Recycling Turns Materials That Would Otherwise Become Wastes Into Valuable Resources

Waste management

Recycling

Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become wastes into valuable resources.

Benefits of Recycling

· Recycling protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness.

· Recycling reduces the need for landfilling and incineration.

· Recycling prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products from virgin materials.

· Recycling saves energy.

· Recycling decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

· Recycling conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.

· Recycling helps sustain the environment for future generations.

Reuse

Reuse is to use an item more than once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function, and new-life reuse where it is used for a new function.

Advantages & disadvantages

Reuse has certain potential advantages:

§ Energy and raw materials savings as replacing many single use products with one reusable one reduces the number that need to be manufactured.

§ Reduced disposal needs and costs.

§ Refurbishment can bring sophisticated, sustainable, well paid jobs to underdeveloped economies.

§ Cost savings for business and consumers as a reusable product is often cheaper than the many single use products it replaces.

§ Some older items were better handcrafted and appreciate in value.

Disadvantages are also apparent:

§ Reuse often requires cleaning or transport, which have environmental costs.

§ Some items, such as Freon appliances or infant auto seats, could be hazardous or less energy efficient as they continue to be used.

§ Reusable products need to be more durable than single-use products, and hence require more material per item. This is particularly significant if only a small proportion of the reusable products are in fact reused.

§ Sorting and preparing items for reuse takes time, which is inconvenient for consumers and costs money for businesses

Reduction

When one reduces the use of different products.

Benefits of Reduction

· Saves natural resources. Waste is not just created when consumers throw items away. Throughout the life cycle of a product from extraction of raw materials to transportation to processing and manufacturing facilities to manufacture and use waste is generated. Reusing items or making them with less material decreases waste dramatically. Ultimately, less materials will need to be recycled or sent to landfills or waste combustion facilities.

· Reduces toxicity of waste. Selecting nonhazardous or less hazardous items is another important component of source reduction. Using less hazardous alternatives for certain items (e.g., cleaning products and pesticides), sharing products that contain hazardous chemicals instead of throwing out leftovers, reading label directions carefully, and using the smallest amount necessary are ways to reduce waste toxicity.

· Reduces costs. The benefits of preventing waste go beyond reducing reliance on other forms of waste disposal. Preventing waste also can mean economic savings for communities, businesses, schools, and individual consumers.

o Communities. More than 7,000 communities have instituted "pay-as-you-throw" programs where citizens pay for each can or bag of trash they set out for disposal rather than through the tax base or a flat fee. When these households reduce waste at the source, they dispose of less trash and pay lower trash bills.

o Businesses. Industry also has an economic incentive to practice source reduction. When businesses manufacture their products with less packaging, they are buying less raw material. A decrease in manufacturing costs can mean a larger profit margin, with savings that can be passed on to the consumer.

o Consumers. Consumers also can share in the economic benefits of source reduction. Buying products in bulk, with less packaging, or that are reusable (not single-use) frequently means a cost savings. What is good for the environment can be good for the pocketbook as well.

Engineered Landfill

Problems created by normal landfills.

A large number of adverse impacts may occur from landfill operations. These impacts can vary: fatal accidents (e.g., scavengers buried under waste piles); infrastructure damage (e.g., damage to access roads by heavy vehicles); pollution of the local environment (such as contamination of groundwater and/or aquifers by leakage and residual soil contamination during landfill usage, as well as after landfill closure); offgassing of methane generated by decaying organic wastes (methane is a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, and can itself be a danger to inhabitants of an area); harbouring of disease vectors such as rats and flies, particularly from improperly operated landfills, which are common in Third-world countries; injuries to wildlife; and simple nuisance problems (e.g., dust, odour, vermin, or noise pollution).

Environmental noise and dust are generated from vehicles accessing a landfill as well as from working face operations. These impacts are best to intercept at the planning stage where access routes and landfill geometrics can be used to mitigate such issues. Vector control is also important, but can be managed reasonably well with the daily cover protocols.

Engineered Landfills

Engineered landfills are landfills where usually the land is dug out, covered with a number of layers in order to stop toxic liquids from leaching down and out of the landfill into the underground water sources.

Thus engineered landfills are much more protective of the environment. For example, an engineered landfill in Malta is Ta’ Zwejr, near Maghatab.

Cross-section of how an Engineered landfill looks like.