Trashing the Planet Flashcards
waste can be seen as:
- manifestation of a worldview (that says that waste doesn’t matter, all that matters is the use we get out of the product)
- symptom of affluenza (if we have the wealth, we can afford to dispose and replace products)
- source of pollution (most waste that can’t be recycled has chemicals that prove toxic to env when degraded and react with other chemicals)
- lost opportunity (value in waste since it can be used to profit)
full-cost accounting
considering all the costs and effects in the lifetime of a product, leads to making more informed decisions
pressures that lead to more waste generation
- industry: pressure to buy new products
- tech: some materials produce waste due to being refined, tech can’t restructure it to be reusable
- social: social media, influenced by env and ppl around us
food loss
occurs between production and retail phases due to harvesting, storage, or transportation
food waste
occurs at the consumer level where safely consumable food is consciously discarded
biodegradable waste
typically originates from plant or animal materials which will be degraded by other living organisms over time (ex. food waste, paper)
non-biodegradable waste
composed of materials which are not degradable by natural processes and remain in their primary form for long periods of time (ex. plastics), often slowly leak chemicals into the env that can be toxic and act as pollution
2 major problems that arise out of landfills
- locally unwanted land use: using land as a landfill has implications on those living in proximity
- not in my backyard: protests against disposing wastes in areas close to communities
4 types of waste
- municipal solid: comes from homes, institutions, small businesses
- industrial solid: comes from industry, commerce, institutions, consumer goods and products
- solid/liquid hazardous: toxic, chemically reactive, flammable, corrosive,
- wastewater: comes from households, businesses, industries, polluted runoff from streets and storm drains
principal components of municipal waste
paper, organics, food, glass, plastic, scraps
problems with landfills
- no location is ideal, methane and other pollutants (produced from breakdown of materials), leachate (when the materials break down and leach into groundwater), finite capacity (can be filled up), problem is only delayed not solved
industrial solid waste
comes from ag, manufacturing, mining/oil/gas, waste is generated at all stages of extraction, manufacturing, commercial sales, distribution, and disposal
how economics and regulations affect industrial waste generation:
- waste generated is a metric of efficiency of manufacturing processes
- physical efficiency doesn’t equal economic efficiency
- rising costs of waste disposal
- forcing waste disposal from private to public sites increases accountability and public awareness of the scale of industrial waste generation
how to make industry more sustainable:
- basing it on ecological systems: everything produced is used by some organism (waste produced has a use after being used)
- redesign industrial systems: reduce resource inputs, minimize physical inefficiencies, maximize economic efficiencies
- life-cycle analysis: make industrial processes more ecologically efficient, make products more durable, recyclable, or reusable
- pollution prevention strategies: reduce waste at all downstream points, prevent pollution at the source
industrial ecology
a closed loop where all wastes are recycled back thru the system, circular function, raw material wastes exchange for diff processses,
