Management, Treatment and disposal of Hazardous wastes.

 

Hazardous waste management is  the management of hazardous waste.

A waste is a resource which has not been used during the process.

Waste is a type of inevitable loss of resources because of the present state of technology as it is something which no longer  has any further value or use and should be dumped.

Wastes can be of several types such as municipal wastes, solid wastes, farming wastes, chemical wastes etc.

Hazardous wastes can be solid, semi solid and liquid, which contains toxic, corrosive, flammable and carcinogenic. Hazardous wastes  are formed as by product of manufacturing of commercial products such as pharmaceutical industries, petroleum industries, electronic devices etc.

Hazardous wastes can be ignitable, corrosive, reactive, toxic and also infectious. So hazardous wastes can be really dangerous. You can be safe from harmful effects of hazardous wastes by following these steps:

i)                   Do not inhale the hazardous waste or consume it in anyways.

ii)                Don’t dispose them at open grounds as it can cause health problems to the people living near that area.

iii)              Do not pollute the groundwater or soil by disposing hazardous wastes.

iv)              Do not pollute the air by disposing hazardous wastes.

 

The hazardous wastes must be disposed off by using scientific ways and hence must not put any adverse effect on human health. The hazardous wastes should be disposed off at proper disposal facilities.

Hazardous wastes contains lots of useful materials which could be used as raw material in many industries so, hazardous wastes must be recycled and the recycled materials must to resold in the market.

Disposing hazardous wastes unscientifically can cause various types of pollution such as air, water and soil. The toxins present in the wastes gets dissolved in the air or water and cause problems to vegetation and human health. People who dispose these wastes in unscientific ways also suffers from various serious health issues as many hazardous wastes contains carcinogenic materials which can cause cancer. So disposing hazardous wastes unscientifically can prove to be fatal.

The hazardous wastes transporters transports hazardous wastes from one place to another by means of rail, water and air. They transport the hazardous wastes from the site of its generation  to the disposal facility. Hazardous waste transporters play an important role in waste disposal.

The hazardous waste transporter should check the quantity and other important details of the waste before processing it in the disposal facility. The transporter should check the container of the hazardous waste if there is any leakage or any other problem. The person who is transporting the hazardous waste must be cautious that inflammable waste and non compatible waste should not be transported together. The person transporting the hazardous waste must train the  driver and helper of the transport vehicle about how to transport the waste. The driver of the vehicle transporting hazardous wastes must know all the details about the Tremcard, he should carry it with him every time and show it whenever necessary.

The person transporting the hazardous waste must provide proper equipments to deal with any kind of emergency.  The vehicle which is carrying the waste must have proper shock absorbers to prevent any kind of jerk and spilling of waste.

The transporter of the hazardous waste should not accept hazardous waste from a generator who is not registered to a regulatory authority.

The driver should wash the transport vehicle used for transporting hazardous waste after transportation of waste to the disposal facility. The driver of the vehicle carrying waste should switch off the engine in case of any accident and spillage and put on the warning signal.

If the vehicle carrying hazardous waste catches fire, then the driver should immediately extinguish the fire or call the fire fighters.

A Tremcard is a transport emergency card. It must be carried by the drivers of the vehicles carrying hazardous waste.

The owner of the disposal facility must ensure that the treatment of hazardous waste is not polluting the environment. The owner of the treatment plant must make proper planning for safe treatment and disposal of the hazardous waste. The owner of the treatment plant must train the workers working at the disposal facility to treat and dispose the hazardous waste properly. The owner of the treatment plant should not accept waste from the generator who does not have license of the regulatory authority. The owner of the disposal facility should have a separate storage facility for wastes which are volatile and inflammable.

The owner must to regular routine checks of the disposal facility to ensure that no cracks or leakage are there in the container.

The hazardous waste manifest system is a tracking mechanism of the hazardous waste from leaving the site of generation to reaching the disposal facility.

The hazardous wastes can be treated in various ways such as incineration, oxidation etc . many important elements of the waste are recovered and recycled while the treatment procedure.

There are various types of method for treatment of hazardous wastes such as physical method, chemical method, biological method, thermal method.

 The physical methods includes drying, screening, grinding, evaporation, sedimentation and filtration.

Chemical methods of treatment includes oxidation, reduction, neutralization and hydrolysis.

Biological methods of treatment of wastes are composting, aerobic and anaerobic decomposition, activated sludge, enzyme treatment etc.

The methods for disposing hazardous wastes are land farming, deep well injection, surface impediments and ocean dumping.

In case of land farming the treated waste is used as manure and fertilizers for agriculture purpose.

In case of deep well injection method a special type of well is dug for disposal of hazardous waste.

In case of surface impediments method the waste is captured in a metal container.

In case of ocean dumping method the waste is dumped in the ocean.

Post closure liability trust fund is a fund which is made to provide damages occurring due to the hazardous wastes.

Superfund is a fund which is used for maintenance  of the abandoned hazardous waste treatment facilities. The fund was created by collecting  money for per barrel of crude oil received at US  refineries.