damage organism over time periods, but it is the level of the toxicity that determines when the damage will overtake the living organism.
The fish that live in bodies of contaminated water will themselves become contaminated and act as a poison to all things feeding on it. This includes birds and humans. When the fish are consumed, the subject is exposed to high levels of hazardous substances. This will lead to problems concerning egg production and bone deformation in birds. (Salcedo, pg.170). Food poisoning from the fish, along with other sever illnesses are possible for humans consuming the toxin fish. The following picture shows the effects of hazardous waste dumping into a body of water.
Underground water that has been contaminated with hazardous substances can be brought up to the surface in well water. This is dangerous because to some people, this is the only source of water available. When people drink this water, they are subject to high levels of toxicity and may become very ill. This water may also rise to the surface through springs or geysers in which animals may drink from. This will also expose the animals to high levels of toxicity and possibly cause deadly illnesses. (Salcedo, pg. 128)
Current Methods For Handling Hazardous Waste
Reduction of hazardous Waste
The most obvious and best way of solving the hazardous waste problem is to not generate hazardous substances in the first place. Granted, it is almost impossible to totally eliminate all hazardous waste products, but it is possible to replace very dangerous substances and chemicals with less dangerous substances. A good example of this is the replacement of the very hazardous chlorinated hydrocarbon substance. In the 1970’s, these hydrocarbons were greatly used in industrial settings. They were replaced in the 1980’s by less toxic glycol ethers, and again substituted with low-toxicity ester alcohols in the 1990’s. (Moyers, pg. 243)
Recycling Hazardous Wastes
Recycling of hazardous waste means that unstable materials from the wastes are recovered or reused. About five percent of these materials are recycled as solvents that are later used. A similar percent is recovered as usable metals. Around fifteen percent of the country’s sulfuric acid is recycled in some sort of chemical manufacturing. (Moyers, pg.284-285)
The practice of using industrial wastes as ingredients in commercial fertilizers has always been encouraged. Recently, the safety of this practice has come into question. The fertilizer will contaminate the soil leading to toxic crops that become dangerous to everything that consumes it. This matter is currently being evaluated and reassessed. (Congress of the U.S.)
Treatment Of Hazardous Waste
The process of treating hazardous waste was developed for the purpose for making the waste less hazardous to the environment by physical, chemical, or biological treatment processes. Approximately ten percent of the country’s hazardous waste is treated by water alone, while another eleven percent undergoes various other types of treatment. (Moyers, pg. 290)
Treating hazardous substances with chemicals is the most popular method of waste cleanup. For example, industries use sodium hydroxide to treat different types of acid wastes. Recently, plants have begun to treat hydrofluoric acid wastes with lime. This process produces relatively harmless calcium fluoride. Also, sulfuric wastes have been treated with ammonium wastes from the same plant operation. This forms ammonium sulfate, a type of fertilizer used in crop fields. (Bellandi, pg.122)
Another popular, simple method of handling hazardous waste is incineration. This is the preferred method of handling infectious medical wastes in hospitals and laboratories. (Bellandi, pg. 125). About six percent of hazardous wastes are intentionally incinerated, while another eleven percent is burned along with fuels. (Moyers, pg. 297). This method should not be used for wastes containing toxic or heavy metals or chlorinated hydrocarbons. In doing so, it may cause more damage than leaving the substances untreated. Paints containing metals may release lead or arsenic when exposed to flames. Chlorinated Hydrocarbons may produce hydrochloric acids and dioxins when exposed to flames.
Stabilization of hazardous wastes describes the methods used in keeping hazardous substances from moving through ground water and the air. About eight percent of dangerous wastes are treated or stored in this method. (Moyers, pg. 301). Stabilization methods include simply covering a container of hazardous waste and constructing a barrier around the wastes. These barriers can be made of such materials including plastic, steel, concrete, and glass.
Disposal Of Hazardous Wastes
Disposal of hazardous waste has makes no attempt to treating or making a substance less hazardous. About eight percent of wastes are injected into deep wells, where as twenty-one percent enters land fills as its permanent resting place. (Moyers, pg. 323). Abandoned, serious waste sites may qualify as “superfund” sites. This means that the sites are eligible for cleanup with government funding. This idea came about and was passed by legislation in 1980 due to the horrible conditions of landfills. (Bellandi, pg. 130-131)
In 1993, about 38,000 disposal sites were inventoried by the Environmental Protection Agency. 1407 of these sites were listed or proposed for listing on the national Priority List of immediate cleanup. The sites were too dangerous to the lives of the environment to go on further in time without treatment. Before 1995, 3300 emergency removal cleanups were conducted due to the site’s dangerous conditions. (Noyes Data Corp., pg. 104-105)
Below is a picture taken by the Environmental Protection Agency of a landfill site located in Ohio. Contaminated objects and substances are separated from other waste due to hazards and possible contamination of other waste. This waste covers everything from tires to chemical liquid toxins.
Possible Methods For Handling Hazardous Wastes
Enforcement Rules for Existing Methods
Although the methods currently in use are simple, convenient ways of handling hazardous waste, there are other possible methods being proposed at the current moment. One of these possible methods to reduce hazardous waste items in the municipal solid waste stream is known as the “Universal Hazardous Waste Rule.” This rule was proposed in 1995 by the Environmental Protection Agency. It encourages recycling and proper disposal of certain common hazardous wastes, and the reduction of the regulatory burden on businesses that generate these wastes. This rule will allow businesses to store hazardous wastes up to one year. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that this new rule will save approximately $70 million per year while still ensuring safe collection, recycling, handling, and treatment of low-risk items. (The Laboratory, pg. 74-76)
Hazardous Waste Identification
The re-proposing for the hazardous waste identification rule is currently underway to be reassessed for passing by legislature. This rule will allow companies to test their waste, and if all potentially hazardous chemicals were at or below safe levels, then the waste would not federally be regulated as hazardous waste. The substance would be managed under alternative or less costly means. This would save companies millions along with encouraging them to make their wastes less hazardous in order to cut costs. (The Laboratory, pg. 97-100)
Space Disposal
There has been talk about sending waste into orbit and using outer space as a type of landfill. The thought is that once the hazardous waste is outside of the planet, it cannot do harm to the environment. This method has not yet been tested due to the great controversy over the issue. This method will save land space on the earth, but the cost of sending a space shuttle into orbit with numerous amounts of hazardous waste aboard is a major drawback. (The Laboratory, pg. 110). Also, the shuttle may become contaminated itself causing another problem of whether the shuttle will come back to the earth, or if it will remain as waste in space also. If it remains in space as waste, the cost of continually building new shuttles for the sole purpose of hazardous waste disposal is unbecoming.
Conclusion
Hazardous waste is any solid, liquid, or gas waste substance that can cause damage to the environment, death, illness, or serious injury to people. There are many types of hazardous waste. They come form all types of industries and businesses and can appear in any color, form, size, and odor.
It is most important to acknowledge that hazardous waste is present everywhere in life. There is no getting around the production of it, but there are many ways of reducing the damage it does to the environment and all the life within it. Not only does the ecosystem become endangered and possibly unstable, but also so do our lives and well-being. Our health is not the only thing that depends on our efforts to clean up the hazardous waste damage. Our future generations are relying on us to begin the healing and set an example to them of what our world need to do in order to survive.
There are many methods for treating and containing hazardous substances available in the world already, but there are more that are being proposed and argued. Reduction, recycling, treating, incinerating, and safely disposing of the toxic substances are some of the most commonly used methods at this current time. Reduction is the best way, but the least realistic.
Recommendation
In my own opinion, I believe the best method for handling hazardous waste is to continue to treat the substance with chemicals or another treatment method. This way, the hazardous substances will not only become less dangerous to everyone, but after treatment, it may be able to be recycled for use in another form.
I also believe that the proposed rule of forcing businesses and communities to handle the substance in a safer means will bring about a better environment. It appears that people only do certain things if they are legally forced to do them. The new rules will require hazardous waste to become safer in a different form, or be stored properly. This all will lead to a better living environment and healthier lives.
Another method I believe in concentrating on is that of recycling hazardous wastes. It makes sense to make the attempt at reusing hazardous wastes for a further purpose instead of simply tossing them away uncared for. There are so many wastes that are currently being recycled into other usable products at the moment, why not experiment with others. The least that could happen is for the substances not to work in a controlled experiment. If we do not even attempt n experiment thought, we have already failed.
Space exploration with disposing of hazardous waste is still an undecided issue in my mind. I like the idea that it will eliminate the waste and dangers from our planet, but will space become contaminated? What life will be destroyed because of our actions? Once again, the only things we can do is to experiment with such an idea.
WorksCited
http://www.epa.gov/reinvent/new597/Hazardou.html
http://encarta.com.HW.html
http://www.hhw.org/page3.html
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Microbiology of Solid Waste/ Edited by Anna C. Palmisano, Morton A. Barlaz
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The Laboratory
International Conference On New Frontiers for Hazardous Waste Management (3rd: 1989: Pittsburgh, Pa.)
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