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HAZARDOUS WASTE |
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by Razaan Abakar | 01-12-2017 02:24
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I. INTRODUCTION Hazardous Wastes, solid, liquid, or gas wastes that can cause death, illness, or injury to people or destruction of the environment if improperly treated, stored, transported, or discarded. Substances are considered hazardous wastes if they are ignitable (capable of burning or causing a fire), corrosive (able to corrode steel or harm organisms because of extreme acidic or basic properties), reactive (able to explode or produce toxic cyanide or sulfide gas), or toxic (containing substances that are poisonous). Mixtures, residues, or materials containing hazardous wastes are also considered hazardous wastes. Many dangerous substances can be used only with special precautions that decrease their risks. When discarded, these substances are no longer under the direct control of the user and may pose special hazards to people or other organisms that come in contact with them. Because of such potential risks, hazardous wastes are processed separately from ordinary wastes. II. SOURCES OF HAZARDOUS WASTES A. Industrial Wastes Hazardous wastes are generated by nearly every industry; those industries that themselves generate few hazardous wastes nonetheless use products from hazardous waste generating industries. For example, in the computer software industry, writing software generates little hazardous waste, but the manufacture of computers involves many industrial processes. Making a computer circuit board generates spent electroplating baths that contain metal salts, and the production of computer chips uses acids, other caustic chemicals, and solvents. Other hazardous wastes are generated in the manufacture of fiber optics and copper wire used in electronic transmission, as well as magnetic disks, paper for technical manuals, photographs for packaging and publicity, and trucks for transportation of the finished product. B. Agricultural Wastes Industry is not alone in generating hazardous wastes. Agriculture produces such wastes as pesticides and herbicides and the materials used in their application. Fluoride wastes are by-products of phosphate fertilizer production. Even soluble nitrates from manure may dissolve into groundwater and contaminate drinking-water wells; high levels of nitrates may cause health problems. C. Household Wastes Household sources of hazardous wastes include toxic paints, flammable solvents, caustic cleaners, toxic batteries, pesticides, drugs, and mercury from broken fever thermometers. Local waste-disposal systems may refuse these items. If they are accepted, careful monitoring may be required to make sure soil or groundwater is not contaminated. The householder may be asked to recycle or dispose of these items separately. Renovations of older homes may cause toxic lead paint to flake off from walls. Insulation material on furnace pipes may contain asbestos particles. D. Medical Wastes Hospitals use special care in disposing of wastes contaminated with blood and tissue, separating these hazardous wastes from ordinary waste. Hospitals and doctors' offices must be especially careful with needles, scalpels, and glassware, called ?sharps.? Pharmacies discard outdated and unused drugs; testing laboratories dispose of chemical wastes. Medicine also makes use of significant amounts of radioactive isotopes for diagnosis and treatment, and these substances must be tracked and disposed of carefully. III. EFFECTS OF HAZARDOUS WASTE Hazardous wastes may pollute soil, air, surface water, or underground water. Pollution of soil may affect people who live on it, plants that put roots into it, and animals that move over it. In Times Beach, Missouri, in 1983, oil contaminated with dioxin was spread on roads to keep dust down; thus, residents were exposed to high levels of dioxin. Sludge from municipal sewage disposal may contain toxic elements if industrial waste is mixed with domestic sewage. If the sludge is used as a fertilizer, these elements may contaminate fields. Toxic substances that do not break down or bind tightly to the soil may be taken up by growing plants; the toxic substances may later appear in animals that eat crops grown there and possibly in people who do so. Air may become contaminated by direct emission of hazardous wastes. Evaporation of toxic solvents from paints and cleaning agents is a common problem. The air above hazardous waste may become dangerously contaminated by escaping gas, as can occur in houses built on mine tailings or old dump sites. Basements of homes built over uranium mine tailings often contain high levels of radioactive radon gas escaping from the radioactivity below. River and lake pollution, if it is toxic enough, may kill animal and plant life immediately, or it may injure slowly. For example, fluoride concentrates in teeth and bone, and too much fluoride in water may cause dental and bone problems. Compounds such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), PCBs, and dioxins are more soluble in fats than in water and therefore tend to build up in the fats within plants and animals. These substances may be present in very low concentrations in water but accumulate to higher concentrations within algae and insects, and build up to even higher levels in fish. Birds or people that feed on these fish are then exposed to very high levels of hazardous substances. In birds, these substances can interfere with egg production and bone formation. Even pollution that is not toxic can kill. Phosphates and nitrates, usually harmless, can fertilize the algae that grow in lakes or rivers. When algae grow, in the presence of sunlight, they produce oxygen. But if algae grow too much or too fast, they consume great amounts of oxygen, both when the sun is not shining and when the algae die and begin to decay. Lack of oxygen eventually suffocates other life; some living things may be poisoned by toxins contained in the algae. This process of algal overgrowth, called eutrophication, can kill life in lakes and rivers. In some cases, particular algae can also poison the drinking water of people and livestock. Underground pollutants can be carried by underground water flow. These wastes form spreading underground plumes (long, featherlike columns) of contaminants, which may reach the surface if the water emerges in a spring or is pumped by wells. Especially dangerous are solvents that may have leaked from SOURCE : Microsoft ? Encarta ? 2017. © 1993-2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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3 Comments
Thanks mentor for the lovely comment ^_^
And oh sorry my mistake 😅
It's leaked from underground storage tanks or may have been carelessly poured in the ground. Toxic metal ions may also be presented in these waste plumes .
Posted 01-12-2017 23:34
By the way, I think the last part of your report has been cut off by accident. You might want to check that!
Posted 01-12-2017 16:46
Hi, Razaan! I loved this report on hazardous waste. I was actually thinking of choosing this as a monthly report topic, because I've always been interested in the subject. The issue of hazardous waste has become very serious ever since the development of various chemical products (such as cleaning products or medicine). Thank you for introducing different types of hazardous waste and providing various examples in which hazardous waste can cause harm to the environment or human health. I think it would have also been a good idea to classify which kinds of hazardous waste can lead to which effect :) Overall, thank you for your informative report!
Posted 01-12-2017 16:45