MANAGEMENT OF SOLID WASTE 643
INTRODUCTIONAny discussion of solid waste neatly divides into three
categories:1) Source and composition,
2) Collection,
3) Disposal (or, hopefully, reuse).Another natural division, resulting in part from the current reg-
ulatory states, is between hazardous and nonhazardous wastes.
This section will deal primarily with nonhazardous wastes;
specifically, with their source and composition and disposal.
However, a brief discussion of hazardous wastes is included
because of their importance in understanding the management
of urban waste. More detailed discussion of hazardous waste
is found in another section. The important problem of collec-
tion is also left to a special section on that subject.
Solid waste used to be considered any solid matter which
was discarded as no longer being useful in the economy.
During the last decade, this definition has been considerably
broadened. For regulatory, and usually disposal purposes,
solid waste is now defined as “any garbage or refuse, sludge
from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant,
or air pollution control facility, and other discarded mate-
rial, including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous
material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and
agricultural operations, and from community activities, but
does not include solid or dissolved materials in domestic
sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return
flows or industrial discharges which are point sources.”^3 This
definition is important because it indicates that all matter
which is disposed of onto the land in any form is considered
“solid waste.” In addition that material which causes or sig-
nificantly contributes to an increase in mortality or serious
illness or poses a substantial hazard to human health or the
environment, is considered a “hazardous waste.” Hazardous
wastes have been further defined by rulemaking to a limited
set of materials and criteria such as toxicity, flammability,
reactivity, or corrosivity.^4 The handling of hazardous waste
requires special care and special permitting. Contrary to the
management of normal refuse or solid waste, the generators,
transporters, and disposers of hazardous wastes must meet
stringent federal and state criteria and have considerable
potential liability exposure. The disposers of solid waste
which is not hazardous must meet state criteria that are not
nearly as stringent as those for hazardous materials. Thus,
while hazardous material in the past has been often disposed
of along with all other refuse, today this is no longer the case.
Industrial waste generators segregate their hazardous from
their industrial waste so as to minimize their problems.
Solid wastes are one of the three major interacting waste
vectors; the others are air and water pollutants. Solid wastes,
if improperly handled, can be a source of land, air and water
pollution. They are, also, at this writing, one of the most vol-
atile public issues and a problem which is presenting many
communities with significant institutional challenges.Significant progress has been made in regulating the dis-
posal of solid waste over the last decade. Open dumps which
presented aesthetic as well as environmental challenges are for
the most part closed. Regulations are in place for managing
solid wastes in an acceptable manner. However, dumping into
the ocean, which can create “dead” zones, hopefully will be
eliminated. Nor have we eliminated the potential problems of
leachate from landfills. Perhaps the most significant problem is
the one of locating new landfills or substituting resource recov-
ery, reuse and recycling capacity for landfill disposal. The
technologies are available, but the economics still favor land
disposal. In the early ’70s there was great hope for massive
resource recovery and recycle projects. Some of those, dis-
cussed later in this section, have not come to fruition because
of economic and institutional barriers. Others have succeeded
but the technology has not been spread, primarily because of
economic barriers. Individual and community action to reduce
the amount of wastes generated and collected has, in many
areas of the country, been successful. For example, solid waste
contains significant amounts of valuable material; 40% to 50%
of urban waste is paper and, if recycled, can replace virgin
stock equivalent to about 9 trees per person per year. In addi-
tion, the community and thus the taxpayer also saves in terms
of lower collection and disposal costs. However, this is still
of limited application because it is usually limited to newspa-
pers, aluminum cans and perhaps glass. Both technology and
institutional methodologies for recycling solid waste are still in
their infancy and must gain momentum if we are to meet the
challenge of solid waste management in the years to come.REGULATION OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENTRegulation of solid waste management has been scattered.
The federal government, contrary to its prior policies in air and
water, did not take a strong posture in solid waste management.
It left regulatory initiative to the states and localities. These
dealt with the solid waste management primarily through the
licensing of collectors, through the “Utility Commissions”
and adding to zoning ordinances regarding local landfills.
Public health regulations also played a role with respect to
reduction of rodents and pests at landfills. Air emissions from
incinerators were regulated as were wastewater discharges.
In the last several years a number of states have enacted and
implemented legislation to regulate landfills. Probably the
earliest and still among the most comprehensive is the regu-
latory effort of the State of California which has classified
landfills which respect to underlying geological conditions in
terms of what a landfill can and cannot accept.
A comprehensive solid waste law at the federal level
was passed in 1976 as the “Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act of 1976.”^5 This act provides for federal assis-
tance to states and regions developing and encouraging
environmental sound disposal of solid waste and the maxi-
mum utilization of resources. It calls for state and regional
plans and for federal assistance to develop these plans. It
requires that each plan shall prohibit the establishment
of open dumps and provides for the upgrading of openC013_002_r03.indd 643C013_002_r03.indd 643 11/18/2005 2:27:17 PM11/18/2005 2:27:17 PM