Sci201 Unit 4

The legislation of the two state laws (the Long Island Landfill Law of 1983, and the Solid Waste Management Act of 1988) controls solid waste management activities in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Since then, factors such as mismanaged land filling and Landfill closures have led to a fundamental shift in the roles of local governments and the private sector relating to the collection, transportation, and disposal of solid waste and recyclables.

The EPA originally defined solid waste in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as “any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded material....”, and later adjusted its definition to include mining by-products and recycled materials. The American Mining Association felt that the EPA had superseded its boundaries by altering the RCRA’s original definition of solid waste.

* “United States Environmental Protection Agency”, this is the Governmental organisation responsible for waste disposal and recycling in the whole of United States of America.

Landfills are getting bigger and are becoming more of a problem in the U.S because they are hazardous to our health and our environment, but there is a way to stop the villain known as a landfill.

United States of America. United States Government Accountability Office. Office of Public Affairs. U.S Government Accountability OFfice. N.p., 2 Dec. 2009. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/LPS120046/LPS120046/www.gao.gov/new.items/d

In modern society, people produce a significant amount of waste, such as agricultural, nuclear, solid, or electronic waste. While some waste goes to the landfill in the United States, some are exported to developed and developing countries. These exports include hazardous waste and harmless waste, in which some of the countries specialize in recycling them, but even so, there has been controversies about improper disposal of wastes in other countries. Exportation laws in regards to waste export can be complex. In this paper, exportation regulations are explored in regards to waste will be explored, specifically some those that are directly related to the United States, and ethicality of such practices will be evaluated.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Municipal Solid Waste web site they describe a four tier Solid Waste Management Hierarchy. They use a pyramid to represent the four tiers. The preferred method of waste management is listed at the bottom. From bottom to top it lists best practices in the following order: (1st tier) source reduction or waste prevention, (2nd tier) recycling, (3rd tier) waste that cannot be prevented or recycled that can be combusted with energy recovery, and (4th tier) landfill or incineration without energy recovery. (EPA-1) This hierocracy was

However, there are several waste management methods, defined in this section. Each country has different policies, legislation, and thoughts about solid waste. This paper aims to compare different approaches of solid waste management and discuss their effectiveness. For this reason, it will be discussed the role for effective solid waste management of: legislation and government policies, and engagement of actors involved.

Contamination of air and water resources by exposure to landfills, and its consequences in the form of various implications on human health and environment, has made people alert and aware of the issue. This attitude has led to formulation of certain laws and policies by Federal Government while choosing a site for the construction of landfill, ensuring that all the requirements are met, and directions are followed as laid by the regulatory authorities. Location, functioning, design, nearby water reserves, closure and economic perspectives are main areas which needed to be addressed while setting up landfill in any area (USEPA, 1993).

Municipal waste is the type of waste that is produced by society and affects both public health and the environment. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) (2014) defines municipal solid waste as “everyday items people use and then throw away, such as product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances, paint, and batteries.” MSW is also called as trash or garbage in the public. This type of waste is produced almost by everyone. For example, if space waste can be produced only by space industry; or industrial waste mostly is produced by factories or some workplaces; the production of municipal waste does not depend on a particular area of working. Meanwhile, U.S.A. is one of the largest generators of the garbage in the world.

For a household trash landfill (called a municipal solid waste landfill), the ground is fixed first with mud and after that with a skin of adaptable plastic about half an inch (1 centimeter) thick. Over this, channels and pipes gather a fluid called leachate, which is the polluted liquid that streams out of the body of the landfill. Leachate is the liquid that drains or ‘leaches’ from a landfill. It varies widely in composition regarding the age of the landfill and the type of waste that it contains. It usually contains both dissolved and suspended material. Landfills are not made to destroy junk, just to cover it. That is because they contain tiny amounts of oxygen and dampness, which keeps junk from decomposing quickly. So landfills are deliberately filled, checked and kept up while they are active for up to 30 years after they are shut down. Various different things happen once you have brought your recycling into the plant or have it picked up from your home. First, the recycling is brought into the plant and arranged or prepared by laborers who sit close to a transport line where the materials move gradually by for the duration of the day. Laborers isolate out various sorts of plastic, glass, and metal, and place them into canisters or collection bins where they are then moved to an alternate region of the recycling plant to be cleaned or additionally prepared for their final destination.

This act also gave authority to the U.S. Public Health Service to enforce regulations for solid waste collection, transportation, recycling and disposal. Financial assistance was now able to be given to states for research and develop of solid waste management plans and to improve methods of solid waste management.

When a waste cause threat to human health, it is considered as hazardous (RCRA, 1978). According to RCRA of USA all the wastes are solid

One type of industrial waste is hazardous wastes. These are essentially poisonous wastes that require special attention to eliminate, which is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/toxic-waste-overview/). However, this regulation was enforced in 1976. ://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history-resource-conservation-and-recovery-act. Until then, industrial dumping of hazardous wastes remained unchecked for most of the 1900s. According to a v article, “most toxic waste dumps that

Municipal waste has residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial components, and includes all non-water waste produced by housing units, retail and wholesale businesses, institutions such as prisons and hospitals, and large-scale office businesses (IDEM, 2001). Non-municipal waste includes construction/demolition debris, foundry waste, coal ash, and other similar by-products of intense refining or manufacturing operations