Waste Disposal Methods

From time immemorial, waste disposable has been a problem, and after industrialization the problem has only compounded. In the past, trash was carried to the outskirts of cities and discarded in the open, but now that can no longer be done. Over time, various waste disposal methods have been devised, like compost, burning, landfill, biological reprocessing, etc. However, before going to these details, we need to understand the different kinds of wastes. There are basically three types of wastes generated - solid waste, liquid waste and sludge. They are classified as per their chemical, biological and physical characteristics.

Solid wastes include materials like mining wastes and industrial wastes besides household garbage. On the other hand, liquid wastes are those in which the composition of solids is less than 1% and there is a high concentration of metals and salts, while sludge contains a mixture of solid and water. Once you have got an idea of what is waste disposal, let's get onto the various methods of disposing wastes.

Solid Waste Disposal Methods

For disposing solid wastes, you can adopt a number of methods like compost, landfill and burning. Let's take a look at each of them:

Compost
You can create a compost in your own house, especially to dispose off organic wastes. Ideally this should be in everyone's homes as there are a lot of wastes like branches and leaves which can be disposed off. More importantly compost is beneficial for the environment as unnecessary refuse is not dumped into a landfill. Methane is created by organic matter if you put them in a landfills, which in turn adds to the greenhouse gases thereby causing global warming. Rather than throwing away leaves and other household organic matter if you use them as compost, soil is replenished thereby reducing cost of land reclamation.

Landfill
If you can't recycle non-hazardous wastes, the alternative you have is a landfill, a relatively cheap option. However, any open area won't do, there are certain guidelines and they should be properly monitored and maintained. A landfill must have a lining to so as to shield it from water seeping into the landfill thereby making water poisonous and unfit for consumption.

Burning
Even though landfills is a cheap option which you may use if large amounts of trash is collected, burning provides an alternative through which the volume can be quickly reduced. Environment friendly burning method does not just burn all trash lying around, but uses filters and scrubbers so that poisonous and acidic gases are not released into the atmosphere. Moreover, this method prevents ash from being released into the atmosphere.

Hazardous Waste Disposal Methods

Some of the most common hazardous waste disposable methods include incineration, bioremediation, injection wells and landfills. However, disposal of hazardous wastes in landfills and injection wells has its own concerns, especially leaking of toxins into surrounding groundwater. A major source of drinking water is groundwater and if that becomes contaminated, it becomes extremely costly to purify them. Ideally, hazardous substances should be converted into non-hazardous form. There are several new technologies like high-temperature plasma torch which have come up and can convert hazardous wastes like low-level radioactive wastes to glass which are environmentally safe. But then even though these methods are costly, they are worth it.

Hazardous wastes are also disposed off in landfills and there are strict regulations which one should follow. The landfills should be lined with groundwater barriers, monitoring wells and clay liners. Incineration method is also used to dispose off hazardous wastes, wherein these refuse is changed into inorganic by-products, water and carbon dioxide. However, the costs associated with burning hazardous wastes is high besides difficulty in disposal of wastes.

Bioremediation is another process which is used to dispose off hazardous wastes and convert them into nontoxic products. The process includes the use of natural degradation processes and microorganisms. However, this process requires a long time and at times it becomes difficult to control the process of natural degradation.

Some of the other methods of waste disposal include energy recovery, wherein waste is recycled and is used as fuel to heat cook and power turbines and ocean dumping, wherein wastes are dumped into the oceans where creatures living in the sea consumes them. However, this is a controversial method and the harmful aftereffects far outweigh its benefits.

Thus, there are numerous waste disposal methods of which landfills and burning are the most common. We should all try to minimize the amount of wastes we produce every day so that we don't exert pressure on the environment. Moreover, the costs associated with disposing off wastes are all our money, so the lesser wastes we produce, the better.