Urban Waste And It’s Disposal

Question 1

Waste facts

Answer 1

. Uk produces 30 million tonnes of waste per year
. Every person in the UK throws away their body weight in waste every 7 weeks
. UK households throw away £400 of edible food per year
. Uk family throws away 6 trees worth of paper a year
. 13 mill plastic bottles are disposed of per year
. The energy saved by recycling just 1 aluminium drink can is enough to run a tv for 3 hours

Question 2

Municipal

Answer 2

Belonging to a town or city

Question 3

Municipal solid waste

Answer 3

. Urban waste

. Includes solid domestic waste and commercial waste

Question 4

Municipal waste

Answer 4

Everday items discarded by the public and collected by road sweepers/public bins etc.

Question 5

Urban waste sources and who produces it and examples

Answer 5

. Residential - single and multifamily dwellings, e.g. paper, plastic
. Process-manufacturing - manufacturers + power plants, e.g. industrial process wates
. Industrial - manufactures + construction sites, e.g. packaging, food waste
. Municipal services - street cleaning + recreational areas, e.g. general wate, tree trimmings
. Commercial - hotels + office buildings, e.g. paper, cardboard
. Agriculture - crops + farms + orchards, e.g. spoiled food waste
. Construction and demolition - road repair + demolition of buildings, e.g. wood, steel
. Institutional - schools + hospitals, e.g. cardboard, food waste

Question 6

Unsustainablity in the UK

Answer 6

UK urban waste grows by approx 3% per year

Question 7

Impacts of increasing waste generation

Answer 7

. In LIC authorities spend 20-50% of their budget on solid waste management
. 30-60% of urban solid waste in LICs is uncollected

Question 8

Waste streams

Answer 8

. The complete flow of waste from the domestic, commercial or industrial sources through to recovery, recycling or final disposal is known as the waste stream
. In HICs this is highly regulated (taxed and restricted)
. In LICs and NEEs improper dumping of municipal solid waste is common (e.g. unofficial landfill etc.)

Question 9

Environmental issue of waste incineration

Answer 9

. Loss of recyclable resources e.g. metals
. Loss of potential resources e.g. compost from organic waste
. Contamination of land and waste bodies
. Air pollution due to emissions

Question 10

The global waste trade

Answer 10

. An estimated 50 mil tons of e waste are produced each year, the majority from the US and Europe
. Most electronic waste is shipped to developing countries in Asia and Africa to be processed and recycled

Question 11

E-waste facts

Answer 11

. Filipino president threatened to declare war on Canada unless it took back the tons of trash that it had dumped in Manila between 2013 and 2014
. The 1986 Khian Sea waste disposal incident is where 4,000 tons of incinerator ash was dumped in Haiti after being labelled “top soil fertilizer” and the rest was dumped in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
. Trafficking of radioactive waste into the third world is a $7 billion industry in Italy alone
. It is estimated that 4 million metric tons of electronic waste (e-waste) is shipped globally every year

Question 12

Malaysia

Answer 12

. Malaysia has sent back 150 containers of plastic waste to 13 mainly rich countries, including 42 to the UK
. The government will launch an action plan on illegal plastic importation