MANAGING WASTES

Management of Hazardous Wastes

Executive Summary

Hazardous waste management in laboratories is an activity that involves some risk by the people handling these products, and environmental risk may involve an uncontrolled release. Therefore, many Universities raised the need to develop a management system that is implanted in all labs on campus, and that would involve the minimization of risk assumed by workers and students, as well as minimizing the environmental effects of this activity. From the Office of the AU Eco Campus, coordinate all technical and management tasks arising from the introduction of this system. Hazardous Waste Management at the University of Alicante is a first step towards the integration of an Environmental Management System throughout the campus, according to quality standards, prevention of occupational hazards and environmental course, along the lines marked by ISO 14001. The project started in 2002 and currently the System Hazardous Waste Management at the University of Alicante is an essential tool in all campus units which generate hazardous waste.

Management of Hazardous Wastes

Introduction

In recent decades there has been a great environmental concern and health problems caused by waste, mainly the so-called dangerous. This concern was born in the most economically developed countries, forced to face problems of environmental contamination and consequent adverse effects on public health.

It is understood that appropriate management is one that includes the processes of generation, handling, packaging, storage, transport, storage and new destination or final treatment, all without causing negative impacts or the environment or the living beings, and if possible, at a reduced cost.

Landfills represent an engineered approach to the land disposal of wastes. In many countries, landfills are the primary means for managing municipal solid wastes and other wastes such as construction and demolition debris. Specially designed landfills are used for the disposal of hazardous and even radioactive wastes. Landfills represent an improvement over the open dumps they replaced and yet create serious problems of their own, including finding suitable sites, controlling dangerous wastes and gas emissions, and long-term care and monitoring.

Background

Humans have always faced waste disposal challenges, and our understanding of past societies owes much to the refuse piles they left behind. Historically, open dumps were the preferred means of refuse disposal and were simple in operation, if inelegant in practice. Dumps fostered problems with insects, rodents, odors, and water pollution (Bhaskar, Yontcho & Stoyan, 2000). The first sanitary landfill in the United States opened in Fresno, California, in the 1930s and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was innovative because wastes were compacted and covered with soil at the end of each day. After World War II, sanitary landfills became the accepted approach to solid waste disposal. However, sanitary landfills were hardly free of problems. For example, the Fresno Landfill was added to the National Priorities Superfund List by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and has undergone an extensive cleanup designed to clean up contaminated groundwater and prevent migration of dangerous landfill gases. The Fresno Landfill was not unique—many of the ...