WASTE MANAGEMENT

Waste Management Strategies

Waste Management Strategies

The simplest definition of waste includes all items no longer useful to humans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “solid waste means any garbage, or refuse, sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities.” However, the definition of waste is subjective, as waste to one community could be a resource to another community. Nevertheless, such a definition of waste helps in creating legal statutes and laws for management purposes (Buyukbektas 2008, pp. 5).

The major sources of waste are construction and demolition, agriculture and forestry, mining and quarrying, industries, municipal solid waste, and energy production. Moreover, the common types of waste are household waste, commercial waste, e-waste, hazardous waste, industrial waste, construction waste, biomedical waste, agricultural waste, and universal waste. Broadly, wastes are of three types: hazardous, nonhazardous, and inert. Because of their environmental and health hazards, waste disposal is a major concern in many nations. Rich nations have effective and efficient disposal systems, whereas poor nations do not have an established system to manage the waste. In many developing nations, open dumping is very common.

The introduction and implementation of proper waste management business is extremely important with respect to sociological and psychological aspects of the country. There is a significant role of different actors and social groups that shape waste management in the right system. The department of commerce can ensure appropriate provisions, consistent control, reward and punishment system, and initiate investments in environmental protection. Moreover, the Department Of Commerce can ensure the establishment of manufacturers, who use goods suitable for reusing and recycling, recycling of packaging and using environmentally friendly technologies (Cole 2000, pp. 1).

The different waste disposal methods used today are recycling, waste reduction, waste reuse, landfill, incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, combined pyrolysis-gasification, composting, anaerobic digestion, and phytoremediation. Regardless of the methods used, the basic mechanism in waste disposal involves collection, separation, and disposal. Collection consumes about 50-70 percent of the total cost of waste disposal. Collection cost depends on the number of collection points, type of containers, size of the vehicle, frequency of collection, and transport cost to final destination. The different types of containers used in the United States to collect MSW are plastic or paper bags, 901-volume metal cans, 350-5001 volume plastic wheeled carts, and 6001-300001 volume containers. The collected waste is then transported by trucks, trains, and barges to transfer stations, where it is compacted and sent for treatment or disposal (Bulkeley 2009, pp. 929).

The waste management strategies described herein represent the several alternative methods of managing solid wastes in our society. An Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) program provides waste management planners a comprehensive disposal, recycling, composting, and waste prevention plan to effectively deal with MSW. ISWM considers how to effectively prevent, recycle, and manage solid waste in order to protect human health and the ...