Connect Chapter 14

Hazardous waste in any discarded material that contains substances known to be ___

toxic, carcinogenic, or mutagenic to life-forms, corrosive, and fatal to humans/lab animals in low doses

Because of rising land prices and increasing costs of ___ to move solid waste, landfills are no longer a cheap/easy way to deal with waste

transportation

The ___ stream describes the steady flow of varied refuse and garbage to human produce

waste

The US produces about ___ tons of solid waste each year

11 billion

How much aluminium is recycled in the US?

50%

What metal is the easiest and most valuable to recycle?

Aluminum

___ processing can detoxify hazardous materials so they are no longer toxic

Chemical

___ is the biological degradation or breakdown of organic matter under aerobic conditions

Composting

___ provides rapid containment, cleanup, and remeditation of abandoned waste sites

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

___ is a major obstacle in plastics recycling because a single PVC bottle mixed in with PET bottles can ruin the whole batch

Contamination

Issues with open dumps include ___

Diseases that are spread by vermin in the dump, the spread of waste and pollution by wind and rain, and smell

___ reduces the volume of waste and creates energy and air pollution

Incinerating

Where does most e-waste go for (informal) recycling?

India and Congo

What is the purpose of biogas?

It converts organic waste to gas that is used to generate heat and electricity

How is most municipal waste in the US Disposed?

Landfilling

___ solid waste is a combination of the household and commercial refuse that amounts to more than 250 million metric tons per year in the US

Municipal

Why is the cost of waste disposal on the rise?

New landfills have strict regulations to protect public health and cities must truck their garbage hundreds of miles to a disposal site

___ receives about 25,000 metric tons of packaging per year

Ocean dumping

___ is the most prevalent form of waste disposal in developing countries

Open dumping

Rank the following substances according to how much they contribute to municipal soil waste in the US

Paper; Food; Plastics; Metals; Wood

The recycling recovery rate of ___ and ___ has increased the most in the past 50 years

Paper; plastic

___ retrievable storage is technical and expensive and is usually reserved for the most toxic waste types

Permanent

___ plastics break down when exposed to ultraviolet radiation

Photodegradable

___ requires testing and monitoring of hazardous substances

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

The ___ is a revolving pool of funds that was designed to immediately respond to emergency situations and remediate abandoned or inactive polluted sites

Superfund

Which actions were put into place by Kristianstad, Sweden to become a waste-free city?

They actively promote recycling and waste reduction, they built a bigger plant for the city's organic waste, and they provide assistance and facilities to help households and businesses reduce, reuse, and recycle trash

___ requires industry to disclose the toxins they produce

Toxic Release Inventory

Since composting is an aerobic process, what do you need to do to create compost from your own organic waste?

Turn it over/stir it every week or so

What ingredients are helpful in creating compost from your own organic waste?

Vegetable waste, lawn clippings, fallen leaves, and wood chips

___ is shopping waste to less-developed countries

Waste exporting

Plastics that are composed of or incorporate materials that can be decomposed by microorganisms are ___

biodegradable

The use of organisms to break down or detoxify hazardous wastes is called ___

bioremediation

The biggest sources of toxic and hazardous waste in the US are

chemical and petroleum industries

Negative issues with landfills include:

dwindling space, pollution of the area, and rising costs

Refuse-derived ___ incinerators have the majority of recyclable and nonburnable refuse removed before burning

fuel

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch ___

has captured 100 million tons of plastic debris, is composed mostly of materials disposed improperly or accidentally on land, and is driven by a gyre

Any discarded material that is explosive or contains explosive substances is considered to be a ___ waste

hazardous

Debates against incinerator cost-effectiveness include ___, higher fee charges to garbage haulers, and the concentration of toxic materials that results.

high initial construction costs

Permanent retrievable storage is extremely expensive and is usually reserved for ___ materials

highly toxic

The amount of e-waste is ___ rapidly every year, and therefore is adding to the amount of hazardous materials exposed to the environment

increasing

Recycling reduces the stress on ___ by removing the material from the waste stream

landfills

Everything smaller than sofas and refrigerators are dumped into a giant furnace and burned in a ___ burn furnace

mass

Ocean dumping results in widespread issues with sea life, such as seals being drowned in discarded nets and seabirds starving because their stomachs are filled with ___

plastic

Brownfield sites are the areas that have been/have been suspected of being ___ and therefore are abandoned or underutilized

polluted

Hazardous waste is dangerous and expensive to deal with, the best solution is to not ___ it in the first place

produce

One of the largest obstacles for the recovery rate of plastics is that many beverage bottles are designed to be used "on-the-go" and many do not make it do a ___ bin

recycle

Newspapers processed into insulation and steel cans turned into new construction materials are both examples of ___

recycling

The reprocessing of discarded materials into new, useful products is ___

recycling

Benefits of using compost on a garden include:

reduced soil erosion, soil enrichment, and improved crop yields

Among the "three R's", ___ waste is the cheapest option for waste management because it saves the most energy, materials, and money

reducing

The best way to reduce hazardous waste is by ___

reducing production

Benefits of using brownfield sites include ___

reducing the destruction of open green space for development and helping to rebuild urban areas

Some strategies that can shrink the waste stream include ___

reducing, reusing, and recycling

Although recycling glass bottles is more energy efficient than using virgin material, ___ is even more efficient because no energy is needed to melt down and reform the bottles

reusing

A ___ landfill compacts and covers solid waste with dirt in order to decrease odors and discourage vermin populations

sanitary

A landfill that has a thick plastic liner, compacted clay, impervious layers, monitoring wells, and is used for hazardous waste is called a ___ landfill

secure

A sanitary landfill is used for ___ waste

solid

Ash from incinerators has high levels of dioxins, furans, and other ___ materials which is a point of concern for the population surrounding the incinerator

toxic