Geography
Domestic Waste
Domestic waste refers to the waste generated from households and includes materials such as food scraps, packaging, paper, glass, and plastics. It is a significant environmental issue due to its volume and potential impact on ecosystems and human health. Effective management of domestic waste involves strategies such as recycling, composting, and proper disposal to minimize its environmental footprint.
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4 Key excerpts on "Domestic Waste"
eBook - PDFGarbage Crisis
A Global Challenge for Engineers
- Randika Jayasinghe, Usman Mushtaq, Toni Smythe, Caroline Baillie(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Springer(Publisher)
The costs for col- lection, transfer, and transport of waste increased due to regionalization. A greatly expanded interest in recycling, composting, and recovery approaches arose for municipal service providers, both private and government owned. This led to the prohibition and/or criminalization of traditional solid waste practices, especially those relating to informal waste activities [5]. Technologies developed in the global North are designed for their own local circumstances where labour costs and technical capacities are high [4, 15]. Moreover, the composition of waste in developed countries is different to that of developing countries. Residents of developed coun- tries consume more processed foods, resulting in more packaging materials in the waste [15]. The waste stream is also rich in discarded electronic items [16] and industrial waste. These different waste streams, which include electronics, plastics, and hazardous waste, pose special waste disposal challenges. Managing some of these waste in a socially and environmentally acceptable manner will form the basis for our discussion. We raise one key question to initiate our discussion: What does waste management mean for a country in the global North?. We have looked at this based on the following three aspects: • distancing of waste; • dumping in marginalized communities within developed countries; and • dumping in developing countries. We highlighted different issues in relation to waste management in a developed country and one of the most important concerns is the growing distance between people and their waste. In this chapter, we draw the attention to this distancing of waste in developed countries. The distance is growing physically and mentally between people and the waste they produce [1, 17]. According to Clapp (2002), as waste distancing increases, people have little understanding of where their waste ends up, increasing the tendency to add more waste to the environment [1].
eBook - PDF- James M. Beard(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
Natural materials include paper, cardboard, yard waste, food waste, wood, some textiles, and leather. SOLID WASTE DISPOSITION This section deals with the various ways of handling the solid wastestream. We are not going to discuss every possible way to get rid of trash, only the major ones. Generally, the solutions fall into one of two categories: either make the trash useful 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 Canada Chile Ethiopia France South Africa United States Metric Tons/Person/Year Country Per Capita Production of Domestic Solid Waste Figure 14.1 Production of Domestic Waste in selected countries on a per-person basis. (Adapted from Nshimirimana, J., Attitudes and Behaviour of Low-Income Households towards the Management of Domestic Solid Waste in Tafelsig, Mitchell’s Plain, PhD thesis, University of the Western Cape, Capetown, South Africa, 2004.) 318 ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY IN SOCIETY, SECOND EDITION again or get rid of it. When we try to make trash useful again, we can either use the items again as they are (that is, reuse them) or use trash items to make new prod-ucts, which is called recycling . If the choice is to dispose of items, the most com-mon methods are either land disposal or incineration . These are very old methods; however, in the modern age they have been improved upon significantly. The choice is largely dictated by the amount of land available for land disposal. As seen from Table 14.1, countries where land is precious, such as Japan, tend toward incineration as the method of choice, whereas countries such as Australia with lots of land are more likely to use land disposal. Land Disposal Land disposal includes any disposal method that dumps the material somewhere on the land. These methods run the gamut from high-tech to no-tech and legal to illegal. The open dump was the earliest practice of waste disposal on land. In early times, the main purpose was to get the garbage away from where the people lived.
- R. Reidy(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Elsevier Science(Publisher)
Industrial waste: 46 million tonnes per annum of which 4.5 million tonnes are brought to the municipalities (the remainder are recycled or treated internally). The average composition of Swedish Domestic Waste is: % Paper 35-45 Garbage, garden waste 25-35 Plastics 8-10 Glass 6-8 Textile, leather, rubber 2-4 Metals 2-4 Wood 1 Miscellaneous 6-8 TOTAL 100 73 Municipal Solid Waste Recycling in Western Europe to 1996 The high content of paper, an increasing content of plastics and a decreasing content of metals result in a high calorific value of 10-12 MJ/kg. 5.11.2 Waste Collection About 50% of Domestic Waste is collected by the municipalities and 50% by private contractors. The contractors are commissioned by municipalities. In low density areas in the countryside and in areas with summerhouses the households often themselves deliver the waste directly to centrally located containers. Weekly collection of Domestic Waste is almost universal. Only in the high density areas of the largest cities is more frequent collection sometimes necessary. In the low density areas of the countryside collection is sometimes only every fortnight. Most collection schemes include a regular or 'by-request' collection of discarded furniture and other bulky waste from households. In the cities an important proportion of the waste from offices and shops is collected under the household collection scheme. However, the collection of commercial and industrial waste is generally left to private enterprises and carried out by direct contracting with the individual producing companies. Industrial waste and hazardous waste is mostly collected by private contractors, but in some cities the public cleansing departments also collect industrial wastes. In certain municipalities a small truck drives around the various areas, according to a schedule, and collects household hazardous wastes. The general public therefore have the opportunity of disposing of their hazardous wastes where they live.
eBook - PDF- Philip E. LaMoreaux, James W. LaMoreaux, Mostafa M. Soliman, Bashir A. Memon, Fakhry A. Assaad(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
The solid wastes produced by sewerage systems are not included in this section but are incor-porated with liquid waste in the following section. Table 5.3 shows that the daily waste production from nonindustrial and municipal sites is over 50% of the total waste generated. Urban dwellers produce more waste than their rural counterparts. Table 5.4 shows the material components of this waste stream. Most of this refuse has been disposed of in landfill sites within or near the community generat-ing the waste or by incineration. In the past, most landfill sites were little more than open dumps, 80 Environmental Hydrogeology, Second Edition and the incinerators produced ash and hazardous and noxious gases, which were introduced into the atmosphere. Future solid waste generation in industrial and institutional sectors is dependent upon the types of industry located in the urban areas and the number of employees they bring into these areas. Large-scale industrial development could greatly increase quantities of waste, and the population associated with these industries will also increase quantities of waste from hospitals, schools, and other institutions. The main sources of solid wastes in industry are wood factories; paper mills; steel and alumi-num factories; all kinds of packing companies; glass factories; and industries that deal with metal-lurgy, food, and chemicals. Urban areas generate a variety of solid waste materials from households, hospitals, and clinics, which may include bottles, syringes, toxic materials, radioactive substances, and dressings. Agricultural solid wastes may be produced in rural areas as crop wastes, agricultural-processing wastes, animal manure, and hazardous pesticide containers. Some crop wastes are disposed of by being plowed back into the soil, burned on site, or used as feed. However, in all instances, the waste moves in a continuous cycle and eventually into the air, soil, or water.
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