3.3.

Waste Management
Supplementary material: Here is a link to a very insightful podcast, where Seedpod have a discussion with Sally-Anne
Kasner on how to design waste out of a system – a topic that ties in nicely with waste management, as well as
aspects of industrial symbiosis, which will be the main theme for next week. This podcast forms part of the content
for this lesson, so please watch it as there will be questions taken directly from it for the Week 4 quiz.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ILEBgD24bnRwr5balopOF

- Waste management deals with the activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its
final disposal. Waste management includes activities such as the collection, transport, treatment, and
disposal of waste, along with the regulation and monitoring of the management process, waste-related
laws, legislations, and economic mechanisms.
- Ideally, there should be no waste, and all outputs from processes should be utilised such that they can be
used as an input to other processes – this underlines the concept of industrial symbiosis.
- In the natural environment, there is no such thing as waste! Nature has evolved to the point where nothing
goes to waste, not even dead, decaying matter which is broken down and used as nutrients for soil to
become more fertile. In nature, everything exists in perfect harmony, and the ‘waste’ from one process is
happily taken on and used as the input to another natural process.
- Waste exists in solid, liquid, or gaseous states, and they all require different means on how they should be
disposed of.
- Waste is distinguished by how it should be disposed of or treated, and can generally be classified into the
following categories:
• Organic: refers to garden or food refuse, as well as any other biodegradable substance which can be
broken down by natural means. Methane is produced when organic waste is disposed through the
action of microorganisms, so caution is required.
• Hazardous: includes flammable, corrosive, toxic and reactive materials, which can pose serious health
and environmental risks if not properly disposed of.
• Solid: includes all solid garbage, sludge, and refuse found in industrial and commercial locations. Solid
waste can be further classified into the following categories:
➢ Glass and ceramics (recyclable)
➢ Plastic (thermosets and thermoplastics, of which only thermoplastics are recyclable)
➢ Paper (recyclable)
➢ Metals and tins (mostly recyclable)
• Liquid: refers to all grease, oil, sludges, wash water, waste detergents and dirty water. This waste is
hazardous and poisonous to the environment, and is produced in industry, agriculture, and households.
Liquid wastes can be further classified as follows:
➢ Sanitary sewage: Sewage from households and communities containing human waste and wash
water.
➢ Industrial sewage: From facilities involved in manufacturing, and often contains a high chemical
concentration.
➢ Storm sewage: Surface runoff containing dirt, twigs, organic matter, dissolved solids, and other
debris that flows into municipal sewers during heavy rainstorms.
 • Recyclable: refers to waste items that can be reused or broken down and reconstructed into a raw
material. Recyclable materials can include organic or solid waste products.

Waste Disposal
- Using correct waste disposal methods is very important, and there exist plenty of laws and regulations that
ensure it is done in the correct manner.
- Waste disposal is essential for the following reasons:
• To protect and sustain the environment: If waste is not correctly disposed of, it can cause serious
environmental damage, and subsequent collapse of ecosystems if the waste disposal remains
unregulated.
• To protect human health: Waste can cause toxic pollution that affects water and air, thereby affecting
the health of humans and other inhabitants of the earth (such as plants, animals, insects). To maintain
the health of the population, it is essential that waste is disposed of in the correct manner.
• To maintain the aesthetic appeal of nature: Waste can cause visual pollution of a landscape and can
produce offensive smells when not correctly disposed of.

The various waste categories can be disposed of in the following ways:

- Organic:
• Can be disposed of through composting, which can be used for gardening and agriculture to improve soil
fertility. Composting is cheap and easy to do.
• Broken down through anaerobic digestion, which is better suited to large scale facilities. This process
also produces useful by-products, as shown in the diagram below2:

1
Waste classification image from: https://www.dtmskips.co.uk/blog/types-of-waste/
2
Anaerobic digestion diagram from: https://www.epa.gov/agstar/how-does-anaerobic-digestion-work
 - Hazardous:
• Recycling: a few hazardous waste products can be recycled and used to form other products (for
example, Asbestos, batteries, car oil, and fluorescent tubes).
• Incineration and destruction.
• Pyrolysis: takes place in a high-temperature, inert environment, and is used to avoid the dangers of
combustion. Preferable when dealing with PCBs, organic waste, and pesticides.
• Disposing in a landfill.

- Solid:
• Landfills.
• Recycling of some solid waste.
• Open burning, although this is not environmentally sustainable on a larger scale.3

- Liquid:
• Containment: storing liquids in barrels or containers to prevent the liquid being directly dumped into the
environment.
• Treatment: some liquid waste can be treated to make it less harmful.
• Disposal: if the liquid cannot be contained or treated, it should be disposed of in an environmentally safe
manner.
• Dewatering: the filtering out of water from liquid waste, leaving behind compact, non-hazardous waste.
The water receives filtering treatment to make it sufficiently safe to be released into the environment.

- Recyclable:
• Reused or reconstructed to form other materials or products.
• The following image4 shows the recycling process diagram for plastic recycling:

3
Solid waste management image: https://www.britannica.com/technology/solid-waste-management
4
Recycling diagram from: https://earth.org/data_visualization/waste-management-and-recycling/
References
1. Unknown author; 2020; ERC: 7 Common Liquid Waste Disposal Methods; https://www.ercofusa.com/blog/7-
common-liquid-waste-disposal-methods/; accessed June 2021.
2. Kasner, S-A; 2020; Seedpod; https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ILEBgD24bnRwr5balopOF.