Professional Documents
Culture Documents
I. Definition of Wastes
II. Classification of Wastes
A. Solid Waste
B. Liquid Waste
C. Sludge
D. Hazardous Waste
III. Waste Management
A. Waste Management in Developed Nations
1. Solid Waste
A) Landfills
B) Recycling
C) Incineration
2. Liquid Waste
A) Management Plans
B) Waste Water Treatment Facilities
C) Injection Wells
3. Hazardous Waste
A) Landfill
B) Incineration
I. Definition of Wastes
Waste can be described as "any substance or object the holder discards, intends to
In the Philippines’ Republic Act No. 9275 (An Act Providing For a
Comprehensive Water Quality management and for Other Purposes), waste means “any
material either solid, liquid, semisolid, contained gas or other forms resulting from
The classification of wastes varies and depends country by country. Waste can be
divided into many different types. The most common method of classification is by their
1. Solid Waste
and domestic refuse including household organic trash, street sweepings, hospital and
institutional garbage, and construction wastes; generally sludge and human waste are
regarded as a liquid waste problem outside the scope of MSW (Zerbock, 2003).These are
waste materials that contain less than 70% water. Example of this type of waste are the
domestic or household garbage, some industrial wastes, some mining wastes, and oilfield
2. Liquid Waste
These are usually wastewaters that contain less than 1%. This type of waste may
contain high concentration of dissolved salts and metals. Liquid wastes are often
classified into two broad types: sewage and toxic wastes. Generally, there are various
types of liquid waste generated in urban centers: human excreta, domestics wastes
and nuclear wastes. When improperly handled and disposed of, liquid wastes pose a
serious threat to human health and the environment because of their ability to enter
watersheds, pollute ground water and drinking water (US EPA, 2009).
3. Sludge
It is a class of waste between liquid and solid. They usually contain between 3%
and 25% solid, while the rest of the material is dissolved water.
4. Hazardous Waste
Hazardous wastes are wastes which, by themselves or after coming into contact
commercial, agricultural, and to a much less extent, domestic activities. They may take
the form of solids, liquids or sludges, and can pose both acute and chronic public health
technology, developed nations have more efficient and standard liquid waste
management plans.
(which largely depends on a country’s policies and preferences). The large amount of
solid waste (including its collection, transfer and disposal) generated in developed nations
has been generally assumed by municipal governments. The format varies, however, in
most urban areas, where garbage is collected either by a government agency or private
contractor, and this constitutes a basic and expected government function in the
A) Landfill
2003). It is to be noted, however, that most landfills refer to nothing more than
is often in the form of sanitary landfills, which differ from open dumps by
wastes. It is also the most common disposal method in the United Kingdom
by lining and contouring the fill, compacting and planting the uppermost
cover layer, diverting drainage, and selecting proper soil in sites not subject to
flooding or high groundwater levels. The best soil for a landfill is clay because
such as cement, fly ash from power plants, asphalt, or organic polymers
(Bassis, 2005)
Landfills can also be shifted to another use after their capacities have been
reached. The city of Evanston, Illinois, built a landfill up into a hill and the
now-complete “Mt. Trashmore” is a ski area. Golf courses built over landfill
reduction through recycling or often coined as the 3 R’s: reuse, reduce, and
of its paper wastes; in countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, the
proportion in the glass recycled approaches to 50% while Japan recycles 50%
C) Incineration
Some countries, on the other hand, manage most of their solid waste through
to produce steam and ash, is another waste disposal option and an alternative to
designed for the destruction of wastes and are commonly employed in developed
nations who could afford the costs of the burning facilities, plus its operation and
This type of waste disposal is the second largest disposal method in most
developed countries and ranks next to landfills in the United States and the United
2005)
promising option for developed island nations whose small land area makes
incineration, along with sanitary disposal of the residue, has been proven useful in
nations such as Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands (Lettsome 1998 as cited
2000).
There are negative issues, however, in the use of this burning method and
much of that circulate around its safety for the environment and to the human
health. It is argued that the combustion process creates air pollution, ash, and
waste water, all of which must be properly managed using technical monitoring,
containment, and treatment systems. Harmful pollutants are released into the
environment whenever these by-products are not controlled (US EPA, 2009).
management.
A) Management Plans
Control Technology (BACT) and the principle of polluter pay. This strategy
B) Wastewater Treatment
regulated to fit the type of use. This alternative assumes that the treatment
effluent. This approach is utilized in the United States, Canada, and Europe
( Zerbock, 2003).
C) Injection wells
In the USA, industrial wastes that are primarily liquid are usually disposed
aquifers used as sources of drinking water. Before injection, liquid wastes are
circulates around the disposal of hazardous wastes. Due to their toxicity and large
threat to human and environment health, this type of waste requires more
Basically, the United States’s federal regulations classify their waste into
two types: hazardous and solid. In 1976, congress adopted the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act, the primary national law for addressing
In such act, the term ‘solid’ does not necessarily refer to a waste’s physical
property and thus the waste can also be a liquid or a contained gas (National
classification of hazardous wastes and the necessary treatment that such wastes
tracking the wastes’ point sources and point of disposal, and a permitting system
to control the operation of treatment, storage and disposal facilities (US
developed nations, developing countries also take their share in implementing waste
management policies.
Yet, it is also common that 30-60 percent of all the urban solid waste in
A) Open Dumps
nations still rely on this form of disposal. Open dumps are not much to be
they attract rats, insects and other pests; they are also fire hazards.
Still, behind these negative aspects, open dumps continue to be
C) Recycling
transition there are two types of recycling sectors, a formal sector and
people who are not aware of the hazard of exposure or hazards that
2009).
cope with the standards of the developed nations, finance and technology
plus policies still put limit to what they have generally achieved.
According to the World Resources Institute, it has been estimated that
waters with no treatment conducted. In India, with its 3,100plus cities and
towns, only 209 have even partial sewage treatment (Montgomery, 2000).
prevention hierarchy’.
manner which will protect human health and the environment against the
adverse effects which may result from such wastes. The governments
often lack information about how much and what types of pollutants are
released, and what risk they pose to people and the environment (Basel
Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. This law provides “the legal
waste management program that shall ensure protection of public health and the
enormous challenge. This is the concern of NEDA Board Resolution No. 5, series
of 1994 which stated the national policy for urban sewerage and sanitation
Unfortunately, with the current situation of the country, with its political
clashes and poverty situation, liquid waste management had largely been centered
only in the private sectors (Contreras, 2005). Treatments are largely carried out by
industrial groups. Effective domestic liquid waste management occurs mostly in
private households.
In this area, policies once again govern the actions of the concerned
User’s Fee of 2002, which authors the DENR Wastewater Discharge Permitting
System.
Before the enactment of the Clean Air Act (which included in its
medical and laboratory wastes are subjected to burning processes. Some of the
wastes are also recycled. In 2003, hazardous waste management shifted to land
fills and open dumping as an answer to the banning of burning. In a case study
conducted in hospitals in the Cagayan Valley Region, Northern Luzon, the most
Results indicated that proper waste management is not fully implemented due to
With the increase of population comes too the increase in consumption, and
from improper and irresponsible management of our wastes have arisen and continue
to do so. Human and ecosystem health can be adversely affected by all forms of
waste, from its generation to its disposal. Over the years, wastes and waste
in policies can bring huge environmental and human impacts is the “Love Canal
Incident”. The Love Canal is an area situated at Niagara Falls, New York. In 1953,
the Hooker Chemical Company, then the owners and operators of the property,
covered the canal with earth and sold it to the city for one dollar. In the late '50s,
about 100 homes and a school were built at the site. Twenty five years after the
Hooker Chemical Company stopped using the Love Canal as an industrial dump, 82
upward through the soil, their drum containers rotting and leaching their contents into
the backyards and basements of 100 homes and a public school built on the banks of
the canal. What followed was a catastrophe that caused several deaths, birth defects
Locally, here in the Philippines, the 2001 Smoky Mountain tragedy in the Payatas
has been regarding the case of that open dumpsite. The collapse of that “mountain of
trash” due to the severe rainfall had claimed the lives of many people, both young and
old.
dumping site, wastewater discharges, as shown by studies, can also bring harmful
In Fiji Island, for example, it has been concluded that the disposal of untreated
human and domestic waste has been the major contributor to the degradation of the
island’s marine environment. Development to the island had brought a shift in species
dominance from hard coral to macro-algae (Mosley and Aalbersberg, 2005 as cited in
There is also no need to mention the numerous incidences of mine tail deposits
and radioactive discharges in many rivers, lakes and shores that have undoubtedly
Waste management practices and policies over the last three decade have resulted in
responses identified are: (Information lifted from Sridhar and Baker, 2004)
• Waste recycling activities have been found to result in improved resource conservation and
reduced energy consumption as well as reduction of heavy metal contamination of water sources.
• In the Baltic Sea, the mercury levels of fish caught were reduced by 60% due to stringent
• Major rivers such as the Thames have supported biodiversity, as is evident from the
reappearance of salmon after rigorous pollution control measures. The ten-year ‘‘clean river’’
program initiated by the Singapore government in 1977 at a cost of US $200 million has brought
life back to the Singapore River and the Kallang Basin, with increased dissolved oxygen levels
• Phasing out of lead from gasoline has reduced lead emissions from vehicular sources.
• Wetlands have been widely reported to absorb significant amounts of anthropogenic pollutants.
• Ferti-irrigation practices have significantly improved the economic base of low- income
communities in urban areas. In the tropical countries in particular, controlled and judicious use of
aquatic weeds such as water hyacinth (water hyacinth treatment plant for wastewater) and blue
green algae (waste stabilization ponds) for treating small wastewater flows helped in improving
environmental sanitation and the by-products provided protein and mineral needs of livestock.