Natural Environment Blog

How concerned are you with what you leave behind? With eco-friendliness and a green attitude becoming prominent in today’s day and age, there are still many individuals, as well as corporate entities that appear wholly unfazed by the amount of waste they leave behind. What is more, they deliberately choose to remain uninformed on the richness of options currently available for hazardous waste disposal.

Essentially, hazardous waste is any type of material that can come to represent a threat, either to the environment or to the safety of living beings, be they humans or non-humans. They can either be flammable, reactive when in contact with other substances, corrosive or toxic when ingested.

In case you didn’t know, it’s not just chemical plants or other types of factories that are responsible for this kind of waste. Individual consumers, as well as some of the most common types of businesses, massively produce such waste - dry cleaners, car repair shops, hospitals, your local photo printing center!

Below are five of the most common ways in which you, or your local business, can do away with potentially dangerous waste.

1. Recycling

Recycling is the best and most cost-effective method for hazardous waste disposal when it comes to day-to-day items, such as lead-acid batteries or computer motherboards. Both these items are loaded with heavy metals, immensely damaging for the environment, but also ideal candidates for use in new products.

Major waste producers, such as coal-fired power plants, will also produce their fair share of dangerous waste. Fly and bottom ash can be reused as pavement filling, while, otherwise, they are highly dangerous, due to the increased level of chemicals they contain.

2. Portland Cement

This method of hazardous waste disposal essentially buries the refuse under a solid and heavy layer of cement. There are five types of such cement, classified according to strength and components. Sludge is one type of waste that can be turned into Portland cement. Prior to this type of recycling, sludge is adjusted and cured, so that the level of contaminants it contains is reduced.

3. Neutralization

Basically, neutralization is a process you learned all about while in junior high, during chemistry classes. Neutralization will actually produce hazardous waste disposal by turning a given quantity of a potentially damaging type of refuse into a completely harmless one. Examples include neutralizing a corrosive acid by using a base, or adjusting the pH of a given substance and thereby reducing its leaching activity.

4. Incineration, Destruction, Waste-to-Energy

Used oils or chemical solvents are the best candidates for turning waste into energy. They are usually burned in cement kilns. The process does away with the waste, while the gases released in the atmosphere during the actual burning constitute the energy. This particular hazardous waste disposal method has been contested as producing its own damaging effects, yet advances in modern technology have made the development of more efficient incinerators possible.

5. Landfill

Hazardous waste disposal through landfills entails isolating said waste in an area that cannot be accidentally or voluntarily accessed by human or non-human entities. It does bear risks, but such permanent disposal facilities are sometimes the only solution available for certain types of refuse.

This article was contributed by Paul Estcott on behalf of labwaste.co.uk.

With all the problems plastic bags are causing to the natural environment, it’s little wonder there’s an abundance of alternatives hitting the market. Although biodegradable plastic bags have been around for a while now, many people still don’t know they exist.

Let’s look at the two main types of biodegradable plastic bags.

Biodegradable Plastic Bags

Typically, biodegradable plastic bags are made from farmed products like cornstarch, which break down into elements like carbon dioxide, water and methane. They don’t just decompose automatically though - they need the right conditions to decompose.

To decompose properly, a biodegradable plastic bag should be composted. It should not be sent to landfill, as it may contribute to methane emissions. To meet international standards, a biodegradable plastic bag should compost within 12 weeks, then fully biodegrade within 6 months.

Degradable Plastic Bags

Degradable plastic bags decompose due to a chemical additive to oxygen, light or heat and are best suited to landfill. Degradable bags are also referred to as “oxo degradable” bags.

Degradable plastic bags will usually break down automatically. This could range between anywhere from 3 months to 18 months after manufacture, or even longer.

So… Are They Eco Friendly?

On the face of it, biodegradable and degradable plastic bags seem like a good concept. They can be used just like any other plastic bag, then when the time is right, they decompose - possibly within 6 months (or 18 months for oxo degradable bags).

While it’s not hard to argue that these bags are much better than traditional plastic bags (which can take up to 1,000 years to fully decompose), many environmental organizations argue that biodegradable plastic bags still don’t go far enough in saving the planet, and I tend to agree.

Even if a plastic bag does biodegrade within 5 - 6 months, that’s still plenty of time for it to cause serious issues. A biodegradable plastic bag can still end up in the ocean where it can kill it’s wildlife. When a plastic bag begins to suffocate a baby dolphin, that dolphin will die within minutes. The fact that the bag will decompose within 6 months means nothing - it’s already too late.

Also, given the fact that up to 1 trillion plastic bags are being used on our planet every year, this is still a problem. Even if only say, 1% of plastic bags end up in our oceans, that still a lot of plastic bags. Every one of these can kill regardless of their biodegradable properties.

So, while these bags are better than traditional plastic bags, there are much more eco friendly bags around.