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Natural capital - discuss natural capital and chemical cycling
*Natural capital- Natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support our economies. We depend completely on the earth's natural capital—the resources and ecological services provided by nature that help us to survive and thrive, and that support human economies . One of these vital ecological services is chemical cycling—the continual circulation of key chemicals from the environment (soil, water, and air) through organisms and back to the environment *Chemical Cycling- The circulation of chemicals from the environment (mostly from soil and water) through organisms and back to the environment. Chemical cycling allows the earth's organisms to obtain their nutrients, or the chemicals vital to their life processes. The material wastes left behind by any one organism become resources for other organisms as they take part in the recycling of these vital chemicals. This is the main reason that there is little or no material waste in nature.
Full-cost pricing - evaluate the pros and cons of full-cost pricing
A key reason that we have pollution and wastes is that the market prices of the goods and services we use do not include the harmful environmental and health costs of those products. Most ecological economists call for including these costs in market prices—a solution called full-cost pricing (a social science principle of sustainability, see Figure 1.28, in Module 1). Including all costs in prices would make environmentally harmful products more expensive, thereby making consumers less willing to buy them. This would, in turn, encourage producers to find or invent less environmentally harmful products and methods of production. The end result could be an overall reduction in resource waste and pollution, and improvements in human health At first, this change would likely result in a loss of jobs and profits in environmentally harmful businesses, as more consumers switched to less harmful products and services. But jobs and profits would grow in environmentally beneficial businesses (Figure 14.29). Phasing in a shift to full-cost pricing over a decade or two would give many environmentally harmful businesses enough time to transform themselves into environmentally beneficial businesses. It would also give consumers enough time to change their buying habits in favor of more environmentally beneficial products and services. Full-cost pricing has yet to be used widely for two major reasons. First, most producers of environmentally harmful products would have to charge more for their products and services, and they resist doing so. Second, estimating the harmful environmental and health costs of various products is generally very difficult. However, ecological and environmental economists argue that making the best possible estimates of those costs is an important step toward creating more sustainable economies and is far better than simply ignoring these costs.
Subsidies - consider the influence of taxes and subsidies in waste production and management
According to 2,500 economists, including eight Nobel Prize winners in economics, most countries have a tax system that is backwards. It discourages the growth of what we want—jobs, income, and innovation—and encourages the growth of what we don't want—pollution, resource waste, and environmental degradation. A better approach, these economists say, would be to lower taxes on labor, income, and wealth, and raise taxes on environmentally harmful activities that produce pollution, wastes, and environmental degradation. Proponents of such a tax shift point out three requirements for implementing it. First, taxes on environmentally harmful manufacturing processes and goods would have to be phased in over 10-20 years so that businesses can plan for the future. Second, income, payroll, or other taxes would have to be reduced to balance the increase in taxes from the first step. Finally, the poor and lower-middle class would have to have a safety net in the form of lower prices on essentials such as food and fuel, until the new pricing system became stabilized. Polls in the United States and Europe have indicated that, once such a tax shift is explained to voters, 70% of them support it
Hazardous waste - discuss the unique attributes of hazardous waste
Another major type of waste is hazardous, or toxic, waste, which is any waste that threatens human health or the environment because it is poisonous, dangerously chemically reactive, flammable, or corrosive. Examples include industrial solvents, car and household batteries (containing acids as well as toxic lead and mercury), household pesticides, hospital medical waste, and toxic ash from incinerators and coal-burning power plants. E-waste is also a fast-growing source of hazardous wastes (see the following For Instance ). Most homes contain a variety of harmful chemicals such as those shown in Figure 14.7.
E-waste - consider the developing problem of electronic waste
E-waste is also a fast-growing source of hazardous wastes Electronic waste, or e-waste, is the fastest-growing solid and hazardous waste problem in the United States and in the world (see The Big Picture ). Scientists are now analyzing this problem, looking for solutions to it. Although an estimated 80% of the materials in electronic devices can be recycled or reused, most e-waste goes to incinerators and landfills. These discarded resources include high-quality plastics and valuable metals such as silver, gold, platinum, copper, and aluminum. E-waste is also a source of toxic and hazardous pollutants, including lead, mercury and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. These and other chemicals can contaminate the air, surface water, groundwater, and soil, and cause serious health problems and even early death for e-waste workers. Much of the e-waste in the United States that is not buried or incinerated is shipped for recycling to Asia (mostly to China, India, and Bangladesh) and to poor African nations where environmental regulations are weak and labor is cheap. Workers in these countries dismantle, burn, and treat the e-waste with acids to recover valuable metals and reusable parts. This exposes these workers—many of them children—to toxic metals and chemicals. Scrap left over is often dumped into waterways and fields or burned in open fires, which exposes many people to toxic dioxins in the resulting air pollution. Some 179 countries, not including the United States, have signed and ratified an international agreement, called the Basel Convention, which bans exports of hazardous waste. However, much hazardous e-waste is smuggled among countries and the United States still exports it.
Waste production - evaluate economic systems as they relate to waste production
Ecological economists contend that economic systems based on ever-increasing economic growth will eventually become unsustainable for two reasons. First, these systems will likely deplete or degrade much of the earth's natural capital to the point where it will no longer support these systems. Opponents of this view argue that we can find technological solutions to the problems of depletion and degradation. But many economists point out that there are no substitutes for vital natural resources such as air, water, fertile topsoil, and biodiversity, or for ecosystem services such as climate control and chemical cycling High-waste economic systems are already exceeding the capacity of the environment to handle the growing amounts of wastes that these systems produce. This is presenting a number of environmental and health-related challenges
Market prices - describe how harmful environmental costs might influence market prices
For example, the market price we pay for a computer includes the costs of raw materials, labor, marketing, and shipping. But it does not include various harmful environmental and health effects, such as the pollutants and wastes that result from the mining of raw materials to make the computer, the manufacturing process, and the ultimate disposal of that computer. These hidden costs represent short- and long-term harmful effects on the earth's life-support systems, as well as on the health of people in current and future generations. Most people do not connect these harmful effects to owning a computer, partly because the costs of these effects are excluded from the computer's market price. However, sooner or later, the computer's owner and other people in a society pay these hidden costs in the forms of higher health-care premiums, poorer health, and higher taxes for pollution control and waste management. As long as the harmful environmental and health costs of the goods and services we buy are largely excluded from their market prices, we will be more likely to continue wasting resources and producing large amounts of wastes and pollutants.
Storage - consider how solid waste is stored or dealt with in different parts of the world
In many less-developed countries, solid wastes are simply dumped into pits or piled in large heaps on the land in what are called open dumps (Figure 14.18). These have caused a number of problems over the years, including pollution of surface waters, air, and groundwater. In most of the world's more-developed countries, the problems of open dumps have largely been solved with the use of sanitary landfills—facilities in which solid wastes are compacted and covered, daily or weekly, with a fresh layer of clay or a layer of plastic foam (Figure 14.19). This covering helps to keep the wastes dry and thus reduces leakage of contaminated water from a landfill. It also helps to reduce odors and lessens the risk of fire, a common problem in open dumps. The best of these landfills have strong double liners and systems for collecting leachates, the liquids that would otherwise seep out of the landfill, possibly contaminating groundwater or surface waters. By weight, about 80% of the MSW in Canada and 69% of that in the United States are buried in sanitary landfills. About 85% of China's rapidly growing amount of solid waste is disposed of primarily in rural areas in open dumps or in poorly designed and poorly regulated landfills that have no lining or only a thin single lining. Figure 14.20 lists the major pros and cons of using sanitary landfills to dispose of solid waste Around the world, more than 600 large waste-to-energy incinerators (89 in the United States) burn MSW and use the heat to boil water and make steam for generating electricity or for heating buildings. Figure 14.21 shows the major components of this type of incinerator Countries vary greatly in how much they rely on this technology. For example, Germany incinerates about 34% of its MSW, while only about 7% of all MSW in the United States and 1% of that in Poland are burned. Incinerators do not turn a profit for their owners unless they are fed large volumes of trash every day. This encourages trash production and discourages waste reduction, reuse, and recycling. Figure 14.22 lists the major pros and cons of using incinerators to burn solid waste.
Industrial ecosystems - describe an industrial ecosystem
Industrial systems that mimic nature in this and other ways are called industrial ecosystems. One such system has been set up in Kalundborg, Denmark (Figure 14.24), where an electric power plant and nearby industries, homes, and farms work together to reduce the amount of wastes they produce and to save money. Kalundborg's industrial ecosystem also reduces the need to dig mineral and energy resources from the earth's crust, and it cuts the outputs of pollution and wastes that would result from processing these raw materials.
Reducing waste - evaluate the means of managing and reducing waste
Managing waste management, which involves a set of methods for handling waste with the goal of reducing its environmental impacts. These methods generally result in moving the wastes from one part of the environment to another, usually by burying them (which can pollute soil and groundwater), burning them (which can pollute air and soil), or shipping them to another location (which makes it someone else's problem). Reducing Now, many environmental scientists, governments, and corporations are focusing more on the second question and taking a prevention approach called waste reduction, which involves producing and using goods and services with the goal of generating much less waste. We are also learning to mimic the way nature deals with wastes by treating them as potential resources to be reused, recycled, or composted. Both Many analysts call for making the most of the advantages of both by using integrated waste management—a strategy that involves a mix of waste-management and waste-reduction tools and methods (Figure 14.11). This strategy could be used to implement many of the scientists' recommendations
Shifting - valuate the shift from high-consumption, high-waste economies to low-consumption, low-waste economies
Many environmental scientists and economists as well as business leaders believe that the best long-term solution to our environmental and resource problems is to shift from our dependence on eventually unsustainable high-consumption, high-waste economies (see Module 1, Figure 1.22) to more sustainable low-consumption, low-waste economies—economic systems that reward efficient use of resources (lower consumption), reduction of waste production (low waste), and pollution prevention (less pollution). How can we make such a shift? Environmental scientists and economists urge us to begin by learning about how nature has sustained an amazing variety of species and habitats for at least 3.5 billion years, despite several major changes in environmental conditions during that time. Then, they argue, we can apply nature's sustainability lessons to help us design and phase in more sustainable economies during this century. --------------- First, the earth's life is sustained by energy from the sun, so we can get much more of our energy directly from the sun as well as from wind and flowing water, which are indirect forms of solar energy. Second, there is essentially no waste in nature because all of the nutrients on which the earth's living organisms depend are endlessly recycled. According to experts, we could recycle up to 80% of the resources we use and thus greatly reduce our production of wastes and pollution. Third, the earth's biodiversity provides a variety of ways for species to adjust to new environmental conditions. Even when large portions of the world's species have been wiped out by catastrophic changes, as has happened several times during the earth's history, surviving species have rebuilt the planet's biodiversity within 5 to 10 million years, by reproducing and evolving as they adjust to changing environmental conditions over time.
Wastes - differentiate the types of municipal solid wastes and their properties
One major category of the wastes we produce is solid waste, which consists of all discarded materials that are not liquid or gaseous . There are two major types of solid waste. One is industrial solid waste produced by mining and industries in order to provide people with goods and services. The other is municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage or trash, which consists of solid waste produced by homes and workplaces, and by people who drop litter. In many countries, the fastest-growing category of MSW is electronic waste, or e-waste—discarded TV sets, computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices that represent a loss of valuable resources that could be recovered. Most of this e-waste contains toxic metals that can end up in the air, water, and soil, and eventually in our bodies as well as in those of other animals. Most MSW breaks down very slowly, if at all. Toxic lead and mercury never break down because they are chemical elements. An aluminum can takes 500 years, a plastic six-pack holder, 100 years, and plastic bags, 10-20 years to break down.
Ecological footprint - demonstrate comprehension of the concept of the ecological footprint and its impact on natural capital degradation
One rough measure of the stresses that we are putting on natural systems is our ecological footprint: the area of land and water needed to supply a given number of people with the renewable resources they use and to absorb the pollution and wastes they produce. We can estimate the ecological footprint of one person, of a population such as that of a city or country, and of the entire human population. As our ecological footprints grow, we are depleting and degrading the earth's natural capital.
Superfund - discuss the management of hazardous waste and the Superfund
The European Union (EU) is the world's leader in reducing e-waste, which contains a number of hazardous and toxic materials such as lead and mercury. The EU has banned e-waste from landfills and incinerators, and it requires manufacturers to take back electronic products at the end of their useful lives for repair or recycling. It covers the costs of this program through a recycling tax on the electronic products sold in the marketplace. The United States produces about half of the world's e-waste, by weight, but recycles only about 27% of it. However, this percentage is beginning to grow. Thirty-seven states now ban the disposal of television sets and computers in landfills and incinerators, and several cities and states have laws that require manufacturers to take back and recycle most electronic devices. Some U.S. electronics manufacturers have free recycling programs for consumers. Several nonprofit groups also help people to donate, reuse, and recycle their used electronic devices. Despite such encouraging efforts, it will be difficult for recycling to keep up with the rapid growth of e-waste. Another obstacle to e-waste recycling is the fact that lots of money can be made by illegally shipping e-wastes to other countries. According to Jim Puckett, coordinator of the Basel Action Network, the best long-term solution to the e-waste problem is a prevention approach. It would encourage or require manufacturers to make electronic products that do not contain hazardous and toxic materials, and that are designed for easy repair or recycling. -------------- We can use physical, chemical, and biological methods to detoxify hazardous wastes. We can also incinerate hazardous wastes in order to break them down and convert them to harmless or less harmful chemicals.However, the incineration of hazardous wastes can release other air pollutants such as toxic dioxins. It also produces a highly toxic ash that must be stored safely and permanently in landfills or in vaults designed for such storage. ---------- According to experts, burying wastes below or on the land's surface should be used only as the last resort after the first two priorities for dealing with hazardous wastes—waste reduction and detoxification—have been carried out Deep-well disposal is widely used to deal with liquid hazardous wastes. This involves using high pressure to pump the wastes into various dry and porous rock formations deep underground. These sites are often located beneath aquifers, or underground bodies of water that are used to supply irrigation and drinking water. Roughly 64% of the liquid hazardous wastes produced in the United States are injected into such deep wells. A number of scientists contend that the U.S. government needs to improve the existing regulations for this type of hazardous waste disposal. They are especially concerned about the leakage of hazardous materials into groundwater supplies during and after pumping. ------------ 95% The percentage of all U.S. hazardous wastes that are not regulated --------------- Only about 5% of the hazardous wastes produced in the United States—those judged to be the most hazardous—are regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), passed in 1976 and amended in 1984. Under this law, the EPA sets standards for managing several types of hazardous waste and then issues permits, each of which allows a company or other permit holder to produce and dispose of a certain amount of wastes. Permit holders must track their hazardous wastes and prove to the EPA that this tracking record is accurate. The other 95% of the hazardous wastes in the United States are not regulated because of the very high costs of doing so. --------------- In 1980, the U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as the CERCLA or Superfund program. Its purposes are to identify and clean up sites where hazardous wastes have polluted the environment, often called Superfund sites. The Superfund law had two important effects. First, it led to a sharp drop in the number of illegal hazardous waste dumpsites, because polluters had to pay for cleaning up any of those sites that they created. Second, the production of hazardous wastes declined and manufacturers began to reuse and recycle more of these wastes, because they feared lawsuits related to the harmful effects caused by the wastes.
3Rs - consider the implications or reduce, reuse and recycle as strategies within waste management and reduction
To reduce involves consuming less, which automatically reduces one's outputs of wastes and pollution. This ultimate waste-reduction strategy involves asking a very important question when deciding whether or not to purchase an item: Do I really need it, or can I get along without it? This is not always easy to decide and it is complicated by the fact that most product advertising aims to convince us that we need something. Reuse involves using a product or material at least twice. For example, we can wash and reuse a durable travel mug (Figure 14.12a) every day instead of using paper or plastic coffee cups (Figure 14.12b) and then throwing them away. This saves us money and reduces our output of solid wastes and pollution. Most coffee shops and fast food restaurants give discounts to people who bring their own reusable cups. To recycle involves collecting discarded solid materials and converting them into new materials. For example, we can crush and melt discarded aluminum cans to make new aluminum cans or other aluminum products (Figure 14.14). This costs much less and uses much less energy and raw materials than does making aluminum cans from mined aluminum. Consequently, it saves us money, makes aluminum ore resources last longer, and reduces our output of solid wastes and pollution. The EPA estimated that recycling 1 ton of aluminum cans saves the energy equivalent of about 1,700 gallons of gasoline. By reusing and recycling MSW items, we can make supplies of nonrenewable resources last longer, save ourselves money, and reduce solid waste and pollution.
