Information About Hazardous Waste Disposal

By Mattie Knight


There are many dangerous materials in households today that many people do not know about. These materials are usually in the form of ingredients or materials used to make products that people consume every day. Some examples of household products that have been classified as hazardous include paints, solvents, ammunition, refrigerants, aerosols, electronics, pesticides, automotive wastes, caustics, and certain batteries among others.

The products named above are only safe when their condition is still good and when proper use is made of them. However, they pose health risks to animals and people when they are misused or expire. That makes it necessary that they are disposed correctly. The aim of this article is to name and discuss some of the main methods of hazardous waste disposal that are currently in wide use in the world.

Proper disposition of wastes eliminates or at least minimizes the danger they pose to the environment, human beings, and animals. On the other hand, grave danger is likely to result when improper disposal is exercised. For instance, harmful materials poison underground and rain water when they seep into the soil or come in contact with gutters respectively. Soil can also be contaminated and its suitability for agriculture affected.

Today waste materials are disposed through many different methods. Recycling, incineration, use of cement, pyrolysis, and landfills are among the methods in common use. Concerned parties encourage people to use recycling because besides being economical, it is eco-friendly. Recycling is the process of finding other applications for products after they fail or cannot perform the original function for which they were defined. The main downside in this method is that it cannot be used in all situations or products.

Another widely employed technique of getting rid of wastes is incineration. Very high temperatures are used to destroy the materials inside a chamber. The chamber used is called an incinerator or an incineration chamber. Ash is the usual end result. Ash can be disposed easily without being harmful to the environment or people.

Emission of harmful gasses from incineration chambers into the environment has been cause for concern. To counter that, modern incinerators never emit any materials into the environment. In fact, their efficiency is so high that they are used for generation of power from the combustion process. A version of incineration is pyrolysis, which destroys materials under high temperatures, but does not involve combustion. Combustion is avoided by performing the process in an inert environment.

Landfills have been the traditional method of disposing hazardous materials, but that changed as better methods emerged. The adoption of better methods was prompted by the fact that landfills lead to seepage of the materials into underground water sources. This leads to pollution, which cannot be reversed. This method is however still in use in certain places, but to a minimum extent.

Cement has also been found to be effective for treating and disposing hazardous material. It makes disposal easier by solidifying and stabilizing the material. When treated with cement, the characteristics, toxicity, and ability to transmit the contaminant is reduced. The use of cement is however limited.




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