Urban Waste And Disposal

Question 1

What is municipal waste?

Answer 1

Waste that comes from municipal services and activities. Municipal solid waste: includes solid domestic waste and commercial waste

Question 2

What are the impacts of waste generation?

Answer 2

• cost of collecting and treating waste is high. LICs often spend 20-50% of their budget on solid waste management.
• waste is a large source of air, water, ground pollution and methane
• uncollected waste can lead to respiratory problems
• cities running out of landfill space, like Beirut
• struggling to collect increasing amount of waste

Question 3

What are the sources of waste?

Answer 3

Residential - family dwellings
Industrial - manufacturing and power plants e.g. packaging
Commercial - hotels and restaurants e.g. food waste
Municipal services - street cleaning e.g. waste from parks, tree trimmings
Agriculture - crops and farms e.g. pesticides

Question 4

What is a waste stream?

Answer 4

The complete flow of waste from its source, through to recovery, recycling or final disposal.

Question 5

What are the strategies to approach waste disposal in the UK?

Answer 5

• There are targets for the reduction of waste, the target years are 2010, 2013, and 2020 for the reduction of waste going to landfill to 75%, 50% and 30%.
• can fine councils if they put waste into landfill
• bin collection service
• recycling centres established

Question 6

What are the advantages and disadvantages of incineration?

Answer 6

Positives:
- can reduce volume of waste needing disposal by 90%
- can reduce toxicity of waste
- can be used to produce energy 
Negatives:
- expensive
- not all waste is combustible
- poses challenges of air pollution

Question 7

What are the advantages and disadvantages of landfill?

Answer 7

Positives:
- properly sited facilities
- different types of waste accepted and ordered
Negatives:
- unsightly
- takes up a lot of space
- decaying matter produces methane, greenhouse gas