Six questions 175 words minimum each, APA Format Two Citations for each question -Environmental

BEM 3601, Waste Management 1 Cou rse Learning Outcomes for Unit VIII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to: 1. Summarize the history of waste management, including impacts from early human civilization to current day . 1.1 Discuss the impacts of legacy pollution and the co ncept of responsible care . 3. Assess the major regulatory developments surrounding waste management . 3.1 Discuss the regulations governing a waste stream covered in the course . 3.2 Describe the Toxic Release Inventory , including its primary drawbacks . 6. Discuss waste disposal techniques and technologies . 6.1 Describe a waste stream covered in the course . 6.2 Discuss the successful management of landfill gas and leachate . Reading Assignment Chapter 30: Landfills – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Chapter 31 : Pollution Management and Responsible Care Chapter 32 : Risk Assessment, Management, and Acco untability Unit Lesson Landfills As you learned in Unit I, waste dumps have been with us since the beginning of humankind. Our population continues to increase, and our municipal waste increases along with it . Where do we put all of this waste? As recently as 50 years ago, we were still disposing of our waste in open dumps in the United States (Blight, 2011). In an open dump, waste is just thrown into an open pit. As a comparison, a sanitary landfill has a li ner to prevent leachate from leaving the landfill untreated, a gas collection system to collect methane gas generated from the decomposing trash, and a cap. There are several environmental hazards associated with landfills , including landfill gas, leachat e, and stability/safety issues. Landfill gas is produced as bacteria decompose the waste in the landfill. Carbon dioxide ( CO 2) is released, filling the pore space in the landfill. As the CO s builds up, anaerobic conditions prevail, and anaerobic bacteria p roduce methane ( CH 4) as they decompose the waste. Methane gas is flammable and explosive at a high enough concentration. Modern sanitary landfills are designed to collect landfill gas (which also consists of CO 2 and nitrogen). The gas can then be used to generate electricity. In addition to producing gas, landfills also produce leachate. As with landfill gas, modern sanitary landfills are designed to collect this leachate. Generally, as a landfill cell gets older, the pollution potential of the landfill le achate decreases. UNIT VIII STUDY GUIDE Hazardous Waste, Thermal Pollution, and Land Pollution BEM 3601, Waste Management 2 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Studies have shown that although uncollected leachate does not progress far from its source at the landfill, it can persist for upwards of 30 years. Another hazard of landfills is the failure of the landfill itself. Entire sections of du mps and landfills can collapse, sending waste and its associated pollutants onto land, homes, and waterways. Between 1977 and 1997, there were seven major failures of dumps, including on e in the United States. In 2000, a slide occurred at a dump in the Phi lip pines , and b etween 278 and 628 people died (278 confirmed dead, between 80 -350 missing) (Blight, 2011). Despite advances in landfill technology in developed nations, much of the developing world still disposes of its waste in unlined, unregulated dumps . In the developed world, however, new technologies continue to make landfills safer and cause fewer pollution issues. For example, bio -reactor landfills recirculate leachate to speed decomposition, and municipal solid waste is being used as fuel to genera te electricity instead of being dumped in a landfill (Blight, 2011). Pollution Management and Responsible Care Society’s need for goods, some necessary for survival and some not really needed at all, creates a constant stream of waste and pollution. Some of this pollution was produced before the enactment of environmental legislation and is referred to as legacy pollution. We also continue to produce pollution on a daily basis. This type of pollution is referred to as ongoing pollution (Cheremisinoff, 201 1). How should companies deal with both legacy and ongoing pollution? Although some companies might exercise care when it comes to the amount and types of pollution they produce in the absence of fin es and penalties, history can show that such care is fre quently not taken — even with regulatory measures in place. Cheremisoff (2011) cites several examples of incidents in which corporate profits were put before safety and responsibility. In 2008, because the Tennessee Valley Authority did not inspect the walls of its coal ash dredge cells, 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash and bottom ash was released into local waterways. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to find many other examples of such neglect. An infamous example of an industrial disaster is the Bhopal disaster of 1984. The disaster was revisited in the media recently due to the death on October 31, 2014 of Warren Anderson, who was the CEO of Union Carbide in 19 84 when the incident occurred . Union Carbide operated a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. A release of methyl i socyanate gas killed between 2, 259 and 15,000 people. However, the deaths were only the tip of the iceberg. Birth defects and injuries affected another 500,000 people. After the disaster, Warren Anderson traveled to India and was briefly arrested and subsequently left India while he was on bail. Although the Indian government attempted to have him extradited to face “culpable -homicide” charges, they were not successful. Union Carbide claimed that a disgruntled employee caused the accident, but activists maintain that it was negligence on the part of the company. Many in India were appalled at the $470 million settlement that Union Carbide made with the Indian government (Anderson, 2014). In this situation, who did not exercise responsible c are? Who should be held accountable? The Bhopal disaster brought attention to the fact that irresponsible action on the part of company officials could have catastrophic consequences. After another chemical release at a West Virginia plant soon thereafter , the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act was passed in 1986. Section 313 of EPCRA required that the EPA and the states report releases and transfers of certa in toxic chemicals and make the reports publicly available on the Toxics Release In ventory (TRI). The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 added to the date that has to be reported under the TRI (Cheremisoff, 2011). The failure of companies to be good environmental stewards has caused severe and sometimes irreversible damage to the environm ent and human health. Encouraging good environmental practices and enforcing regulations can prevent many of the accidents discussed in Chapter 31. Risk Assessment, Management, and Accountability There are four main steps to risk assessment : hazard ident ification, dose -response assessment, exposure assessment, and risk characterization. For hazard identification, a risk assessor determines what types of adverse effects might be cause d by exposure to an agent. In the context of waste management, we can thi nk of this agent as some type of waste product. BEM 3601, Waste Management 3 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title The dose -response assessment determines how much of the waste will produce a negative health effect. In exposure assessment, the risk assessor examines how people might come in contact with the waste and in what quantities. Finally, risk characterization takes the information from the hazard identification, the dose - response assessment, and the exposure assessment to create an overall picture of the amount of risk associated with a particular waste. Once thi s overall picture of risk is determined, a waste manager must make decisions based on this knowledge. However, this can be complicated because there are gaps in the information available at every step in the risk assessment itself. Therefore, the overall c haracterization of the risk can contain significant uncertainties. When establishing the reference dose (RfD), which is the safe dose of a substance, these uncertainties have to be taken into account. Once the risk and its associated uncertainties are cal culated, the risk characterization can be used to solve environmental problems in two general ways: direct risk assessments and risk -based cleanup standards. In direct risk assessments, risk assessors calculate individual risk, which is the probability of an individual developing an adverse effect as a result of exposure to the substance in question. The assessor can also calculate the population risk, which is the excess number of cancers (above the background level) that would occur yearly in a populatio n due to exposure to the substance (Vallero, 2011). Despite the uncertainties involved, risk assessment enables risk assessors and waste managers to minimize the dangers of hazardous wastes to the general public. Communicating the risks to the public is an important step in the risk assessment process. Just because exposure to a substance is associated with an adverse effect does not necessarily mean that there is causality. Hill’s C riteria for Causality outline s criteria that should be met to determine c ause and effect. The nine criteria includ e the strength of the association, the consistency of the association, the timing of the exposure and effect, and experimental evidence. Each criterion is explained in detail in the text in Table 32.8 (Chapter 32) . Since causality is an often -misunderstood aspect of risk, an understanding of Hill’s criteria is helpful in effectively communicating risk to the general public. References Anderson, C. (2014 , November 2 ). Warren M. Anderson, who le d Union Carbide durin g 1984 Bhopal disaster, dies at 92. The Washington Post . Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/warren -m- anderson -who -led -union -carbide -during -1984 -bhopal -disaster -dies -at-92/2014/11/02/31aa9c9e -61d8 - 11e4 -8b9e -2ccdac31a031_story.html Blight, G . (2011). Landfills – Yesterday, today a nd tomorrow. In T. M. Letcher, & D. A. Vallero (Eds.), Waste: A handbook for management (pp. 469 -48 5). Burlington, MA: Academic Press . Cheremisinoff, N. P. (2011). Pollution management and responsible care. In T. M . Letcher, & D. A. Vallero (Eds.), Waste: A handbook for management (pp. 487 -502 ). Burlington, MA: Academic Press . Vallero, D. A. (2011). Risk assessment, management, and accountability. In T. M. Letcher, & D. A. Vallero (Eds.), Waste: A handbook for mana gement (pp. 503 -540 ). Burlington, MA: Academic Press .