Waste management recycling

Patrick J. DeRueda, Pres., Waste Management Recycle America Mark A. Weidman, Pres., Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. 

Fig. 1. Municipal solid waste management system where ( ) indicates recycling options and (-), optional transfer.

Many of these techniques involve source reduction— the preferred option on the EPA s hierarchy of waste management (24). Others deal with on-and off-site recycling. The best way to determine how these general approaches can fit a particular company s needs is to conduct a waste minimization... 

Resource Recovery Act, 1970 The Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 was amended by Public Law 95-512, the Resources Recovery Ac4 of 1970. This act directed that the emphasis of the national solid-waste-management program should be shitted from disposal as its pri-maiy objective to that of recycling and reuse of recoverable materials in sohd wastes or the conversion of wastes to energy. 

Sohd wastes are all the wastes arising from human and animal activities that are normally sohd and that are discarded as useless or unwanted. The term as used in this subsection is all-inclusive, and it encompasses the heterogeneous mass of throwaways. The three R s should be apphed to Sohd Wastes Reuse, Recycle, and Reduce. When these nave been implemented, management of residual solid waste can be addressed. 

The common practice in waste management is either to recycle waste or to treat and dispose of it at the end of a process. However, many end-of-pipe treatment processes simply transfer a waste, albeit sometimes in a different chemical form, from one environmental medium (i.e. air, land or water) to another often at high dilution. 

Calculate the annual operating costs for the existing process that needs waste treatment, and estimate how these costs would be altered by the introduction of waste-reduction options. Tabulate and compare the process and waste-treatment operating costs for both the existing and proposed waste-management options. If there are any monetary benefits (such as recycled or reused materials or wastes), then these should be subtracted from the total process or waste-treatment costs as appropriate. The expanded cost-analysis scheme discussed in Chapter 8 is appropriate to include at this point in the process. 

The various waste-management options namely, source reduction, recycle/reuse, treatment, and disposal. 

As for enviromnental aspects, in the last years many LCAs have been performed that aimed to compare the different recycling and treatment routes for plastics packaging waste. They often include cost calculations for the whole waste management chain. Examples include ... 

This article presents details of the gloomy picture of the environmental impacts associated with PVC waste which has been painted by four PVC waste management studies carried out for the European Commission. The studies cover mechanical recycling, feedstock recycling, behaviour in landfill, and the influence of PVC on incinerator flue gas cleaning residues. 

Chemical recycling is examined as a means for plastics waste management, and commercial developments by a number of West European companies are described. VEBA OEL RWE RHEINBRAUN AG BASF AG DSM NV BP CHEMICALS LTD. ENICHEM ELF ATOCHEM SA STAHLWERKE BREMEN PETROFINA SA... 

The Japanese Plastic Waste Management Institute is developing a process to convert PVC and other plastic waste materials to fuel oil through pyrolysis. In Eiuope, a free market for plastics waste is now being established by the European Plastics Converters over the internet. The company says it will be possible to establish market prices for recyclates at European level on a supply and demand basis. The European market for recycled plastics is currently worth around 1.18bn US dollars and is predicted to reach 2.53bn US dollars by the endof2001. WORLD... 

Combustion of plastics waste with energy recovery is discussed as one approach to the recycling and waste management of waste plastics. Their role in municipal solid waste combustion is examined, and the importance of refuse derived fuel pellets. Facts supporting the importance of waste to energy projects are reported, and details of some projects currently examining MSW combustion with energy recovery are detailed. 

This paper provides a detailed overview of the current plastics waste management situation in Japan. It discusses material, chemical, and thermal recycling, and incineration versus landfill. It also provides a flow sheet showing recycling and the treatment/disposal of plastics waste in Japan in 1991. Conclusions are drawn, and the outlook for the future is considered. 5 refs. 

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