Name: Donna may Jusos
Course/section: BSHRM 1-A
Subject: ENSC 1
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Solid waste is composed of a broad array of materials discarded by households, businesses, industries, and agriculture. Not all solid waste is actually solid. Some semi-solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes are included in the definition of solid waste. Defines solid waste to include garbage, refuse, sludge from municipal sewage treatment plants, ash from solid waste incinerators, mining waste, waste from construction and demolition, and some hazardous wastes. Since the definition is so broad, it is worth considering what the act excludes from regulations concerning solid waste: untreated sewage, industrial wastewater regulated by the Clean Water Act, irrigation return flows, nuclear materials and by-products, and hazardous wastes in large quantities. Facilities for the disposal of solid waste include municipal and industrial landfills, industrial surface impoundments, and incinerators. Incinerators that recover energy as a by-product of waste combustion are called resource recovery or waste-to-energy facilities. Sewage sludge and agricultural waste may be applied to land surfaces as fertilizers or soil conditioners. Other types of waste management practices include composting, most commonly of separated organic wastes, and recycling. Some solid waste ends up in illegal open dumps. Three quarters of industrial nonhazardous waste comes from four industries: iron and steel manufacturers, electric utilities, companies making industrial inorganic chemicals, and firms producing plastics and resins. About one-third of industrial nonhazardous waste is managed on the site where it is generated, and the rest is transported to off-site municipal or industrial waste facilities. Although surveys conducted by some states are beginning to fill in the gaps, there is still not enough landfills and surface impoundments for industrial solid wastes. Available data suggest there is...
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