Hazardous waste problem

Pohution prevention techniques must be evaluated through a thorough consideration of ah media, hence the term multimedia. This approach is a clear departure from previous pollution treatment or control techniques where it was acceptable to transfer a pollutant from one source to another in order to solve a waste problem. Such strategies merely provide short-term solutions to an ever increasing problem. As an example, air pollution control equipment prevents or reduces the discharge of waste into the air but at the same time can produce a solid (hazardous) waste problem. 

One statute in particular, CERCLA or Superfund, has a close-fitting relationship with RCRA. Both programs are similar in that their primary purpose is to protect human health and the environment from the dangers of hazardous waste. However, these statutes address the hazardous waste problem from two fundamentally different approaches ... 

For example, chemical engineering students studying corrosion to learn how various materials of construction may be affected by acids, alkalis, or process conditions in order to select the most economic materials for a particular use would be impacting the safety and loss prevention performance of that equipment because a vessel or pipeline leaking due to corrosion is a hazard to workers in the area. The spilled material may create an environmental hazard as well as a hazardous waste problem requiring special precautions for cleanup and disposal. 

Case Studies of Hazardous Waste Problems in Louisiana... 

Triple quadrupole mass spectrometry can provide rapid screening of complex mixtures for specific compounds and can be used to analyze for compounds that cannot routinely be analyzed by GC/MS. In addition, structural information can be obtained for certain types of compounds since in collision-induced dissociations the fragments are likely to show the structual differences of the parent compounds. Complex mixtures have been analyzed by this technique by introducing the sample directly into the heated sample port of the instrument with little or no sample pretreatment. Triple quadrupole mass spectrometry promises to be a useful, cost-effective, and practical advanced technique for environmental analysis, particularly when applied to hazardous waste problems. 

In March 1982 the American Chemical Society sponsored a symposium on risk assessments of hazardous chemical waste sites, and the chapters of this volume are the final versions of the papers that were presented and discussed at this symposium. The first chapters present the problem the history of the development of Superfund legislation and the arguments about the most appropriate approaches to risk assessments, specific cases of hazardous waste problems in Louisiana, the problems of Love Canal and their bearing on risk assessment, and the impacts on human health that can result from hazardous waste sites. The next broad topic of the symposium was the central problem of methodology of risk assessment. The practical problems that confront the field teams who examine specific chemical waste sites are what to monitor, how to monitor, and how to have reasonable assurance of the reliability of the results of monitoring. A final chapter considers a problem of central importance to the Superfund effort how to incorporate risk assessment into the regulatory process. 

Office of Solid Waste, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Solving the Hazardous Waste Problem EPA s RCRA Program (EPA/530-SW-86-037), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, 1986. 

Kociba RJ (1987), in Solving Hazardous Waste Problems - Learnings from Dioxins" Analysis of animal toxicity studies of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin , p. 54-67, Exner JH (Ed.), American Chemical Society, Washington DC... 

Hazardous waste problems are frequently generated by mixmres of complex wastes that have been disposed of on land and that have migrated through the subsurface. One approach to assessing the risks of contaminated sites has been to divide the problem into three elements sources, pathways, and receptors (Watts, 1998) as noted in Table 2. The first step in assessing the risk at a hazardous waste site is to identify the waste components at the source, including their concentrations and physical properties such as density, water solubility, and flash point. After the source has been characterized, the pathways of the hazardous chemicals are analyzed by quantifying the rates at which the... 

University offers many programs in this field, from subroutines to major computational systems. Chemical engineers utilize computers to develop more thermodynamically efficient procedures and to consolidate overall plant operations, especially in the areas of energy consumption, reaction rates, and hazardous waste problems. 

Exner, J. Perspective on hazardous waste problems related to dioxins. In Solving Hazardous Waste Problems, edited by J. Exner, Washington, DC, American Chemical Society, pp. 1 -19, 1987. 

I hope that we can address these important problems with sound information and a spirit of cooperation among the diverse interests, and I hope that we remember the fundamental intent to solve hazardous waste problems. 

Perspective on Hazardous Waste Problems Related to Dioxins... 

Hazardous waste problems permeate our society. Potential threats to human health from pollutants in the environment arouse great social and scientific controversy. Social concern has led to numerous environmental laws and regulations such as the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 and amendments of 1984 (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 and its 1986 amendments (CERCLA). RCRA addresses current waste by requiring stringent record keeping of all waste production, collection, treatment, storage, and disposal activities. CERCLA, or Superfund, addresses the cleanup of hazardous waste sites in the U.S.A. Out of about... 

Management of the risk posed by an environmental contaminant presents the final challenge in the process of solving hazardous waste problems. Once a concern has been identified and a potential risk has been estimated, reduction or removal of that risk must be addressed. The cleanup represents a fascinating political process that incorporates the public s perception of the risk, divergent social values and philosophies, legal constraints, economic considerations, and technical alternatives. 

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