Waste Vocab

• High waste approach– Unavoidable product of economic growth– dealt with by burying, burning, or shipping– WASTE MANAGEMENT

• Low waste approach– Waste can be potential resource– Harmful substances shouldn’t be used– WASTE PREVENTION

Landfills

• Leachate

• Methane gas recovery

• Liners

Reuse

• Drink containers

• Lunch bags

• Grocery bags

• Tupperware

Reduce• Pay as you throw– Pay for the amount of trash you throw away instead

of a monthly/annual fee– Recycling is taken away free

• 3M Pollution Pays Program– Redesign equipment, fewer hazardous materials,

recycled chemical outputs, made nonpolluting products

– Saved over $750 million in waste disposal costs

Reduce

• Packaging

• Make products last longer

• Precycling – do I really need this?

Recycle

• Primary – Closed loop– Creates products of the same type

• Secondary– Open loop– Converted into new products

Compost

– Rich in organic matter and soil nutrients– Microorganisms break down waste

MRFs materials recovery facility

• Separates trash from materials that can be recycled

• Recycles or burns remaining combustible waste

• Problems:– Expensive– Energy to separate trash– Must have large input of garbage– Toxic pollutants

http://www.recyclebank.com/recycling

Source separation• Separate trash from recyclables at home or

business

• Advantages:– Little pollution– Moderate operating costs and more jobs– Less energy

• Problems:– Rely on people to correctly separate– Hard to compete with MRFs

Plastics

Versatility• Flexible or rigid; transparent or opaque.

• Look like leather, wood, or silk.

• Made into toys or heart valves.

• The basic raw materials for plastic are petroleum and/or natural gas. – These fossil fuels are sometimes combined with

other elements, such as oxygen or chlorine, to make different types of plastic.

What to do with my soda bottle?• Throw it in the trash (Landfill)• Recycle it and reuse it!• Incinerate it for energy

1 PET Polyethylene Terephthalate

• Two-liter beverage bottles, mouthwash bottles, boil-in-bag pouches.

2 HDPE High Density Polyethylene

• Milk jugs, trash bags, detergent bottles.

3 PVC Polyvinyl Chloride • Cooking oil bottles, packaging around meat

• Burning PVC plastic, which contains 57% chlorine when pure, forms dioxins, a highly toxic group of chemicals that build up in the food chain.

4 LDPE Low Density Polyethylene • Grocery bags, produce bags, food wrap, bread

bags

5 PP Polypropylene • Yogurt containers, shampoo bottles, straws,

margarine tubs, diapers.

6 PS Polystyrene

• Hot beverage cups, take-home boxes, egg cartons, meat trays, cd cases.

7 Other

• All other types of plastics or packaging made from more than one type of plastic.

Not Economical

• In recent years, several plastics recycling companies have closed their doors.

• They claimed they could not sell their products at a price that would allow them to stay in business.

• Thanks to the relatively low cost of petroleum, the price of virgin plastic is so inexpensive that recycled plastic cannot compete.

• The price of virgin resin is about 40 percent lower than that of recycled resin.

Plastic Energy!

• Stored energy - made from fossil fuels.

• Contain as much energy as petroleum or natural gas– much more energy than other types of garbage.

• an ideal fuel for waste-to-energy plants.

• Because recycled plastic is more expensive, people aren’t exactly lining up to buy it. Surveys conducted by Procter & Gamble and others show that while most people expect their plastic to be recycled, they won’t go out of their way or pay a few cents more to buy a bottle made of recycled plastic. Recyclers say plastics recycling won’t be profitable until we close the loop by creating more demand for recycled plastics.

Paper or Plastic?

• 20-40% less E to manufacture plastic• 1 truckload of plastic = 7 truckloads of paper