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Jessica Tominna

Miles

Pre-AP English 10

15 January 2018

Industrial and Household Waste

“Waste.” Toxics Action Center, Toxics Action Center, toxicsaction.org/issues/waste/.

https://toxicsaction.org/issues/waste/

Industrial and Household waste is one of the biggest problems occuring in the world

today. On average, Americans generate about 251 million tons of trash which comes out to be

about 4.6 pounds of trash that a person produces a day. The major problem with that is that the

products that are being thrown away contain dangerous chemicals like radiation, toxins,

wastewater, and more and there is no obvious solution for dealing with it. Another problem that

comes along with it is landfills. The landfills and areas for dumping poison the water, air, and

land which also contributes to global warming. Not only is the waste hurting humans, but

animals and plants if they are encountered by the toxins in the dirt.

The article above describes a solution called “Zero Waste”. Basically, it aims for

eliminating rather then the management of waste. It mentions that it is simply not a program or

policy but a goal and a process that “shifts how we think about and use resources”. Another way

mentioned to solve waste problems is sludge. Sludge is a type material that can either be solid or

liquid and is used as fertilizer. It contains a variety of chemicals that could be beneficial to the

earth and produce positive outcomes to the public health. The Toxics Action works dailey with

communities all over the world to provide resources and skills that are needed to clean and

prevent toxic waste.

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Rinkesh. “Causes and Effects of Industrial Pollution.” Conserve Energy Future, 4 Jan. 2017

https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-of-industrial-pollution.php

With the new world advancing every day comes new technologies and new inventions

that are developing quickly, however, it comes with the problem of industrial waste leading to

pollution. The author of the article published above states that the pollution is caused by six

major factors: the lack of policies to control pollution, unplanned industrial growth, the use of

outdated technologies, presence of large number of small scale industries, inefficient waste

disposal, and leaching of resources from our natural world. Alongside comes effects such as

water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution, wildlife extinction, and global warming and no

permanent solution to all of these problems.

Although there is no clear solution stated in the article, he does state that the issue of

industrial pollution is a huge problem and that there are many steps to take before a permanent

solution is found. Rinkesh states that recycling benefits the industry as much as possible but is

still not beneficial to find a new way to reduce toxins growth. The best way is to use organic

methods like using microbes that naturally use waste as feed. With the little steps we can take

such as humans trying to not produce too much trash and recycling more, he believes that

pollution could be solved little by little.

Passell, Peter. “The Garbage Problem: It May Be Politics, Not Nature.” The New York

Times, The New York Times, 25 Feb. 1991

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/26/science/the-garbage-problem-it-may-be-politics-

not-nature.html?pagewanted=all

Published more than a decade ago, the world has been trying to deal with the waste

problem for quite a while now, but we’ve come a long way since then such as home furnaces not
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generating as much coal ash and the recycling production going up. The government controls

and decides how we can deal with not only waste, but issues such as global warming and other

environmental factors. Not only is the waste a huge problem, but finding how to deal with it at a

low cost is almost impossible. Most would say that burning is a great idea for a way to get rid of

it, however the cost of an regular medium sized incineration plant is about $169 mio, or $680 per

ton of annual capacity.

With the right incentives, the author’s idea is to have the waste be recycled buried or

burned with precautions of safety and at reasonable cost, but its not that easy. People that live in

populated cities with apartment complexes would find it extremely difficult to care about where

and where not they should put their waste, factories that produce plastic do the same with the

thousands of pounds of trash we as humans produce a day, it's almost unbearable to think about

how it's affecting us in the present.

Lambolez. “The Environmental Risks of Industrial Waste Disposal: An Experimental

Approach Including Acute and Chronic Toxicity Studies.” Ecotoxicology and Environmental

Safety, Academic Press, 26 Apr. 2002

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651384710566

In a short summary, the toxicity of the solid industrial wastes that go into landfill

are being studied. The tests allow the measurements of the toxicity, as well as genotoxicity, and

the amount of trophic levels in the environment that is being used. Scientists have tested tons of

ways to find a permanent solution to the pollution of industrial and household waste. When

conducting an experiment of how leachates were carried out, the chemical analysis revealed that

the “toxicity varied greatly between the different wastes” and concluded that “[The] study

demonstrates the usefulness of associating a toxicological monitoring with chemical analyses in

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waste management.”

Works Cited

“Cost of Incineration Plant.” Waste To Energy International, 3 Dec. 2017

“Household Hazardous Waste (HHW).” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 12 Apr.

2017

Rinkesh. “Causes and Effects of Industrial Pollution.” Conserve Energy Future, 4 Jan.

2017
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Program, Michigan Water Stewardship. “Youth Stewards.” Household Waste - That's

Garbage!

“Select an Area.” Manufacturing and Industrial Waste Disposal | Waste Management

“The Environmental Risks of Industrial Waste Disposal: An Experimental Approach

Including Acute and Chronic Toxicity Studies.” Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety,

Academic Press, 26 Apr. 2002

“Waste.” Toxics Action Center, Toxics Action Center, toxicsaction.org/issues/waste/.