Waste Management Approach

A two-tier approach should be thought of for waste management:

1. Prevention - aims at minimization of industrial wastes at source

Generally, waste minimization techniques can be grouped into four major categories:
Inventory Management and Improved Operations
· Inventory and tracing of all raw materials
· Purchasing of fewer toxic and more non-toxic production materials
· Implementation of employees’ training and management feedback
· Improving material receiving, storage, and handling practices.

Modification of Equipment
· Installation of equipment that produce minimal or no wastes
· Modification of equipment to enhance recovery or recycling options
· Redesigning of equipment or production lines to produce less waste
· Improving operating efficiency of equipment
· Maintaining strict preventive maintenance program.

Production Process Changes

· Substitution of non-hazardous for hazardous raw materials
· Segregation of wastes by type for recovery
· Elimination of sources of leaks and spills
· Separation of hazardous from non-hazardous wastes
· Redesigning or reformulation for products to be less hazardous
· Optimisation of reactions and raw material use.

Recycling and Reuse

· Installation of closed-loop systems
· Recycling off site for use
· Exchange of wastes.

2. Control of environmental - treatment and disposal of wastes.

Practice of Industrial Solid Waste Management

1. Collection and Transport of Wastes

2. Storage and Transportation
3. Disposal of Industrial Solid Waste
Treatment and Disposal of Wastes

1. Landfill

• Disposal - Disposal is the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or

placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or on any land or water
• Land Disposal - is defined to include, but not limited to, any placement of hazardous
waste in a landfill, surface impoundment, waste-pile, injection well, land treatment
facility, salt dome formation, or underground mine or cave.
• Landfill - Landfill means a disposal facility. Examples are trenches and pits.
• Land Treatment Facility - means a facility or part of a facility at which hazardous waste
is applied onto or incorporated into the soil surface.
• Surface Impoundment - means a facility is a natural topographic depression, man-made
excavation, or diked area formed primarily of earthen materials that is designed to hold
an accumulation of liquid wastes or wastes containing free liquids

This is the most popular solid waste disposal method used today. Garbage is basically spread
out in thin layers, compressed and covered with soil or plastic foam. Modern landfills are
designed in such a way that the bottom of the landfill is covered with an impervious liner which
is usually made of several layers of thick plastic and sand. This liner protects the ground water
from being contaminated because of leaching or percolation. When the landfill is full, it is
covered with layers of sand, clay, top soil and gravel to prevent seepage of water.

2. Incineration
This method involves burning of solid wastes at high temperatures until the wastes are
turned into ashes. Incinerators are made in such a way that they do not give off extreme
amounts of heat when burning solid wastes. This method of solid waste management can be
done by individuals, municipalities and even institutions. The good thing about this method
is the fact that it reduces the volume of waste up to 20 or 30% of the original volume.

3. Pyrolysis
This is method of solid waste management whereby solid wastes are chemically decomposed by
heat without presence of oxygen. This usually occurs under pressure and at temperatures of up to
430 degrees Celsius. The solid wastes are changed into gasses, solid residue and small quantities
of liquid.

4. Manifest System

Designed to track hazardous waste from the time it leaves the generator facility where it was
produced, until it reaches the off-site waste management facility that will store, treat or dispose
of the hazardous waste. A manifest system has to be framed to identify what category of waste
has to be transported for disposal and treatment.
 5. Monitoring

Monitoring will tell the operating agency about the dividing line between hazardous and
nonhazardous waste, about the treatability of the hazardous waste, about incompatibility of
different wastes, about the performance efficiency of hazardous waste treatment and disposal
facility, about the impact, about the quality of the recovered material, and about the post-closure
effects if any.

6. Recovery and Reuse

Recovery of resources is the process of taking useful but discarded items for next use.
Traditionally, these items are processed and cleaned before they are recycled. The process aims
at reducing energy loss, consumption of new material and reduction of landfills.

Table 1. Area of Application of Some Important Industrial Wastes

Waste Areas of Application

1. Flash
2. Blast Furnace Slags (stony waste
matter separated from metals during
smelting or refining of ore.)
3. Ferro-alloy and other metallurgical
slags.
4. Red Mud
a. Manufacture of oil well cement
b. Structural fill for roads, construction
on sites, land reclamation.
c. As plasticizer
d. As water reducer in concrete and
sulphate.
a. Making expansive cement
a. As structural fill
a. As a binder
b. Making construction blocks
c. In making floor and tiles