Waste Management for a Modern World
Waste Management is required for three reasons. One, you can't be having waste lying around in any area as it will make the area look awful and the waste will raise a stink. Two, if waste is unattended to, it will attract pests and termites and the chances of a disease spreading will increase. Three, Man has realized that, if he allows waste to pile up or even burned, such an act would be disastrous for our environment. It is a mans duty to control waste and recycle it back into use by recovering resources from it.
History Of Waste Management
Once upon a time, when the density of population was low, the exploitation of the world's natural resources was minimal and manageable. Plus, there was not much of industrialization and the wastes generated by humans were mostly biodegradable and thus their impact on the environment, minimal. This coupled with the fact that not much waste was generated, man did not feel the necessity to manage it.
Time flew, population grew and before humans knew it, the industrial revolution set in (18th Century). People from rural areas migrated to cities and industrial towns en masse. Human consumption began to get concentrated and waste began multiplying. The proliferation of waste led to many diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera and typhoid, which led to suffering and death.
From this event on, the industrialized nations realized the importance of waste management.
Recovering Resources From Waste
As the world population increases and waste grows in volume, the world's scientists and planners have evolved technologies to recover resources from waste, which can be used again. For example, the developed nations have sophisticated facilities that convert the calorific content present in waste into electricity. In developing nations, manual laborers sift through the waste and extract recyclable material from it, thereby reducing the volume of waste that needs to be disposed.
Recycling Waste
The term recycling is universally associated with waste management. When we say recycle, we mean that our everyday waste will be collected, processed and then reused in another form. For example, products made out of paper, aluminum, plastic are collected and converted back into paper, aluminum and plastic respectively. Recycling of waste items made up of one material is an easy task.
Electronic waste is sent to developing nations where recycling plants extract gold and copper from the e-waste. Used automobiles are scrapped and their metal is sold to scrap lots, which then sell the metal back to factories for re-conversion. And so on.
Waste Management Techniques
Nations employ many techniques to deal with their waste. Here is a brief roundup of these techniques:
1. Landfill: This is the most traditional way of managing waste, by dumping it in a landfill. Countries such as Australia that have vast expanses of land, normally dispose their waste in abandoned quarries or mines. A landfill is an inexpensive way to get rid of waste. However, care should be taken to ensure that only waste that does not harm the environment is dumped in landfills. Populous countries or small countries, such as Japan, have to resort to other means to manage their waste.
2. Incineration: Incineration is the disposal of waste by burning it. However, incineration is not an effective tool for waste management as the burning of waste consumes resources and energy, destroys the recyclable material present in the waste and emits many harmful pollutants.
3. Composting: Composting is a technique in which organic waste materials (food, plants, paper) are decomposed and then recycled as compost for use in agriculture and landscaping applications.
4. Mechanical Biological treatment: In this technique, a variety of waste (plastic, paper, glass, etc.) are fed in bulk into the waste treatment plant. The MBT process extracts the recyclable content in the waste and converts it to calorific fuel that can be used by cement/power plants.
5. Pyrolysis and Gasification: These are thermal techniques, using these, waste is treated at high temperatures and at a very high pressure. In Pyrolysis, the waste material is converted to solid or liquid. The solid material can be further refined into a carbon form while the liquid extract can be used as energy-giving oil. In gasification, the waste material is converted into a synthetic gas, which can be burned to produce more energy.
In conclusion, waste management has become part of our survival strategy. If we have to live, we will produce waste. If we do not treat waste, it will choke us. Waste is a problem, waste Management is the solution.
Article Source: http://www.articlenorth.com
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Recycling Yard Waste Is A Great Composting Solution
This use of yard waste on a municipal level has helped to reduce the burden on the landfills, while making people more aware of the importance of organic waste recycling and of the benefits of composting. At the same time, the parks and recreational departments are able to cut their budgets for fertilizer and soil treatments by utilizing the compost to treat and improve the soil in the parks. Some cities also use the compost to support the community vegetable garden projects as well.
In most cases the largest portion of raw materials comes from the local yard waste which is a combination of leaves, lawn and grass clipping, shrub and hedge trimmings, and very small, pruned branches from trees. In addition, the larger branches and even small trees can be ground up and the mulch can go on the compost heap as well as the crop of Christmas trees that are shredded each year.
Of course, individual households can easily compost their yard debris as well, without needing to either wait for the pick-up schedule or for their municipality to institute such a program. Backyard composting is quite simple to start and there are compost bins available on the market for those with small or large backyards. Even those who live in apartments can enjoy the benefits of recycling their organic kitchen waste.
In fact, home composting can be a better solution. This is because most municipalities exclude certain organic waste products from the public composting piles that can readily be added to your composting project.
For instance, at home you can include newspaper, coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, fruit rinds and vegetable peels. Most of the time you cannot include any of these items with your yard waste for curbside pickup.
With backyard composting, you can include all of these items right alongside of your yard waste and debris and throw it all right on your compost heap. However, you should never include animal meat, bones, pet feces, or any dairy products. These waste items will simply attract vermin and pests to your backyard and interfere with the decomposition process.
Some municipalities have enjoyed a 20% decrease in the volume of material going into their landfills by recycling yard waste. This small action is extending the capacity of the landfills and giving the decision makers a chance to come up with additional solutions to their landfill problems. Homeowners can do their part in helping by either separating their green waste for pickup or by starting their own compost heap.
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Composting Made Easy Means All Benefit And Minimum Work
| For avid gardeners, having an ample supply of rich compost is a dream. The use of compost will result in nicer plants, but producing the material can be time consuming and hard work. The more you can reduce that effort, investing the saved time in other gardening tasks, the better. One way to start the process is by building composting bins that at least semi-automate the productopn of compost. A bin should be five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high. Start by sinking 4 by 4 posts in the ground for the corners, and then nail 2 by 4s and 1 by 4s, alternating on the sides, leaving 2" gaps between the boards for air circulation. The 2 by 4s are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 you can use 1 by 4s to save a little money. The bins are three-sided, with the front open so they can be filled and emptied easily. Fill one of the bins with grass clippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings, trying not to put more than 6" of each material on a layer and alternating layers of green and brown material. Keep a few bags of dry leaves around to help with the alternating. When you root cuttings use coarse sand in the flats and put the old sand on the compost pile. It's a good idea to take plants that do not survive and dump the entire container in the compost bin, which adds more brown material to the mix. After the bin is full, one option is to turn the material in the bin every few weeks. Another option, however, is to pack as much material in the bin as possible, then start filling the second bin, piling the material as high as possible, even to the point where it spills out in front of the bin and covering the fresh material with mulch or potting soil. Setting a small sprinkler on top of the pile and turning it on at a very low level will let a small spray of water run on the material. By keeping the material damp, the moisture will cause the pile to heat up, which is what makes the composting action take place. Once the first bin is full, the second bin is used. As the material in the first bin starts to break down, it settles, which means you can keep shoveling the material piled in front of the bin, up on top of the pile. Continue to do this until all the material is either in the bin or piled on top of the heap. Then leave it alone, except for the occasional watering, which speeds up the process. Not all of the material will rot completely, a result of not turning the pile. But the material in the center will break down more than the material on the edges, most of it breaking down quite well. Keeping a pile of potting soil on hand at all times or buying two or three yards of shredded mulch to get started, will mean always having a supply of good compost. Left in a pile, shredded bark will eventually break down and become great compost, and some potting soil is about 80% rotted bark. Some buy fine textured and dark hardwood bark mulch, and put it in a pile to rot, keeping the pile low and flat so it does not shed the rain water away. The idea is to keep the mulch to stay as wet as possible to allow the mulch to break down quickly. Keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near the compost bins and empty the bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of the rotted bark mulch. The pile of rotted mulch should be wide and flat on top so the compost material is only 5 to 10 inches thick when it is spread. The mulch pile might be 12" wide, but only be 24 to 30 inches high. Once the compost is on top of the pile, go around the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile, tossing it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least 6" of rotted bark. In this way the compost material will fully decompose. Once the system is started, don't use all of the material in the pile. Keep at least 2 to 3 cubic yards on hand so there will be something to mix with the compost. If necessary, buy more material and add to e pile in the late summer or fall. Some supply companies sell a compost material that is already broken down, but try to keep at least 3 yards of old material on hand, adding another 3 yards of fresh material. In the spring you can empty one of the compost bins and add the compost to the top of the pile. The pile of usable compost will be layers of material, some of which can be chipped off and spread on the ground. You can then mix it together with a tiller and shovel it onto a potting bench. Having a pile of rotted compost near the compost bins will allow you to throw some rotted compost in the bin, maintaining the layered effect necessary for composting to work well. |
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