|
Committee: United Nations Environmental program (UNEP) Topic B: The economic impact of trash disposal
Director: Claudia de la Peña Ochoa Moderator: Diana Valeria Ortiz Arizmendi
The disposal of garbage is a universal problem that is continuously growing due to the development of industrialized nations and growth of population. Since the beginning of times we, as humans, have needed to find a way to dispose the trash we produce. In the 18th century carters were paid by every individual to carry trash and abandon it out of the borders of town, on England and France. Later in time Benjamin Franklin started the first municipal cleaning program in Philadelphia in 1757, making disposal in open pits become routine. All the way to nowadays we have come to develop many types of waste, some of them that are not even simply dumped away into a hole as past times. Nearly everything we do leaves behind some kind of waste. But, what about that? Nowadays people produce large amounts of trash and try to dispose everything, but garbage has its price. The more trash a person produce, the more money he has to pay for its disposal. We are in the middle of a world crisis and how dare us spend this huge amount of money in a wrong way while we are lacking money all over the world. I agree that we have to clean our planet, but what better way than reducing the amount of trash a person makes.
Types of waste: Waste can be divided into many different groups; where the most common ones are by its classification in their physical, biological, and chemical characteristics. An important arrangement is by their consistency.
Solid wastes: discarded materials other than fluids. They are waste materials that contain less than 70% water. This class includes materials as household garbage, some industrial wastes, certain mining wastes, and oilfield wastes.
Liquid waste: are usually water wastes that contain less than 1% solids. Such wastes may contain high concentrations of dissolved salts and metals.
Sludge: usually contain between 3% and 25% solids, while the rest of the material is water dissolved materials. Meaning it is a combination between liquid and waste.
Hazardous vs. no Hazardous: Federal regulations classify wastes into three different categories: * Hazardous waste presents immediate or long-term risks to humans, animals, plants, or the environment. It requires special handling for detoxification or safe disposal. *Non-hazardous are those that create no direct danger to human health and the environment. Household garbage is included into this category. These classes of wastes are of two types: those that have common hazardous properties such as ignitability or reactivity and those that contain leachable toxic components. *The last type of waste is entitled Special Wastes and is very specific in nature. They are regulated with specific guidelines. Some examples would be radioactive wastes and medical wastes.
Methods of disposal: Landfills: is a site where the disposal is by burial. It is the oldest and most common way to arrange material. It is very economical but every advantage has its disadvantage: infrastructure damage, pollution of the local environment, injuries to wildlife, production of methane, among others. Cities are running out of places to put their trash. Each year approximately 111 million tones of household, commercial and industrial waste are disposed of in landfill sites in the UK. I n the United States, landfills are regulated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, who established guidelines for its uses. The European Union created the European Union Directive, which has important implications for waste handling and disposal.
Incineration: convert waste materials into gas, heat, steam, and ash. It emits gas pollutants, because of the hazardous materials the incineration heats. A less common but more sustainable method of waste disposal is Anaerobic Digestion. In this process waste decomposes in an enclosed chamber, unlike in a landfill site
Organizations by country:
United States: US Environmental Protection Agency Italy: CORPELA United Kingdom: The Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Waste Group Australia: Austrian Institute for Applied Ecology Netherlands: EcoSan Waste France: The Greens Germany: German Green Belt India: Zero Waste Kovalam Ghana: Spider Plastic Waste Control Foundation South Africa: Amandla Waste Creations Group Argentina: ECO VIDA Saudi Arabia: Arab Network for Environment & Development Croatia: Pineta Russia: Ecodom China: Green Beat Egypt: Egyptian Association for Social and Environment Protection Israel: Efronim Brazil: Fundação Terra Uganda: Beene Garbage Managers
Globally: -Green peace -International Institute for Environment and Development -International Solid Waste Association -World Conservation Union -European Compost Network -ARGUS - Statistics and Information Systems in Environment and Public Health -Bureau of International Recycling -The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management -Zero Waste Alliance -European Environment Agency
RECYCLING: It takes time, energy, labor, and money to make new products from recycled ones. Right now it's even easier or cheaper for manufacturers to use virgin rather than recycled materials to make things. For the recycling process, manufacturers need the technology to process the materials in order to create new ones. Another thing will be high quality material that will meet the manufacturers’ specifications. And costumers to buy products that contain recycle materials. Have you ever asked yourself, why do recycle material cost the most? Well let me answer your question: all the process recycling means costs, and a lot. Almost as if you were saying the cost of the waste disposals. WHATS NEXT... The best method of reducing waste disposals negative effect on society is merely to prevent its generation. If the consumers of our country were to make a firm stand against the production of useless waste and the furtherance of recycled products, the producers would have no choice but to conform to our wishes. If it means a price will increase, so what? Any price increase we pay now will be worth the extra healthy years we will be able to inhabit this planet; it will be worth it for our future generations. What does your country think about this…
Make sure you know… -What is your country’s principal method of disposal?
Bibliography http://www.wiserearth.org/organization/search?phrase=waste&limit=100&page=3 http://nlquery.epa.gov/epasearch/epasearch?areaname=&areacontacts=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epa.gov%2Fepahome%2Fcomments.htm&areasearchurl=&result_template=epafiles_default.xsl&action=filtersearch&filter=&typeofsearch=epa&querytext=Universal+Waste http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/incineration http://www.wastedisposal.com/ http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/wastes.html http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/Sustainability/Older/Waste_Disposal.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_management http://www.learner.org/interactives/garbage/solidwaste.html
|
