Waste Disposal

Wastes are items we don’t need and discard. They can be as small as a small toothbrush, or as big as a school bus. It has been a major environmental issue everywhere since the industrial revolution. Humans rely so much on material things, and most of them end up as waste.

2 forms of wastes
- Solid: any waste that is NOT liquid
- Liquid: wash water from homes, industry cleaning liquids
3 types of wastes
- Hazardous: potentially threaten public health or the environment (fire extinguishers, old propane tanks, pesticides, mercury-containing equipment (e.g, thermostats) and lamps (e.g. fluorescent bulbs) and batteries.
- Organic: comes from plants or animals sources, and are biodegradable (food waste, fruit and vegetable peels, flower trimmings, dog poop)
- Recyclable: materials that can be processed into new, useful products. (aluminum/plastics/glass/paper products)

Everyone creates waste, yet some countries do a very good job creating less waste and managing the rest. Others are pretty horrible and have created huge environmental problems for the people and animals living there.

Incineration method of waste management:
- burning waste
- common in countries with limited landfill space
- great for treating waste with contamination (like those from hospitals) and hazardous waste from factories
- produces too much carbon dioxide
- very common in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands
- effective, but expensive

Sanitary Landfills as waste disposal:
- a large piece of land away from living places where all the waste from a town is deposited.
- Proper landfill management involves sorting out all the waste (waste separation), and sending only the waste that cannot be recycled and composted to the site.
- In many towns, sorting is not done, and all the waste (paper, food, diapers, glass) is mixed up and deposited. That is a problem because, glass, and plastics take thousands of years to decompose.
- Additionally, the landfills soon become full,