Track

Specialization 3:
Hazardous Waste
Management
Module I: Introduction :
The Hazardous Waste
Perspective
Learning Objective:
• Understand the generally accepted definition of “Hazardous Waste
• Gain a Perspective on the evolution of Hazardous Waste
• Understand the kinds of Hazardous Waste
Management/Mismanagement Practices that create negative health,
environmental, economic, and social and the nature of those impacts
 What is a Hazardous Waste (RCRA)
• What is a hazardous waste? Simply defined, a
hazardous waste is a waste with properties that
make it dangerous or capable of having a harmful
effect on human health or the environment.
• Hazardous waste is generated from many sources,
ranging from industrial manufacturing process
wastes, to batteries, to fluorescent light bulbs;
• . Hazardous waste may come in many forms,
including liquids, solids, gases, and sludges.

https://161phr19ymbqziddp3orkwmh-
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Orientation Manual wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-
2014 content/uploads/2020/06/waste-labels-
300x297.jpg
General Definition of Hazardous Waste
• A solid waste, or combination of solid wastes, which because of its
quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical, or infectious
characteristics, may
• a. cause, or significantly contribute to, an increase in mortality or an increase
in serious, irreversible, or incapacitating reversible, illness; or
• b. pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the
environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed of, or
otherwise managed.

SUKALYAN SENGUPTA, HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT, VOLUME I, MOMENTUM PRESS, 2018

What is a Hazardous Waste (RA6969)
• Hazardous wastes are hereby defined as substances that are without
any safe commercial, industrial, agricultural or economic usage and
are shipped, transported or brought from the country of origin for
dumping or disposal into or in transit through any part of the territory
of the Philippines.
• Hazardous wastes shall also refer to by-products, side-products,
process residues, spent reaction media, contaminated plant or
equipment or other substances from manufacturing operations, and
as consumer discards of manufactured products.

Section 5 (Definition) - Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act of 1990.
Hazardous Substances (RA 6969)
Hazardous substances are substances which present either:
• 1) short-term acute hazards such as acute toxicity by ingestion,
inhalation or skin absorption, corrosivity or other skin or eye contact
hazard or the risk of fire or explosion; or
• 2) long-term environmental hazards, including chronic toxicity upon
repeated exposure, carcinogenicity (which may in some cases result
from acute exposure but with a long latent period, resistance to
detoxification process such as biodegradation, the potential to pollute
underground or surface waters, or aesthetically objectionable
properties such as offensive odors.

Section 5 (Definition) - Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act of 1990.
The Hazard
LANDMARK EPISODES

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RACHEL
CARSON’S
SILENT
SPRING
RACHEL CARSON’S SILENT SPRING
• In the 1950s, Rachel Carson focused her attention on the widespread
and indiscriminate use of a particular pesticide, DDT.
• In her landmark book, Silent Spring published in 1962, Rachel Carson
comprehensively documented how DDT exposure was associated
with many public health and environmental effects.
• The book served as a “wake-up call” to enforce measures to deal with
toxic wastes.
MINAMATA
BAY
DISASTER
MINAMATA BAY DISASTER
• In the mid-1950s, doctors in the Minamata Bay area of Japan started
seeing many patients with symptoms of a disease of the central
nervous system.
• The primary suspect then was consumption of fish and shellfish from
the bay.
• Further investigations showed that extremely high levels of mercury
discharged from a local chemical factory had contaminated the bay
and its bioaccumulation by fish and shellfish had resulted in massive
amounts of mercury ingestion by the local population.
LOVE CANAL
LOVE CANAL
• In the 1970s, homeowners complained of a strong odor and puddles
of oil or colored liquid in yards and basements.
• Investigations revealed the presence of numerous toxic contaminants
in the air, groundwater, and soil.
• Pioneering reporting by Michael Brown of the Niagara Gazette, who
also documented birth defects and many physical abnormalities
among the residents of this neighborhood, focused national attention
on this site.
• Public pressure by the community culminated in President Carter
declaring Love Canal to be a federal disaster site in 1978.
TIMES
BEACH,
MISSOURI
TIMES BEACH, MISSOURI
• Times beach was a small community near St. Louis.
• A local entrepreneur, Russell Martin Bliss, discovered that spraying of
waste oil on his horse arena and farm-controlled dust very well.
• Impressed with its efficacy, other farm owners contracted Bliss to
spray waste oils on their farms and barns.
• Soon, birds began to drop dead, and horses started to develop sores,
lose hair, and die.
• Investigations revealed that the waste oil contained excessively high
levels of dioxins.
The Hazard: Dioxin
• Are found as over twenty
different isomers of a basic
chloro-dioxin structure.
• The most common form, 2,3,7,8-
tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
(TCDD), has become recognized
as probably the most poisonous
of all synthetic chemicals.
The Hazard: Dioxin: Use and Health Effects
• Dioxins are a contaminant by • TCDD is known to cause severe
product that maybe thermally skin disease, such as chloracne.
generated during the • In test animals it is a carcinogen,
manufacture or burning of teratogen, mutagen, and
chlorophenols, pesticides such embryo-toxin and is known to
as 2,4,5 –T; Agent Orange, a affect immune responses in
defoliant made of a 50/50 mix of mammals.
2,4-D and 2,4,5-T; algae
controlling herbicides; • It is considered persistent, and it
insecticides; and preservatives bioaccumulates in aquatic
organisms and people.
The Hazard: PCB
• The term PCB (polychlorinated
biphenyls) refers to a class of
organic chemicals produced by the
chlorination of a biphenyl molecule.
• Commercial PCB mixtures were
manufactured under a variety of
trade names.
• The chlorine content of any product
varied from 18 to 79 %, depending
on the extent of chlorination during
the manufacturing process or on
the amount of isomeric mixing
engaged in by individual producers.
The Hazard: PCB’s: Use and Health Effects
• Mixtures of PCB’s had been used • Toxic effects were noted in
originally as a coolant/dielectric occupationally exposed workers
for transformers and capacitors, • Chronic exposures could result in
as heat transfer fluids, and as hazards to human health and
protective coatings for woods the environment.
when low flammability was
essential or desirable.
• Expansion of open-ended
applications incorporating PCB
into such commodities as paints,
inks, dedusting agents and
pesticides.
“Treatment” and Other Assorted Techniques
• Very large volumes of liquid hazardous wastes were provided
“treatment” and/or disposal in depressions, impoundments, and
excavations which EPA referred to as "pits, ponds and lagoons” or
PPLs;
• The expression referred to unlined holding and flow-through facilities
that provided no protection against seepage and contamination of
groundwater.
• Most provided no treatment other than settling of solids, radiation
from the sun, and some modicum of aeration. Very large numbers of
today’s remedial sites are former PPLs.
 Surface impoundments would be good places to store millions of gallons
of industrial wastewater or sludge. If they didn’t leak, of course.

https://www.federatedenvironmental.com/wp-content/uploads/Surface-Impoundment.jpg
 Terraced iron-sulphate-stromatolites formed by acid leachates from
pyrite-bearing mine wastes, Tintillo river, Huelva, Spain. (Reference image
by Banco de Imágenes Geológicas, Flickr).

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piles-may-prevent-acid-drainage.jpg
Numbers and Impacts
Environmental
• Regulatory gaps and inadequacies continued to provide options for
release of hazardous wastes to the air, water, or land.
• Love Canal exposures - the Hardeman County contamination of
domestic water supplies
• Minimata Bay - fish and shellfish contamination, mismanagement of
hazardous waste was clearly exacting a price in human health.
• Increased incidence of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic
effects, damage to reproductive systems, respiratory effects, brain
and nervous system effects, and many lesser effects were increasingly
associated with direct and indirect exposure to hazardous wastes
Social
• The esthetic effects of hazardous waste mismanagement through the
mid-1900s are well understood by most citizens.
• The rise of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome exemplifies the
fear and revulsion of the public toward hazardous materials in
general, and hazardous wastes in particular.
• The esthetic concerns quickly transition to economic issues as
property values are affected, jobs are created or eliminated, and
public administrators come under increasing pressures to craft
solutions that solve all problems and resolve all issues.
Economic
• The economics of hazardous waste management and
mismanagement have intruded upon nearly every facet of life in
America.
• From the relatively minor costs of the local dry cleaner’s shift from
dumping to recycling to the projected $230 billion for cleanup of the
nation’s nuclear weapons facilities, management of currently
generated and earlier mismanaged hazardous waste has become a
major element of the economy.
Legislation/Litigation
• As the hazardous waste mismanagement outrages were thrust upon
an unknowing public, governments — local, state, and federal —
began attempts to coerce and force perpetrators, variously, to clean
up contaminated sites, stop dumping, stop generating, treat properly,
recycle, reclaim, or destroy the waste.
• Individuals and governments sought relief in the courts by tort
actions. Nuisance is the most common of tort claims in the field of
environmental law.
Political
• The early federal legislation was intended to provide funding,
technical assistance, and moral support to state and local
governments and to prod them into more effective actions and
postures.
• The federal grant-in-aid was the most common mechanism. Typically,
the grant provided start-up funds to staff, train, and equip state and
local agencies enabling them to launch specific programs.
• States’ rights and police powers issues helped to shape the form of
early legislation and policy toward environmental management and
cleanup of hazardous waste sites.
Administrative
• Public hearings, and similar forums, became procedurally ingrained in
most legislation, regulation, and policy.
• It is now taken as routine that no significant environmental decision is
made at any level of government, without full public participation,
usually through a hearing process.
• In countless instances, these hearings have sharply affected the
course of resolution of major issues.
Technical
• Approaches to definition of hazardous wastes, their identification,
impacts, and remedies have progressed along similar lines to the
developments;
• The initial environmental and public health concerns with hazardous
waste sites had a “fires and explosions” focus;
• Thus, the legislation and implementation of the 1970s had the effect of
diverting most hazardous wastes onto the land or beneath the land
surface.
• By the early 1990s, a wide range of treatment and destruction
technologies had evolved, and prospects for significant reductions in
quantities of hazardous waste managed in land “treatment” and disposal
were good.
International Aspects
• Germany - The West German chemical industry began ocean
incineration of waste chlorinated hydrocarbons to avoid costly scrubbers
for land-based incinerators.
• Britain - the deliberate mixing of hazardous wastes with conventional
municipal wastes in permeable landfills.
• Holland - For more than 40 years, solid wastes containing hazardous
chemicals were utilized as fill material.
• Denmark - places very heavy emphasis on waste minimization, recycling,
and incineration in combined power and heating plants
• Russia - widespread disposal of radioactive wastes at the former military
installations.
International Aspects
• Canada - national capacity for off-site treatment and volume
reduction of hazardous wastes is growing, with modern, integrated
treatment facilities in operation or planned.
• Mexico - The “maquiladora”(twin industrial facilities) industries
supposedly bring their hazardous wastes from their Mexican facilities
into the U.S., to ensure safe treatment and/or disposal and to meet
“duty-free” requirements of U.S. and Mexican customs regulations.
• Japan - environmental focus has been on protection of worker health,
but new more comprehensive legislation has been enacted
Groupwork Activity: Direction
• Conduct a research on the following Hazardous Waste
Mismanagement (Episodes)