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Waste Legislation
Waste management laws govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manners of waste, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment. When left unregulated, these dispersals can cause ecological or biological harm. Most waste management laws are designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Waste management laws also regulate organic waste disposal, including composting which is increasingly being recognized as a more sustainable alternative to landfilling and incineration. Regulatory efforts include classifying waste types, setting standards for transport, treatment, storage, and disposal, and establishing enforcement mechanisms. History Waste management laws originated in the 19th century as public health measures, addressing sanitation and diseas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waste
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero. Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes (feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others. Definitions What constitutes waste depends on the eye of the beholder; one person's waste can be a resource for another person. Though waste is a physical object, its generation is a physical and psychological process. The definitions used by various agencies are as below. United Nations Environment Program According to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circular Economy
A circular economy (also referred to as circularity or CE) is a model of resource Production (economics), production and Resource consumption, consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, Reuse, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. The concept aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The main three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. CE is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy. The idea and concepts of a circular economy have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. It has been gaining popularity because it can help to minimize Greenhouse gas emis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leachate
A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. Leachate is a widely used term in the environmental sciences where it has the specific meaning of a liquid that has dissolved or entrained environmentally harmful substances that may then enter the environment. It is most commonly used in the context of land-filling of putrescible or industrial waste. In the narrow environmental context leachate is therefore any liquid material that drains from land or stockpiled material and contains significantly elevated concentrations of undesirable material derived from the material that it has passed through. Landfill leachate Leachate from a landfill varies widely in composition depending on the age of the landfill and the type of waste that it contains. It usually contains both dissolved and suspended material. The generation of leachate is caused principall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wetland
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially in the soils. Wetlands form a transitional zone between waterbodies and dry lands, and are different from other terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems due to their vegetation's roots having adapted to oxygen-poor waterlogged soils. They are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as habitats to a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals, with often improved water quality due to plant removal of excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphorus. Wetlands exist on every continent, except Antarctica. The water in wetlands is either freshwater, brackish or saltwater. The main types of wetland are defined based on the dominant plants and the source of the water. For example, ''marshes'' ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fault (geology)
In geology, a fault is a Fracture (geology), planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of Rock (geology), rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust (geology), crust result from the action of Plate tectonics, plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction, subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep. A ''fault plane'' is the Plane (geometry), plane that represents the fracture surface of a fault. A ''fault trace'' or ''fault line'' is a place where the fault can be seen or mapped on the surface. A fault trace is also the line commonly plotted on geological maps to represent a fault. A ''fault zone'' is a cluster of parallel faults. However, the term is also used for the zone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toxicity
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacteria, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell (biology), cell (cytotoxicity) or an organ such as the liver (hepatotoxicity). Sometimes the word is more or less synonymous with poison#Poisoning, poisoning in everyday usage. A central concept of toxicology is that the effects of a toxicant are Dose (biochemistry), dose-dependent; even water can lead to water intoxication when taken in too high a dose, whereas for even a very toxic substance such as snake venom there is a dose below which there is no detectable toxic effect. Toxicity is species-specific, making cross-species analysis problematic. Newer paradigms and metrics are evolving to bypass animal testing, while maintaining the concept of toxicity endpoints. Etymology In Ancient G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reactivity (chemistry)
In chemistry, reactivity is the impulse for which a chemical substance undergoes a chemical reaction, either by itself or with other materials, with an overall release of energy. ''Reactivity'' refers to: * the chemical reactions of a single substance, * the chemical reactions of two or more substances that interact with each other, * the systematic study of sets of reactions of these two kinds, * methodology that applies to the study of reactivity of chemicals of all kinds, * experimental methods that are used to observe these processes, and * theories to predict and to account for these processes. The chemical reactivity of a single substance (reactant) covers its behavior in which it: * decomposes, * forms new substances by addition of atoms from another reactant or reactants, and * interacts with two or more other reactants to form two or more products. The chemical reactivity of a substance can refer to the variety of circumstances (conditions that include temperature, pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corrosion
Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engineering is the field dedicated to controlling and preventing corrosion. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metal in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen, hydrogen, or hydroxide. Rusting, the formation of red-orange iron oxides, is a well-known example of electrochemical corrosion. This type of corrosion typically produces oxides or salts of the original metal and results in a distinctive coloration. Corrosion can also occur in materials other than metals, such as ceramics or polymers, although in this context, the term "degradation" is more common. Corrosion degrades the useful properties of materials and structures including mechanical strength, appearance, and permeability to liquids and ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combustibility And Flammability
A combustible material is a material that can burn (i.e., sustain a flame) in air under certain conditions. A material is flammable if it ignites easily at ambient temperatures. In other words, a combustible material ignites with some effort and a flammable material catches fire immediately on exposure to flame. The degree of flammability in air depends largely upon the volatility of the material this is related to its composition-specific vapour pressure, which is temperature dependent. The quantity of vapour produced can be enhanced by increasing the surface area of the material forming a mist or dust. Take wood as an example. Finely divided wood dust can undergo explosive flames and produce a blast wave. A piece of paper (made from pulp) catches on fire quite easily. A heavy oak desk is much harder to ignite, even though the wood fibre is the same in all three materials. Common sense (and indeed scientific consensus until the mid-1700s) would seem to suggest that materi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. The current administrator is Lee Zeldin. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. There are regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, as well as 27 laboratories around the country. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The waste is objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles, but also large and hazardous items of rubbish such as tires, electrical appliances, electronics, batteries and large industrial containers are sometimes dumped in isolated locations, such as national forests and other public lands. Litter is a type of human impact on the environment and is a serious environmental problem in many countries. Litter can exist in the environment for long periods of time before decomposition and be transported over large distances into the world's oceans. Litter can negatively affect quality of life. Cigarette#Cigarette butt, Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world, with an estimated 4.5 trillion discarded each year. Estimates of the required time for cigarette butts to break down vary, ranging fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anaerobic Digestion
Anaerobic digestion is a sequence of processes by which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The process is used for industrial or domestic purposes to Waste management, manage waste or to produce fuels. Much of the Fermentation (biochemistry), fermentation used industrially to produce food and drink products, as well as home fermentation, uses anaerobic digestion. Anaerobic digestion occurs naturally in some soils and in lake and oceanic basin sediments, where it is usually referred to as "anaerobic activity". This is the source of Methane#Occurrence, marsh gas methane as discovered by Alessandro Volta in 1776. Anaerobic digestion comprises four stages: * Hydrolysis *Acidogenesis *Acetogenesis *Methanogenesis The digestion process begins with bacterial hydrolysis of the input materials. Insoluble organic polymers, such as carbohydrates, are broken down to soluble derivatives that become available for other bacteria. Acidogenesis, Acidogen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
