Landfilling environmental effects

Many but not all hazardous wastes can be disposed of on land in properly designed landfills. To minimize potentially adverse environmental effects from wastes deposited at hazardous-waste landfill sites, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed specific regulations regarding the characteristics of wastes suitable for landfilling. These regulations (40 CFR 265) include a prohibition on the placement of ... 

PCBs have been implicated in the decline of certain populations of fish-eating birds, for example, in the Great Lakes of North America. Although their use is now banned in most countries and very little is released into the environment as a consequence of human activity, considerable quantities remain in sinks (e.g., contaminated sediments and landfill sites), from which they are slowly redistributed to other compartments of the environment. There continues to be evidence that PCB residues are still having environmental effects, for example, on birds and fish. 

Coupled with the energy consumption is the environmental effect from production of these binders. For every ton of phosphoric acid, 5 ton of phosphogypsum (calcium sulfate) is produced [15]. This waste can be recycled into value-added products such as gypsum board, but often there is a radioactivity issue. Some phosphogypsum contains radium and emanates radon gas. At the present time, such waste can only be disposed in a landfill. 

The conclusion is that fertilizer leaching from fields is only a portion of the nitrogen that potentially reaches estuaries and coastal waters. Probably of greater importance for North America as a whole is the nitrogen that is volatilized to the atmosphere or released to surface waters from animal wastes and landfills. Since food is often shipped over long distances in the United States, the environmental effect of the nitrogen can occur well away from the original site of application of the fertilizer. 

Lack of applications and publications on general environmental effects related to engineering activities, as demonstrated by much less works reported about contaminant transport and consequences, such as nuclear waste management, geothermal energy utilization, landfill performance evaluation and landslides ... 

E.6.3 What are the environmental effects of using a landfill to dispose of broken TV sets What should be the best way to dispose of broken TV sets Should the plastics and metals in the TV be recycled Why or... 

In the landfill sites, plastics are slowly degraded and the different additives, such as metal additives and other impurities, can cause serious environmental effects. 

Current available technologies allow for significant minimization of many negative environmental effects caused by landfills. Activities that allow this goal to be achieved can be realized... 

The exact composition and proportion of these additives in a certain type of fluid depends on the intended use. Hydraulic fluids are compounded to conform to performance-based standards such as Military or ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) specifications. Some examples of Military specifications are shown in Table 3-2. Many different formulations can be compounded to conform to one performance standard. It should be noted that the variability among these products or even within products with the same trade names may confuse efforts to determine environmental and health effects of hydraulic fluids at hazardous waste landfills since hydraulic fluids that are currently used may or may not contain the same components present in old products of the same name. 

Bioreactor landfill operations should comply with RCRA landfill facility standards under 40 CFR Part 264. It should be noted that SARA strongly recommends on-site treatment that permanently and significantly reduces the volume, toxicity, or mobility of hazardous substances, and utilizes cost-effective permanent solutions. The legislation prohibits land disposal of hazardous wastes unless U.S. EPA determines otherwise. U.S. EPA guidance for CERCLA responses requires most on-site disposal actions to attain or exceed applicable and relevant standards of all Federal public health and environmental laws unless specific circumstances dictate otherwise. 

Development of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model and its predecessor, the Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator, began in the early 1980s.69 70 The first version of EPIC was intended to evaluate the effects of wind and water erosion on plant growth and food production. More recent versions also evaluate factors important to other environmental issues. EPIC is a onedimensional model however, it can estimate lateral flow in soil layers at depth. All versions of EPIC estimate surface runoff, PET, AET, soil-water storage, and PRK below the root zone—these complete the hydrologic water balance for an ET landfill cover. 

FIGURE 26.11 Effective porosities. (Adapted from U.S. EPA, Requirements for Hazardous Waste Landfill Design, Construction, and Closure, EPA/625/4-89/022, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, August 1989.)... 

The U.S. Bureau of Mines-Spokane Research Center is conducting research on the environmental impacts of placing mine wastes underground as backfill. This work includes a review of residual cyanide in placed landfill, water quality monitorings at two mines and laboratory tests of cyanide fate in underground environments and permeability/leachate effects through cemented tailings. 

On the other hand, Aboul-Kassim [1] assessed the environmental impact of hazardous waste materials in landfills by (1) characterizing the different organic compound fractions present in such wastes and their leachates, (2) determining the toxic effect of each fraction and individual organic compounds, and (3) studying the chemodynamics (i.e., fate and transport) of such leachates by using a battery of laboratory experiments (such as sorption/desorption, photolysis, volatilization, biodegradation). 

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