CH-21-22 Solid and Hazardous Waste – Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions : Book Guide

This Document Contains Chapters 21 to 22 Chapter 21 Solid and Hazardous Waste Summary 1. Solid waste is any unwanted or discarded material that is not a liquid or a gas. Thirty-three percent of the world’s solid wasted is produced by one country—the United States—which represents 4.6% of the world’s population. 2. Waste management, waste reduction, reduced usage, and pollution prevention can all be used to reduce, reuse, or recycle solid waste. 3. The advantages of burning waste include reducing trash volume, minimizing the need for landfills, and lowering water pollution. The disadvantages include high cost, air pollution, producing toxic ash, and encouraging waste production. The advantages of burying wastes include safety, wastes can be retrieved, ease of application, and low cost. Disadvantages include leaks and spills, existing fractures or earthquakes can cause waste escape, and encouraging waste production. 4. Hazardous waste is any discarded solid or liquid material that is toxic, ignitable, corrosive, or reactive enough to explode or release toxic fumes. We can use a pollution prevention or waste reduction approach to reduce production and manage existing hazardous waste mostly by burning or burying it. 5. Physical methods such as filtering and distilling, chemical reactions, bioremediation, phytoremediation, and plasma torches can all be used to detoxify hazardous waste. 6. Advantages of burning hazardous waste include reducing waste volume, minimizing the need for storage space, and lowering water pollution. The disadvantages include air pollutants such as toxic dioxins and production of toxic ash that must be stored. Advantages of burying hazardous waste include safety, wastes can be retrieved, ease of application, and low cost. Disadvantages include leaks and spills, existing fractures or earthquakes can cause waste escape, and encouraging waste production. 7. The United States regulates hazardous waste through the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which was amended in 1984. Key Questions and Concepts 21-1 What Are Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste, and Why Are They Problems? CORE CASE STUDY: E-waste consists of discarded computers and other electronic waste. E-waste contains many valuable metals as well as toxic pollutants. Much of this waste is transferred from the developed world to the developing world, particularly China. Efforts are underway to stop this trade, as well as encourage recycling. A. Solid waste is any discarded material that is not liquid or gas. 1. Industrial solid waste is produced by mines, agriculture, and industry. 2. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is produced by homes and workplaces. B. Hazardous or toxic waste is poisonous, reactive, corrosive, or flammable. 1. Includes radioactive waste. C. The United States has 4.6% of the world’s population but produces about one-third of the world’s solid waste. 1. The U.S. leads the world in trash production per person. 21-2 How Should We Deal with Solid Waste? A. One method to reduce waste and pollution is to implement waste management. This high-waste approach accepts waste production as a result of economic growth. 1. It attempts to reduce environmental harm. 2. It transfers the waste from one part of the environment to another. B. One method is waste reduction. This low-waste approach sees solid waste as a potential resource, which should be reused, recycled, or composted. 1. It discourages waste production in the first place. 2. It encourages waste reduction and prevention. SCIENCE FOCUS: Garbologists study the composition of landfills in the fashion of archaeologists. They have found that items in landfills can resist decomposition for long periods of time due to compaction. C. Waste reduction is based on the three Rs: 1. Reduce, reuse, recycle. D. To cut waste production and promote sustainability, we must reduce consumption and redesign our products. These are the six priorities for doing so. 1. Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less material and energy. 2. Develop products that are easily repaired, reused, remanufactured, composted, or recycled. 3. Eliminate or reduce unnecessary packaging. 4. Fee-per-bag system of waste collection. 5. Cradle to grave responsibility. 6. Restructure urban transportation systems. 21-3 Why Are Reusing and Recycling Materials So Important? A. Reusing products helps reduce resource use, waste, and pollution; it also saves money. 1. Developing countries reuse their products; but there is a health hazard for the poor. CASE STUDY: Refillable containers lessen waste. Parts of Canada and 10 U.S. states require deposit fees on all beverage containers. Some people are now calling for a ban on all beverage containers that cannot be reused. Reusable cloth shopping bags also reduce waste substantially. Plastic bags can take a very long time to break down and they now litter the landscape of many locales. There are governments all over the globe that have banned the use of plastic bags. B. Recycling collects waste materials, turns them into useful products, and sells the new products. 1. Recycling is one of two types—it involves reprocessing discarded solid materials into new, useful products; secondary recycling involves converting materials into different products. 2. Pre-consumer/internal waste is generated from a manufacturing process that is recycled. Post-consumer/external waste is generated by consumer use of products. C. Solid waste recycling can be done in a materials-recovery facility (MRF). The wastes are recycled and/or burned to produce energy; but such plants are expensive. They also must process a large input of garbage. D. Source separation recycling relies on households and businesses to separate their trash; these are collected and sold to other dealers. 1. This produces less air and water pollution. 2. This method has less startup costs and operating costs. 3. It saves more energy and provides more jobs than MRFs. 4. Pay-as-you-throw (PAUT) waste collection systems charge for the mixed waste that is picked up, but not for the recycled, separated materials. E. Composting biodegradable organic wastes is a great way to mimic nature. CASE STUDY: About 55 % of the world’s industrial tree harvest is used to make paper. Paper is easy to recycle and uses 64% less energy than making new paper from wood. The global recycling rate for wastepaper is about 43%. CASE STUDY: There are many different types of plastics, and many of them end up distributed throughout our environment, particularly our oceans. Only about 4% of all plastics in the U.S. are recycled. Plastic recycling is uncommon because plastics are difficult to isolate in different materials, not much individual plastic resin is recoverable per product, and recycled resin is much more expensive than virgin plastic resin. F. Factors that hinder reuse and recycling are: 1. The cost of a product does not include harmful environmental health costs in its life cycle. 2. Resource-extracting industries receive government tax breaks and subsidies while recycle and reuse industries do not. 3. The demand and price for recycled materials fluctuates so there is less interest in committing to this method. SCIENCE FOCUS: Most of today’s plastics are derived from petrochemicals. However, bioplastics date back to the early 1900s. Environmental problems associated with oil have triggered a renewed interest in bioplastics. One advantage of bioplastics is that they have the potential to be composted. 21-4 What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Burning or Burying Solid Waste? A. Municipal solid waste is burned in waste-to-energy incinerators, which produce steam for heating or producing electricity. B. The advantages and disadvantages of burning solid waste are: (given in Figure 24-13) 1. High operating costs. 2. Air pollution concerns. 3. Citizen opposition to the process. C. Most solid waste is buried in landfills, which will leak toxic liquids into the soil and water. 1. Open dumps in the ground hold garbage; sometimes these are covered with dirt. 2. Sanitary landfills spread the solid waste out in thin layers, compact it, and cover it daily with clay/plastic foam. Modern landfills line the bottom with an impermeable liner, which collects leachate; rainwater is contaminated as it percolates through the solid waste. The leachate is collected, stored in tanks and then sent to a sewage treatment plant. But all landfills will eventually leak contaminants. 21-5 How Should We Deal with Hazardous Waste? A. Three levels of priority for dealing with hazardous waste: produce less, convert to less hazardous substances, and put the rest in long-term safe storage. CASE STUDY: More than 70% of the world’s e-waste ends up in China. Over 30,000 workers toil in unsafe conditions and are exposed to toxins. Some computer companies now offer recycling, though only 18% of the e-waste in the U.S. is recycled, 80% of which is shipped overseas. B. Chemical and biological methods can be used to reduce the toxicity of hazardous wastes or to remove them. 1. One biological treatment, bioremediation, uses bacteria and enzymes to help destroy hazardous or toxic substances. They are converted to harmless compounds in the process. 2. Phytoremediation uses natural or genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter, and remove contaminants from polluted water and soil. C. Hazardous waste can be incinerated to break them down and convert them to less harmful chemicals. D. Burial on land is the most widely used method in the United States. 1. Deep-well disposal: liquid hazardous waste is pumped into porous rock formations beneath aquifers. 2. Surface impoundments: ponds that are lined. 3. Some highly toxic materials cannot be detoxified, destroyed, or safely buried. Reducing their use it the best solution. 4. Secure hazardous waste landfills: Hazardous wastes are put into containers and monitored. CASE STUDY: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulates about 5% of the U.S. hazardous waste. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERLA/Superfund program) was passed in 1980. The law identifies hazardous waste sites and provides for cleanup of these sites on a priority basis. The worst sites go on a National Priorities List (NPL) and are scheduled for total cleanup. There are also laws that provide for cleaning up brown fields, abandoned sites contaminated with hazardous wastes like factories, gas stations, junkyards, etc. 21-6 How Can We Make the Transition to a More Sustainable Low-Waste Society? A. Individuals have organized to protest the construction of many treatment and storage facilities. B. Environmental justice means that every person is entitled to protection from environmental hazards regardless of race, gender, age, national origin income, social class, or any other factors. 1. Studies show that a disproportionate share of polluting facilities are located in minority communities. C. The Basel Convention is an international treaty banning developed countries from shipping hazardous waste to other countries without their permission. D. In 2000, a global treaty to control 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was developed. To be made effective, 50 countries must ratify the treaty. 1. POPs are toxic chemicals stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other organisms. 2. Twelve chemicals, the dirty dozen, need to be phased out, detoxified, and/or isolated. E. To transition to a low-waste society, we need to understand that: 1. Everything is connected. 2. There is no place to send wastes “away.” 3. Polluters and producers should pay for the wastes they produce. 7. We should mimic nature by reusing/recycling the materials that we use. CASE STUDY: Biomimicry is the science and art of discovering and using natural principles to solve human problems. An important goal for a more sustainable society is to make its industrial manufacturing processes cleaner and more sustainable by redesigning them to mimic how nature deals with wastes. Teaching Tips Large Lecture Courses: Bring a list of items that can be recycled in your local community, either curb-side or at special locations or facilities. Ask you students to first brainstorm all of the products that are recyclable. Then question them about items that may remain on the list (for example, motor oil or batteries). Next get them to generate ideas as to why some of these items are not recycled when they are indeed recyclable. Are people not aware? Is it too difficult or time-consuming? Smaller Lecture Courses: Suppose a large city that is near your location is looking to develop a landfill either near your town, or near a valued location in your vicinity. An example would be the landfill that the city of Los Angeles has tried for years to develop on the border of Joshua Tree National Park. Remind students that places like New York City ship their garbage quite far away, so it does not matter if there is no metropolis in your region. Have the students divide on the issue and debate whether or not: (a) the landfill should be developed, and (b) cities should be allowed to ship their trash to other locations. What are the alternatives? Key Terms Biomimicry enviro mental justice hazardous (toxic) waste industrial solid waste integrated waste management municipal solid waste open dump primary recycling recycle reduce reuse sanitary landfills secondary recycling solid waste waste management waste reduction Term Paper Research Topics 1. Solid waste: what should NYC do with its solid waste? 2. Epidemiology studies of different hazardous substances such as lead and dioxins. 3. Alternatives to hazardous chemicals. 4. The history of synthetic organic chemicals. 5. Individual: reduce, reuse, recycle, rethink; garage sales; source separation of household wastes; appliances built to last; what consumers can do about excessive packaging; recycling centers; resource recovery plants: the Saugus model; reduction of lead exposure; reduction of dioxins in the environment; businesses that have invested in pollution prevention. 6. City/county: municipal resource recovery plants; recycling industrial wastes; scrapyards; antilitter campaigns; hazardous-waste landfills; hazardous-waste incineration; deep-well disposal. 7. State: bottle bills. 8. National Policy: Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Superfund; strategies for treating hazardous chemicals; strategies for recycling hazardous chemicals; strategies for preventing hazardous chemicals; the ecojustice movement; Not On Planet Earth. 9. International: recycling programs in Sweden and Switzerland; Germany's tough packaging law; the international hazardous-waste trade. Discussion Topics 1. Trace the roots of the throwaway mentality. Answer: The throwaway mentality emerged in the mid-20th century, driven by consumerism, economic growth, and mass production. Marketers and manufacturers encouraged frequent purchases of disposable products to drive sales and profits, fostering a culture of convenience and short-term use. 2. Should disposable goods and built-in obsolescence be discouraged by legislation and economic means (such as taxes)? Answer: Yes, discouraging disposable goods and built-in obsolescence through legislation and economic incentives can promote sustainability. Taxes or regulations can encourage companies to design durable products, reduce waste, and promote recycling, ultimately benefiting the environment. 3. Are solid waste landfills the least desirable solution to our solid waste disposal problem? Answer: Solid waste landfills are often seen as the least desirable solution due to their environmental impact, including land use, potential groundwater contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions. Alternatives like recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy can offer more sustainable options. 4. Should urban incinerators be encouraged as an alternative to sanitary landfills? Answer: Urban incinerators can be encouraged as an alternative to sanitary landfills if they incorporate modern pollution control technologies. While they reduce waste volume and can generate energy, concerns about air pollution and ash disposal must be addressed. 5. Should more substances be regulated as hazardous wastes? Answer: Yes, expanding the regulation of substances as hazardous wastes is important to protect human health and the environment. Stricter regulations can prevent harmful chemicals from entering ecosystems, reduce toxic exposures, and promote safer waste management practices. 6. What benefits did we gain as a society for the lead effects we have suffered? Answer: Despite the harmful effects of lead exposure, lead was historically used in various industries, providing benefits like improved durability in plumbing and pigmentation in paints. However, these benefits are outweighed by the severe health risks, leading to stricter regulations and alternatives. 7. Should the precautionary principle prevail? Answer: Yes, the precautionary principle should prevail, as it emphasizes caution in the face of scientific uncertainty. By prioritizing the protection of health and the environment, this principle advocates for preventative action, ensuring that potentially harmful activities or substances are carefully evaluated and controlled before widespread use. Activities and Projects 1. Visit a community recycling center and observe its operations. 2. Visit a municipal solid waste landfill and observe its operations or have the education coordinator of the landfill visit your classroom. 3. Does your state require refundable deposits on all beer and soft drink containers? If so, investigate the extent to which the program is living up to expectations. If not, invite spokespersons for both sides of the issue to debate the matter for the benefit of your class. 4. Invite a city or county official responsible for solid-waste disposal to discuss related economic, political, and logistical problems. Ask about possible plans for future improvements in collection and resource recovery plants. 5. Invite public health officials to address your class on the subject of hazardous-waste risks to public health in your community. 6. Invite a manager of a hazardous site to describe to your class the type of hazardous wastes that are being dumped, the origin of the wastes, the transportation routes to the dump, the emergency measures ready to go into effect along the transportation route, and the precautions that are taken at the site in handling the waste. 7. Invite a chemistry professor to talk to your class about the history of the development of synthetic organic chemicals and to describe the chemical nature of many of these hazardous chemicals. 8. If possible, take a class field trip to an open dump, a sanitary landfill, a secured landfill, and an incinerator. Observe problems associated with each approach to waste management. 9. Encourage your students to find out how your school and community dispose of wastes. Are recycling centers available? Are they conveniently located? What materials do they accept? Do any local factories or other industries accept wastes for recycling? How much is recycled? Would a source separation program be feasible? 10. Have students who live at home maintain a record of solid wastes discarded by their families in the course of one week. What percentage of this material could actually be recycled? 11. As a class, survey excess packaging in various products at local supermarkets. (Ask permission first; many supermarket managers are cooperative, but some are not.) Make up ecological ratings for each category based on the concept that packages inside of packages are very undesirable. Write manufacturers about the results of your findings. See if store managers would make your results available to customers at an environmental education stand or bulletin board. 12. As a class, investigate disposal of household hazardous wastes in your community. Is there a program to pick up household hazardous wastes yearly? 13. As a class, investigate any particular hazardous-waste problems in your area. Have there been leaks from underground tanks? Have there been highway accidents involving hazardous wastes? Have spills accidentally gone into waterways? Have buried wastes leached into water supplies? What efforts have been made to treat these problems? What efforts have been made to prevent these problems? What further actions, if any, would your class recommend? 14. As a class project, evaluate community awareness of alternative substances that can be used as substitutes for hazardous chemicals. 15. As a class, investigate the recycling practices of businesses in your area: dry cleaners, businesses that maintain air conditioning systems and refrigeration equipment, and businesses that change oil. Attitudes and Values 1. Have you visited a landfill? How did you feel during your visit? Answer: If you've visited a landfill, you might have experienced discomfort or concern about the scale of waste and its environmental impact. The sight and smell can be overwhelming, often highlighting the need for better waste management practices. 2. Should industries and other producers of hazardous waste be allowed to inject such waste into deep underground wells? Answer: While deep underground injection can be a controlled method of disposing hazardous waste, it poses risks of groundwater contamination and geological instability. Regulatory oversight and stringent safety measures are essential if this practice is permitted. 3. Have you visited an incinerator that handles solid or hazardous waste? How did you feel during your visit? Answer: Visiting an incinerator can evoke mixed feelings. You may appreciate the technology's efficiency in reducing waste volume but also feel concern about emissions and environmental impacts, especially if pollution control measures are inadequate. 4. Have you visited a recycling center? How did you feel during your visit? Answer: A visit to a recycling center can be uplifting, seeing the tangible efforts to repurpose waste materials. It often inspires a sense of hope and responsibility toward sustainability, as well as an appreciation for the complexity of the recycling process. 5. Do you feel that natural ecosystems can continue to absorb the wastes from human activities? Answer: No, natural ecosystems have limited capacity to absorb human-generated waste. Overburdening these systems can lead to pollution, loss of biodiversity, and disruption of ecological balance. Sustainable waste management practices are essential to prevent long-term damage. 6. Do you feel that new technologies will be able to eliminate our current solid-waste problems? Answer: While new technologies can significantly reduce and manage solid waste, completely eliminating the problem requires systemic changes, including reducing consumption, enhancing recycling, and promoting sustainable product design. Technological solutions alone may not suffice without societal shifts. 7. Do you feel that solid-waste issues are one of the top three environmental concerns? Answer: Yes, solid-waste issues are among the top environmental concerns due to their impact on land use, pollution, and resource depletion. Addressing waste management is crucial for protecting ecosystems, human health, and sustainable development. 8. Are you willing to separate your trash, carry reusable shopping bags, and purchase products with reduced packaging? Answer: Yes, these actions are simple yet impactful ways to reduce waste and environmental impact. Separating trash aids recycling, reusable bags reduce plastic waste, and choosing products with minimal packaging helps minimize resource consumption and waste. 9. Are you willing to purchase goods based on lifetime costs rather than just the initial cost? Answer: Yes, considering lifetime costs, including durability and maintenance, encourages sustainable consumption. It often results in better value and less environmental impact, as longer-lasting products reduce the need for frequent replacements and waste. 10. Would you favor a nationwide law requiring a 25¢ refundable deposit on all bottles and cans to encourage their recycling or reuse? Answer: Yes, a refundable deposit system can incentivize recycling and reduce litter. It provides a financial motivation for consumers to return containers, thereby increasing recycling rates and reducing environmental waste. 11. Would you support a law requiring separation of trash into paper, bottles, aluminum cans, steel cans, and glass for recycling and to separate all food and yard wastes for composting? Answer: Yes, such a law would streamline recycling processes, enhance resource recovery, and reduce landfill waste. Separating organic waste for composting also contributes to soil health and reduces methane emissions from landfills. 12. Would you support a law that bans all throwaway bottles, cans, and plastic containers and requires that all beverage and food containers be reusable (refillable)? Answer: Yes, banning single-use containers and promoting reusable options can significantly reduce plastic pollution and waste. While challenging to implement, it encourages a shift toward sustainable consumption and production practices. 13. Would you support a law requiring that at least 60% of all municipal solid waste be recycled, reused, or composted? Answer: Yes, setting a high recycling, reuse, and composting target is essential for reducing landfill reliance and conserving resources. It encourages innovation in waste management and supports a circular economy. 14. Would you support a law banning the construction of any incinerators or landfills for disposal of hazardous or solid waste until at least 60% of all municipal solid waste is recycled, reused, or composted and industrial hazardous waste has been reduced by 60%? Answer: Yes, such a law would prioritize sustainable waste management practices over disposal. It encourages waste reduction, recycling, and safe handling of hazardous materials, reducing reliance on incineration and landfills. 15. Would you support a law banning the emission of any hazardous chemicals into the environment, with the understanding that many products you use now would cost more and some would no longer be made? Answer: Yes, banning hazardous chemical emissions is crucial for protecting public health and the environment. While it may increase product costs or limit availability, the benefits of a cleaner, safer environment outweigh the drawbacks. 16. Would you support a law banning the export of any hazardous wastes and pesticides, medicines, or other chemicals banned in your country to any other country? Would you also support a law banning export of such wastes from one part of a country to another so that each community is responsible for the waste it produces? Answer: Yes, banning the export of hazardous materials prevents shifting environmental and health risks to other regions or countries. Holding communities accountable for their waste encourages responsible production and disposal, fostering local solutions and sustainability. News Videos Jean Suppliers Pollution; The Brooks/Cole Environmental Science Video Library, 2009; DVD 0538733551 Plastic Bag Charge Debated; The Brooks/Cole Environmental Science Video Library, 2009; DVD 0538733551 Stuff that we leave behind; Environmental Science in the Headlines, 2007; DVD; ISBN 0495385433 Who Pays the Price for Technology? The Brooks/Cole Environmental Science Video Library, 2009; DVD 0538733551 Additional Video Resources American Experience: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (PBS Documentary Series) “Her warning sparked a revolution in environmental policy and created a new ecological consciousness.” A Civil Action (movie, 1999) The families of children who died sue two companies for dumping toxic waste. Crapshoot: The Gamble with our wastes (Documentary, 2004) A look at the failure of our current sewage system, and present alternatives http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/craps.html National Geographic: Human Footprint (Documentary, 2008) This is an exploration of the amount of waste that people generate. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/human-footprint-3224/Overview Toxic Wastes (Documentary, 2004) part 1. A History of Toxic Wastes in the Biosphere; Part 2: Toxic Waste Today http://www.hawkhill.com/index.php?content=product&product=23 Up Close and Toxic (Documentary, 2004) What are the hazards in our own homes. http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/up.html Waste (1985) Surprising introduction to the many facets of our waste problem http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/waste.html Web Resources Earth 911 http://earth911.org/ A valuable resource for recycling and sustainability. Suggested Answers to End of Chapter Questions Review Questions 1. Review the Key Questions and Concepts for this chapter on p. 558. Describe the problems associated with electronic waste (e- waste) (Core Case Study). Answer: • Most e- waste ends up in landfills and incinerators. It includes high- quality plastics and valuable metals such as aluminum, copper, nickel, platinum, silver, and gold. E- waste is also a source of toxic and hazardous pollutants, including polyvinylchloride (PVC), brominated flame retardants, lead, and mercury, which can contaminate air, surface water, groundwater, and soil and cause serious health problems and even early death for e- waste workers. 2. Distinguish among solid waste, industrial solid waste, municipal solid waste (MSW), and hazardous (toxic) waste and give an example of each. Give two reasons for sharply reducing the amount of solid and hazardous waste we produce. Describe the production of solid waste in the United States and what happens to it. Answer: • Solid waste is any unwanted or discarded material we produce that is not a liquid or a gas, such as a box. • Industrial solid waste produced by mines, agriculture, and industries that supply people with goods and services, such as extra packaging. • Municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage or trash, consists of the combined solid waste produced by homes and workplaces. Examples include paper and cardboard, food wastes, cans, bottles, yard wastes, furniture, plastics, metals, glass, wood, and e-waste. • Hazardous, or toxic, waste threatens human health or the environment because it is poisonous, dangerously chemically reactive, corrosive, or flammable. Examples include industrial solvents, hospital medical waste, car batteries (containing lead and acids), household pesticide products, dry-cell batteries (containing mercury and cadmium), and ash from incinerators and coal-burning power plants. • There are two reasons for sharply reducing the amount of solid and hazardous wastes we produce. One reason is that at least three-fourths of these materials represent an unnecessary waste of the earth’s resources. Studies show that we could copy nature by reducing resource use and reusing or recycling up to 90% of the MSW we produce. A second reason is that the production of the products we use and often discard creates huge amounts of air pollution, greenhouse gases, water pollution, land degradation, and ocean pollution. • About 98.5% of all solid waste produced in the United States is industrial solid waste from mining (76%), agriculture (13%), and industry (9.5%). The remaining 1.5% of U.S. solid waste is municipal solid waste (MSW), the largest categories of which are paper and cardboard (33% of total U.S. MSW), yard waste (13%), food waste (13%), plastics (12%), and metals (8%). This 1.5% of the overall U.S. solid waste problem is still huge. Each year, the United States generates enough MSW to fill a bumper-to-bumper convoy of garbage trucks encircling the globe almost eight times! About 67% of it is dumped in landfills or incinerated, but much of it ends up as litter. 3. Distinguish among waste management, waste reduction, and integrated waste management. Describe the priorities that prominent scientists believe we should use for dealing with solid waste. What is garbology and how might it help us to deal with MSW? Distinguish among reducing, reusing, and recycling in dealing with the waste we produce. Describe six ways in which industries and communities can reduce resource use, waste, and pollution. Answer: • Waste management attempts to manage wastes in ways that reduce their environmental harm without seriously trying to reduce the amount of waste produced. It typically involves mixing wastes together and then transferring them from one part of the environment to another, usually by burying them, burning them, or shipping them to another location. • Waste reduction tries to produce much less waste and pollution, and the wastes that are produced are considered to be potential resources that can be reused, recycled, or composted. • Integrated waste management uses a variety of strategies for both waste reduction and waste management. • Scientists call for much greater emphasis on waste reduction than what they have found in the United States (and in most industrialized countries). See Figure 21-6 Integrated waste management: priorities suggested by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for dealing with solid waste. • Garbologists work in the fashion of archaeologists, sorting, weighing, and itemizing people’s trash, and to bore holes in garbage dumps and analyze what they find. This may bring to light the longevity of much of the trash we generate and inform people of the need for another approach. • Waste reduction based on three Rs: ○ Reduce: consume less and live a simpler lifestyle. ○ Reuse: rely more on items that can be used repeatedly instead of on throwaway items, and buy necessary items secondhand or borrow or rent them. ○ Recycle: separate and recycle paper, glass, cans, plastics, metal, and other items, and buy products made from recycled materials. • Strategies that industries and governments can use to reduce resource use, waste, and pollution include: ○ Redesign manufacturing processes and products to use less material and energy. ○ Redesign manufacturing processes to produce less waste and pollution. ○ Develop products that are easy to repair, reuse, remanufacture, compost, or recycle. ○ Eliminate or reduce unnecessary packaging. ○ Use fee-per-bag waste collection systems that charge consumers for the amount of waste they throw away but provide free pickup of recyclable and reusable items. ○ Establish cradle-to-grave responsibility laws that require companies to take back various discarded consumer products such as electronic equipment, appliances, and motor vehicles, as Japan and many European countries do. ○ Restructure urban transportation systems to rely more on mass transit and bicycles than on cars. 4. Explain why reusing and recycling materials are so important and give two examples of each. Describe the importance of using refillable containers and list five other ways to reuse various items. Distinguish between primary (closed- loop) and secondary recycling, and give an example of each. Describe two approaches to recycling household solid wastes and evaluate each approach. What is a materials-recovery facility? What is composting? Answer: • Reusing items decreases the use of matter and energy resources and reduces pollution and natural capital degradation; recycling does so to a lesser degree. Two examples of reuse are taking your own bags to the grocery store and not using and throwing away paper plates at every meal. Two examples of recycling are taking kitchen waste to a compost pile and creating fertilizer out of it and using grey water captured from run off of roofs to water your lawn. • In today’s modern societies, we have increasingly substituted throwaway items for reusable ones, which has resulted in growing masses of solid waste. For example, if the 1 billion throwaway paper coffee cups used by one famous chain of donut shops each year were lined up end-to-end, they would encircle the earth two times. Rewarding those who bring their own refillable coffee mugs would help to reduce this waste. • There are many ways to reuse some of the items you buy. ○ Buy beverages in refillable glass containers instead of cans or throwaway bottles. ○ Use reusable plastic or metal lunchboxes. ○ Carry sandwiches and store food in the refrigerator in reusable containers instead of wrapping them in aluminum foil or plastic wrap. ○ Use rechargeable batteries and recycle them when their useful life is over. ○ Carry groceries and other items in a reusable basket, a canvas or string bag, or a small cart. ○ Buy used furniture, computers, cars, and other items instead of buying new. ○ Give away or sell items you no longer use. • Primary, or closed-loop, recycling involves materials being recycled into new products of the same type. For example, used aluminum cans are turned into new aluminum cans. • Secondary recycling involves waste materials converted into different products. For example, used tires can be shredded and turned into rubberized road surfacing, and newspapers can be reprocessed into cellulose insulation. • Two types of wastes that can be recycled: pre consumer, or internal waste, generated in a manufacturing process and postconsumer, or external waste, generated by consumer use of products. Pre consumer waste makes up more than three-fourths of the total. • Recycle by sending mixed urban wastes to centralized materials recovery facilities (MRFs or “murfs”); involves machines or workers who separate the mixed wastes to recover valuable materials for sale to manufacturers as raw materials. The remaining paper, plastics, and other combustible wastes are recycled or burned to produce steam or electricity, which is used to run the recovery plant or sold to nearby industries or homes. • Composting is a form of recycling that mimics nature’s recycling of nutrients. It involves using decomposer bacteria to recycle yard trimmings, food scraps, and other biodegradable organic wastes. The resulting organic material can be added to soil to supply plant nutrients, slow soil erosion, retain water, and improve crop yields. 5. Describe the recycling of paper and the problems involved. Describe the recycling of plastics and the problems involved. Describe progress being made in the recycling of plastics. What are bioplastics? What are some possible problems with relying on biodegradable conventional plastics? What are the major advantages and disadvantages of recycling? What are three factors that discourage recycling? Describe three ways to encourage recycling and reuse. Explain why reduced resource use and reuse are more important that recycling for reducing wastes and pollution. Answer: • Paper (especially newspaper and cardboard) is easy to recycle. Recycling newspaper involves removing its ink, glue, and coating and then reconverting it to pulp, which is pressed into new paper. Making recycled paper uses 64% less energy and produces 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than does making paper from wood, and no trees are cut down. In 2007, the United States recycled about 56% of its wastepaper (up from 25% in 1989). • Despite a 56% recycling rate, the amount of paper thrown away each year in the United States is more than all of the paper used in China. Also, about 95% of books and magazines produced in the United States are printed on virgin paper. Recycled paper of the quality required is often hard to get and costs more than conventional paper. One problem associated with making paper is the chlorine (Cl2) and chlorine compounds (such as chlorine dioxide, ClO2), used to bleach about 40% of the world’s pulp for making paper. These compounds are corrosive to processing equipment, hazardous for workers, hard to recover and reuse, and harmful when released into the environment. • Currently, only about 4% by weight of all plastic wastes in the United States is recycled. The percentage of plastic waste that is recycled is low for three reasons. First, many plastics are hard to isolate from other wastes because the many different resins used to make them are often difficult to identify, and some plastics are composites of different resins. Most plastics also contain stabilizers and other chemicals that must be removed before recycling. Second, recovering individual plastic resins does not yield much material because only small amounts of any given resin are used in each product. Third, the inflation- adjusted price of oil used to produce petrochemicals for making plastic resins is low enough to make the cost of virgin plastic resins much lower than that of recycled resins. An exception is PET (polyethylene terephthalate), used mostly in plastic drink bottles. However, PET collected for recycling must not have other plastics mixed with it; a single PVC (polyvinyl chloride) bottle in a truckload of PET can render it useless for recycling. • Bioplastics are plastics made from biologically based chemicals. See Science Focus: Bioplastics. • Relying on biodegradable conventional plastics may promote throwing away instead of recycling and can add potentially toxic products to the soil and water during the breakdown process. • Advantages of recycling solid waste include: reduces air and water pollution, saves energy, reduces mineral demand, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, reduces solid waste production and disposal, helps protect biodiversity, can save landfill space, and serves as an important part of economy. Disadvantages include burying in areas with ample landfill space, may lose money for items such as glass and some plastics, reduces profits for landfill and incinerator owners, and source separation is inconvenient for some people. • Three factors hinder reuse and recycling. ○ The market prices of almost all products do not include the harmful environmental and health costs associated with producing, using, and discarding them. ○ The economic playing field is uneven, because in most countries, resource-extracting industries receive more government tax breaks and subsidies than reuse and recycling industries. ○ The demand, and thus the price paid, for recycled materials fluctuates, mostly because buying goods made with recycled materials is not a priority for most governments, businesses, and individuals. • How can we encourage reuse and recycling? Proponents say that leveling the economic playing field is the best way to start. Governments can increase subsidies and tax breaks for reusing and recycling materials (the carrot) and decrease subsidies and tax breaks for making items from virgin resources (the stick). Other strategies are to greatly increase use of the fee-per-bag waste collection system and to encourage or require government purchases of recycled products to help increase demand and lower prices of these products. Governments can also pass laws requiring companies to take back and reuse or recycle packaging and electronic waste discarded by consumers, as is done in Japan and most European Union countries. • Reducing resource consumption and reusing resources are more effective prevention approaches to reducing the flow and waste of resources than recycling alone. 6. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of using incinerators to burn solid and hazardous waste? Distinguish between open dumps and sanitary landfills. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of burying solid waste in sanitary landfills? From a scientific standpoint, why is it not a good idea to mix wastes for burial? Answer: • Advantages of incinerating solid include: reduces trash volume, less need for landfills, low water pollution, concentrates hazardous substances into ash for burial, sale of energy reduces cost, modern controls reduce air pollution, and some facilities recover and sell metals. Disadvantages include: expensive to build, costs more than short-distance hauling to landfills, difficult to site because of citizen opposition, some air pollution and CO2 emissions, older or poorly managed facilities can release large amounts of air pollution, output approach encourages waste production, and can compete with recycling for burnable materials such as newspaper. • There are two types of landfills. Open dumps are essentially fields or holes in the ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes burned. They are rare in developed countries, but are widely used near major cities in many developing countries. In newer landfills, called sanitary landfills, solid wastes are spread out in thin layers, compacted, and covered daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam, which helps to keep the material dry and reduces leakage of contaminated water. • State-of-the-art sanitary landfills are designed to eliminate or minimize environmental problems that plague older landfills. Advantages of burying waste in such landfills include: reduces trash volume, less need for landfills, low water pollution, concentrates hazardous substances into ash for burial, sale of energy reduces cost, modern controls reduce air pollution, and some facilities recover and sell metals. Disadvantages include: Noise and traffic, dust, air pollution from toxic gases and trucks, releases greenhouse gases (methane and CO2) unless they are collected, slow decomposition of wastes, output approach that encourages waste production, eventually leaks and can contaminate groundwater. • The second law of thermodynamics dictates that we should be never mix different types of waste that we may want to separate later. 7. What are the priorities that scientists believe we should use in dealing with hazardous waste? Explain the connection between cell phones and African lowland gorillas. Discuss the problems involved in sending e-wastes to some less-developed countries for recycling. What are some ways to do responsible e-waste recycling? Describe three ways to detoxify hazardous waste. What is bioremediation? What is phytoremediation? What are the major advantages and disadvantages of incinerating hazardous wastes? What are the major advantages and disadvantages of using a plasma arc torch to detoxify hazardous wastes? Answer: • A sustainable approach to hazardous waste is first to produce less of it, then to reuse or recycle it, then to convert it to less hazardous materials, and finally to safely store what is left. • In recent years there has been rapid expansion of both legal and illegal mining in the Congo for coltan, which is used in the manufacture of cell phones. The Congo holds about 80% of the world’s coltan reserves and this extraction has dramatically reduced the habitat of lowland gorillas and other species. • The value of the metals that can be recycled is such that poor workers are exposed to considerably hazardous conditions to mine the waste of its valuable components. • Consumers could resist the frequent upgrading of cell phones, computers, and other electronic equipment. When they do discard these devices, they could donate them to schools and small business for reuse, return them to manufacturers or stores that accept such items for recycling, or find a responsible recycler. • We can use physical methods, chemical methods or bioremediation. • In bioremediation, a contaminated site is inoculated with an army of microorganisms that breakdown specific hazardous chemicals, leaving behind harmless substances such as water. • Phytoremediation involves using natural or genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter, and remove contaminants from polluted soil and water. Various plants have been identified as “pollution sponges,” which can help to clean up soil and water contaminated with chemicals such as pesticides, organic solvents, and radioactive or toxic metals. • Advantages of phytoremediation include: easy to establish, inexpensive, can reduce material dumped into landfills and produces little air pollution compared to incineration. • Disadvantages of phytoremediation include: slow (can take several growing seasons), effective only at depth plant roots can reach, some toxic organic chemicals may evaporate from plant leaves and some plants can become toxic to animals. • The advantages of incineration are that it reduces trash volume, produces energy, and concentrates hazardous substances into ash for burial. The disadvantages are that the facilities are expensive to build, they produce hazardous waste, emits some CO2 and other air pollutants and they may encourages waste production. • One way to detoxify hazardous wastes is by using a plasma arc torch, somewhat similar to a welding torch, to incinerate them at very high temperatures. This process decomposes liquid or solid hazardous organic waste into ions and atoms that can be converted into simple molecules, cleaned up, and released as a gas. The high temperatures can also convert hazardous inorganic matter into a molten glassy material that can be used to encapsulate toxic metals and keep them from leaching into groundwater. However, this process is expensive, produces CO and CO2, and can vaporize and release toxic metals and radioactive elements into the atmosphere. 8. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of disposing of liquid hazardous wastes in (a) deep under-ground wells and (b) surface impoundments? What is a secure hazardous waste landfill? List three ways to reduce your output of hazardous waste. Describe the regulation of hazardous waste in the United States under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability (or Superfund) Act. What is a brownfield? Answer: • Advantages of deep-well disposal include: safe method if sites are chosen carefully, wastes can often be retrieved if problems develop, easy to do and low cost. • Disadvantages of deep-well disposal include: Leaks or spills at surface, leaks from corrosion of well casing, existing fractures or earthquakes can allow wastes to escape into groundwater and output approach that encourages waste production. • Advantages of surface impoundments include: low construction costs, low operating costs, can be built quickly, wastes can often be retrieved if necessary and can store wastes indefinitely with secure double liners. • Disadvantages of surface impoundments include: groundwater contamination from leaking liners (or no lining), air pollution from volatile organic compounds, overflow from flooding, disruption and leakage from earthquakes and output approach that encourages waste production. • Sometimes liquid and solid hazardous wastes are put into drums or other containers and buried in carefully designed and monitored secure hazardous waste landfills. • Three ways to reduce hazardous waste include avoiding the use of pesticides and other hazardous chemicals, using less harmful and substances, and avoiding the disposal of pesticides, paints, solvents, oil, antifreeze, or other hazardous chemicals by flushing them down the toilet, pouring them down the drain, burying them, throwing them into the garbage, or dumping them down storm drains. • About 5% of all hazardous waste produced in the United States is regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA, pronounced “RICKra”), passed in 1976 and amended in 1984. The EPA sets standards for management of several types of hazardous waste and issues permits to companies allowing them to produce and dispose of a certain amount of wastes in acceptable ways. Permit holders must use a cradle-to-grave system to keep track of waste they transfer from a point of generation (cradle) to an approved off-site disposal facility (grave), and they must submit proof of this disposal to the EPA. • The U.S. Congress and several state legislatures have also passed laws that encourage the cleanup of brownfields—abandoned industrial and commercial sites such as factories, junkyards, older landfills, and gas stations. In most cases, they are contaminated with hazardous wastes. Brownfields can be cleaned up and reborn as parks, nature reserves, athletic fields, eco-industrial parks, and neighborhoods. 9. How has grassroots action improved solid and hazardous waste management in the United States? What is environmental justice and how well has it been applied in locating and cleaning up hazardous waste sites in the United States? Describe regulation of hazardous wastes at the global level through the Basel Convention and the treaty to control persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Answer: • In the United States, individuals have organized to prevent the construction of hundreds of incinerators, landfills, treatment plants for hazardous and radioactive wastes, and polluting chemical plants in or near their communities. • Environmental justice is an ideal whereby every person is entitled to protection from environmental hazards regardless of race, gender, age, national origin, income, social class, or any political factor. Lessening or eliminating environmental discrimination in the United States and in other parts of the world has led to a growing grassroots movement known as the environmental justice movement. Supporters of this movement have pressured governments, businesses, and environmental groups to become aware of environmental injustice and to act to prevent it. They have made some progress toward their goals, but there is a long way to go. • In 1989, the UNEP developed an international treaty known as the Basel Convention. It banned developed countries that participate in the treaty from shipping hazardous waste (including e-waste) to or through other countries without their permission. In 1995, the treaty was amended to outlaw all transfers of hazardous wastes from industrial countries to developing countries. By 2009, this agreement had been ratified by 152 countries, but not by the United States. This ban will help, but it will not wipe out the very profitable illegal waste trade. Smugglers evade the laws by using an array of tactics, including bribes, false permits, and mislabeling of hazardous wastes as materials to be recycled. In 2000, delegates from 122 countries completed a global treaty to control 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs). These widely used toxic chemicals can accumulate in the fatty tissues of humans and other organisms at high trophic levels in food webs. 10. Define and give two examples of biomimicry. Describe the use of biomimicry in industrial systems. That are this chapter’s three big ideas? Describe the connection between dealing with the growing problem of e-waste (Core Case Study) and the three principles of sustainability. Answer: • Biomimicy is the science and art of discovering and using natural principles to help solve human problems. An example is that in nature, the waste outputs of one organism become the inputs for another organism. In addition, scientists have applied what they have learned from termite mounds to making buildings more efficient. • One way for industries to mimic nature is to reuse or recycle most of the minerals and chemicals they use. Another way for industries to mimic nature would be to interact through resource exchange webs in which the wastes of one manufacturer become the raw materials for another. • The three big ideas are: 1. The order of priorities for dealing with solid waste should be to produce less of it, reuse and recycle as much of it as possible, and safely dispose of what is left. 2. The order of priorities for dealing with hazardous waste should be to produce less of it, reuse or recycle it, convert it to less hazardous material, and safely store what is left. 3. We need to view solid wastes as wasted resources and hazardous wastes as materials that we should not be producing in the first place. • The growing problem of e- waste represents the problems of maintaining a high-waste, throw-away society. Greater use of renewable solar energy, wind, and flowing water will reduce our outputs of solid and hazardous waste, as will reusing and recycling materials by mimicking nature’s chemical cycling processes. Integrated waste management, using a diversity of approaches with emphasis on waste reduction and pollution prevention, is another useful way to mimic nature. Reducing the human population and the resources used per person would also decrease the demand for materials that eventually become solid and hazardous wastes. Critical Thinking The following are examples of the material that should be contained in possible student answers to the end of chapter Critical Thinking questions. They represent only a summary overview and serve to highlight the core concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be anticipated that the students will provide more in-depth and detailed responses to the questions depending on an individual instructor’s stated expectations. 1. Do you think that manufacturers of computers and television sets and other forms of e-waste (Core Case Study) should be required to take them back at the ends of their useful lives for repair, remanufacture, or recycling in a manner that is both environmentally responsible and that does not threaten the health of recycling workers? Explain. Would you be willing to pay more for these products to cover the costs of such a take-back program? If so, what percent more per purchase would you be willing to pay for electronic products? Answer: I don’t think that this should be required per se, unless we are prepared to apply the same regulation to all manufacturers producing goods that are potentially hazardous or harmful to the environment. However, there should be strong incentives for companies to do so, and the consumer public should demand that companies be responsible for the recycling of the products they produce. I would be willing to pay to cover the cost of such a program, though I think basing it on a percentage of the purchase price is misguided. Rather, the fee should be relative to the toxicity and cost of properly handling those toxins. 2. Find three items you regularly use once and then throw away. Are there other reusable items that you could use in place of these disposable items? Compare the cost of using the disposable option for a year versus the cost of using the alternatives. Answer: Our world has so many one-time use products that we go through all of the time, we cannot grasp the amount of materials we are wasting until the big number is in front of our faces. Items such as disposable razors come in bags of 5, 10, or even 20. The plausible solution to this would be to invest in a real razor that is reusable. The cost for this would be lower in the long run. Plastic bottles that contain water have become popular and have widespread use. These can be easily interchanged by just using a reusable Nalgene® water bottle and a sink! Some of the water that is sold in stores has just come out of a tap somewhere and is not regulated by the FDA. The water out of your tap is just as good and this would save a great deal both in monetary terms and materials. Toys that are given out in fast food restaurants are not meant to be long-lasting items that children will keep forever. I am sure that the majority of them end up breaking and being thrown away, ending up in a landfill. Parents could save lots of money by buying something that will last longer and not encourage this type of junk that will end up right back in the trash. It will also be healthier for their children. 3. Use the second law of thermodynamics (see Chapter 2, p. 47) to explain why a properly designed source-separation recycling program takes less energy and produces less pollution than a centralized program that collects mixed waste over a large area and hauls it to a central facility where workers or machinery separate the wastes for recycling. Answer: The second law of thermodynamics states that with each additional step or energy transfer, energy degrades in quality, or changes to a less useful form. The centralized program entails more steps than the source-separation model, and so more energy will be lost in the process of recycling. 4. Changing World Technologies has built a pilot plant to test a process it has developed for converting a mixture of computers, old tires, turkey bones and feathers, and other wastes into oil by mimicking and speeding up natural processes for converting biomass into oil. If this recycling process turns out to be technologically and economically feasible, explain why it could increase waste production. Answer: Having a system like this could help, but it could also completely reconfigure the way we think about the environment and the earth’s resources. The thought of having a process that will speed up the natural system would influence others to think that it would be OK for them to waste more and more. This results in a positive feedback loop being generated. The effect would be an overflow of waste and it would be very hard to control; the cycle would go out of whack. If we did not have to worry about the waste being generated, we would also not worry about using up natural resources to make the items in the first place! Although I do like the sound of this idea, I believe that we would need to educate people about being a wise consumer. Reusing is better than recycling! 5. Would you oppose having a hazardous waste landfill, waste treatment plant, deep-injection well, or waste incinerator in your community? For each of these facilities, explain your answer. If you oppose having such facilities in your community, how do you believe the hazardous waste generated in your community should be managed? Answer: I would not like to have any type of hazardous waste facility located near any residential area. They should not be located near schools, hospitals, town centers, or other places where people gather. If such facilities have to be constructed, I think the company who produces the waste should store it on their own site. Maybe then they might look at the manufacturing process in greater detail and move toward greener technologies that result in less hazardous waste generation. 6. How does your school dispose of its solid and hazardous waste? Does it have a recycling program? How well does it work? Does it have a hazardous waste collection system? If so, how does it work? List three ways to improve your school’s waste reduction and management system. Answer: The maintenance department oversees the wastes generated at the school. We have a number of dumpsters that are used for general trash, cardboard, paper, and other recyclables. The general waste is collected by a waste management company. Hazardous waste has to be disposed of under strict guidelines. For example, when the science storeroom was inventoried a few years ago, a special company was brought in to take away some of the old chemicals that were no longer used and/or were too dangerous to store with the new OSHA rules and regulations. On the recycling part of things, I have become very knowledgeable on the way that the paper and aluminum cans are being taken care of. Recently I have been very involved in starting a club to take over the recycling on campus. We now have our own paper bin that can support the entire school’s waste paper. We also have another for all aluminum cans and plastic and glass bottles. The club is run by students who are broken up into groups and assigned to a place on campus where they help with the pick-up of waste and bring it to the recycling dumpsters. We are also profiting from this and putting the money we raise toward projects on campus, such as habitat restoration. I would like to see more recycling bins all over the campus, in every classroom and other buildings. I would also like to educate people about wasting food, as I think that too much is thrown away. I would like to see that all handouts are done using two-sided copying. 7. Give your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with each of the following proposals for dealing with hazardous waste: a. Reduce the production of hazardous waste and encourage recycling and reuse of hazardous materials by charging producers a tax or fee for each unit of waste generated. b. Ban all land disposal and incineration of hazardous waste to protect air, water, and soil from contamination, and to encourage reuse, recycling, and treatment of wastes to make them less hazardous. c. Provide low-interest loans, tax breaks, and other financial incentives to encourage industries that produce hazardous waste to reduce, reuse, recycle, treat, and decompose such waste. Answer: (a) Hazardous waste is something that has to be dealt with and needs proper care. Yes, I do believe that we could reuse the waste but we must be careful about how we do this. We need to make sure that the process of recycling is not more hazardous than disposing of the waste. Some waste from one industry may be the raw product of another industry. This would be a good way to deal with the waste. With the technology that we have today, I believe we can recycle or reuse the waste items. In any case, any business or industrial process that produces hazardous waste should be subject to some form of taxation. (b) Yes, I like this suggestion; but what if we have something that is very dangerous and cannot be recycled? In the future we can look forward to increased biological waste treatment, which is less hazardous than the methods used today in land disposal or incinerators. By stopping all land disposals we are protecting the future from groundwater and soil contamination. By ceasing the incineration of hazardous waste we can protect air quality and the surrounding area from contaminated fallout. We should encourage more recycling, reuse, and treatment of hazardous waste. I do not really think that an outright ban would ever become law but it is a good idea. Maybe the construction of new land disposal sites or incinerators could be banned more easily. (c) Yes, I believe that this would influence the companies. Their costs are so great that even a small percentage change by a tax reduction would translate into a large amount of money. Over a period of time that could help a company save some of the costs involved in reducing, recycling, etc. So yes, this would be a big incentive to apply the tax break or financial incentives in order to reduce the amount of hazardous waste that is generated. 8. List three ways in which you could apply Concept 21-6 to making your lifestyle more environmentally sustainable. Answer: Answers may vary. Some examples include: purchasing recycled paper products, shifting to reusable versions of common throwaway items such as to-go cups, and recycling items that are recyclable such as beverage containers. 1. Use eco-friendly products: Opt for items made from recycled or biodegradable materials. 2. Minimize waste: Reduce, reuse, and recycle to cut down on waste. 3. Support sustainable brands: Choose companies with strong environmental practices. 9. Congratulations! You are in charge of the world. List the three most important components of your strategy for dealing with (a) solid waste and (b) hazardous waste. Answer: There are different ways to take care of this issue, as many people have different environmental worldviews and environmental ethics. To find a solution that would please everyone would be very hard. (a) To deal with the solid waste, I would first want to find out how the waste is being produced and see if there was any way that I could stop it at the point source. If reduction at the point source can be implemented, then we can start to decrease the amount of waste that is generated. If too much waste continues to be produced, there will be an increase in disposal fees; increasing the price may encourage reduction. To treat this waste I would put it through a recycling process so that it could be used for another product in the future. I would make this recycling a mandatory approach that every company needs to adopt. Recycling old appliances, etc. and not simply throwing them into a landfill has to occur more often than not. (b) On the other hand, the hazardous waste that is produced is something that is a little bit more complicated to address. This effects the environment that we all live in. As I think about my ethics, I ask myself whether we should only think about our place in the world as humans and nothing else around us. No, we need to consider every species around us, as they all have a purpose. Not only do we need other species, but they need us to survive. Hazardous waste is difficult to deal with and we need to consider its adverse effects on all aspects of the environment. We can recycle it, which is a better option than having to deal with it at a waste disposal facility. I also believe that it can be broken down into less hazardous forms and be dealt with in a safer way. There is not really a method that can deal with it yet that is safer and more efficient than burying the waste. In the future, I hope we can come up with a way to completely reuse these products. The best thing, however, would be not to generate it in the first place. As for those who do generate it, large fees would be imposed. I would also bring households under some form of regulation as many people dispose of small amounts of waste over a long period of time, which can cause much environmental damage. 10. List two questions you would like to have answered as a result of reading this chapter. Answer: 1. How should businesses communicate sustainability? 2. What drives consumer preference for sustainable products? Ecological Footprint Analysis The average daily municipal solid waste production per person in the United States in 2008 was 2.04 kilograms (4.48 pounds). Use the data in the pie chart below to get an idea of a typical annual MSW ecological footprint for each American by calculating the total weight in kilograms (and pounds) for each category generated during a year. (1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds) ANSWERS Paper (31%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.31 = 0.632 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.632 kilograms x 365 = 231 kilograms 231 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 508 pounds Yard trimmings (13.2%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.132 = 0.269 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.269 kilograms x 365 = 98.3 kilograms 98.3 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 216 pounds Food scraps (12.7%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.127 = 0.259 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.259 kilograms x 365 = 94.6 kilograms 94.6 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 208 pounds Plastics (12%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.12 = 0.245 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.245 kilograms x 365 = 89.4 kilograms 89.4 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 197 pounds Metals (8.4%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.084 = 0.171 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.171 kilograms x 365 = 62.5 kilograms 62.5 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 138 pounds Rubber, leather, textiles (7.9%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.079 = 0.161 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.161 kilograms x 365 = 58.8 kilograms 58.8 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 129 pounds Wood (6.6%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.066 = 0.135 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.135 kilograms x 365 = 49.1 kilograms 49.1 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 108 pounds Glass (4.9%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.049 = 0.100 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.100 kilograms x 365 = 36.5 kilograms 36.5 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 80.3 pounds Other (3.3%) Weight per day = total weight x % = 2.04 kilograms x 0.033 = 0.067 kilograms Weight per year = weight per day x 365 = 0.067 kilograms x 365 = 24.6 kilograms 24.6 kilograms x 2.2 pounds/kilogram = 54.1 pounds Chapter 22 Cities and Sustainability Summary 1. Almost half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and half in rural areas. Government policies, poverty, lack of land to grow food, declining agricultural jobs, famine, and war that force people out of rural areas are all factors that determine how urban areas develop. 2. Urban areas are rarely self-sustaining, threaten biodiversity, destroy and damage ecosystems, lack trees, grow little of their own food, concentrate pollutants and noise, spread infectious disease, and are centers of poverty, crimes, and terrorism. 3. Urban areas relying on mass transportation spread vertically and urban areas relying on automobiles spread horizontally. Advantages of automobiles include convenience, personal benefits, and boosted economies, Disadvantages include air pollution, promotion of urban sprawl, increase in death rate, and time- and gas-wasting traffic jams. Advantages of bicycles and motor scooters include low cost, little to no air or noise pollution, require little space, and are energy efficient. Disadvantages include little accident protection, impractical for long distances, can be tiring, little parking, and gas scooter engines emit high air pollution. Mass transit rail systems are more energy efficient than cars, produce lower air pollution, require less land, cause fewer injuries and deaths, and reduce car congestion. Disadvantages include high cost to build and maintain, rigid schedules, noise pollution, and they are cost effective only in densely populated areas. Buses are more flexible than rail systems, can easily be rerouted, cost less to develop, and can reduce car use. Disadvantages include rigid schedules, noise pollution, and they are not always cost efficient. Rapid rail systems can reduce car and plane travel, are ideal for long trips, and are more efficient than cars and planes. Disadvantages include high operation and maintenance cost, noise pollution, and they are not always cost efficient. 4. Land-use planning, zoning, and smart growth can be used for planning and controlling urban growth. 5. Cities can be made more sustainable and more desirable places to live by creating parks, greenbelts, urban growth boundaries, cluster developments, mixed-use villages, greenways, and ecocities. Key Questions and Concepts 22-1 What Are the Major Population Trends in Urban Areas? CORE CASE STUDY: More environmentally sustainable cities are possible. Curitiba, Brazil, is one such example. Beginning in 1969, planners began developing extensive public transit systems. They improved their parks and natural drainages, and implemented comprehensive recycling programs. They have also initiated many social programs. This city of 3.2 million people is proof that sustainable urban centers are a possibility. A. Urban populations are attracting more and more people throughout the world, developing into centers of poverty. 1. About one half of the world’s people live in cities/densely populated urban areas. 2. Cities provide jobs, food, housing, a better life, entertainment, and freedom from religious, racial, and political conflicts of village life. 3. People are pushed to cities by poverty, no land, declining work, famine, and war. B. Urban trends that affect urban growth are: 1. The number/proportion of people living in urban areas is growing. a. Most urban areas are along countries’ coastal areas. b. Most huge urban areas are in developing countries. 2. The number of large cities (a million or more people) is increasing rapidly. a. Megacities or megalopolises contain 10 million+ people. b. Megalopolis is a merger of a city (cities) and adjacent urban areas. 3. Urban population is rapidly increasing in developing countries. 4. Urban growth is much more rapid in developing countries, but developed countries will be 84% urbanized by 2030. 5. Poverty is becoming more common in urban areas, especially in developing countries. CASE STUDY: The percentage of the U.S. population living in urban areas has increased from 5% in 1800 to 79% today. This transition occurred in four phases. First, people first migrated from rural areas to large central cities, and then people migrated from large central cities to suburbs/smaller cities. Next, people migrated from the North and East to the South and West, and finally some have migrated away from urban areas back to rural areas. Older cities tend to have deteriorating services and aging infrastructures. C. Urban areas tend to sprawl outward and eat up surrounding countryside—urban sprawl. 1. Several factors promoted urban sprawl in the U.S. 2. Undesirable consequences of urban sprawl are prevalent, although many people prefer living in sprawling suburbs and exurbs. 3. As sprawl continues, metropolitan areas join one another to form a megalopolis. 22-2 What Are the Major Urban Resource and Environmental Problems? A. The advantages of urbanization: 1. Cities are centers of economic development, jobs, commerce, and transportation. 2. Urban populations are generally healthier, with better access to medical care, family planning information, education, and social services. 3. Recycling is more feasible and environmental protection is better supported. 4. People concentrated in an area preserves biodiversity and wildlife habitats. B. The disadvantages of urbanization: 1. They have huge ecological footprints. 2. They lack vegetation. 3. They have water problems. 4. The concentrate pollution and health problems. 5. They have excessive noise. 6. They have a different climate and experience light pollution. C. The urban poor and the rural poor both live in unhealthy conditions. 1. Large cities have squatter settlements and shantytowns for the poor. a. They often lack clean water, sewers, electricity, etc. There are often severe air, water, and hazardous waste pollutants. CASE STUDY: Mexico City is an urban area in crisis. It suffers from severe pollution, poverty, overcrowding, and unemployment. Many people have no sewer facilities, and the city has one of the world’s worst air pollution problems. The city’s air and water pollution causes 100,000 premature deaths per year. Some progress has been made, however, in lowering the number of days each year in which air pollution standards are violated. 22-3 How Does Transportation Affect Urban Environmental Impacts? A. The amount of available land determines if a city grows outward or upward as well as the type of transportation systems used. 1. Those in compact cities, those growing upward, use mass transit systems, walk, or ride bicycles. 2. Those people in dispersed cities use individual automobile transportation. B. Cars rule in the United States because of large areas of relatively cheap land. 1. The U.S. is overrun with automobiles; with 4.6% of the world’s population, its has almost one-third of the world’s motor vehicles C. Cars have advantages and disadvantages. 1. Cars make people mobile and fuel the economy. 2. Cars kill people, pollute, and waste time when traffic jams occur. D. To reduce automobile use, users could be required to pay for the car’s harm by paying greater gasoline taxes, giving up the government subsidies for cars, subsidizing mass transit systems, and raising use fees. CASE STUDY: Car sharing networks are a convenient alternative for city dwellers who wish to reduce the burden of car ownership. Zipcar is a company that offers this service. Membership has doubled nearly every year from 1999 to 2009. E. There are several alternatives to motor vehicles, including bicycles, rail systems, buses, etc. 22-4 How Important Is Urban Land-Use Planning? A. Most land-use planning in the United States is based on continued population growth and therefore leads to urban sprawl and environmental degradation. B. Zoning can be used to control growth and protect certain areas, but can also discourage innovative solutions to environmental problems. C. Smart growth discourages urban sprawl, protects ecologically sensitive land and water, and develops environmentally sustainable urban areas. CASE STUDY: Portland, Oregon has for many years used smart growth to control sprawl. Since 1975, the city’s population has grown by 50%, yet it’s urban area has expanded by only 2%. D. Open space can be preserved by urban growth boundaries, greenbelts, small and large parks, and cluster developments. 22-5 How Can Cities Become More Sustainable and Livable? A. Cluster development living units are clustered together and larger chunks of land are left for open space. B. Some communities are embracing new urbanism, which is guided by principles of walkability, mixed use and diversity, quality urban design, environmental sustainability, and smart transportation. CASE STUDY: Vauban is a suburb of Freiburg, Germany, that was designed to be virtually free of cars, and where all residents live in multi-unit buildings. C. Ecocities go a step further, and are designed to allow people to walk, bike, or take mass transit for most of their travel; ecocities recycle and reuse most of their wastes, grow their own food, and protect biodiversity by preserving land. SCIENCE FOCUS: There are several approaches to growing food sustainably in urban areas. Rooftop gardens relying on greenhouses are already being implemented in some cities. Hydroponic indoor gardens could share the spaces occupied by offices, and skyscraper farms could be built to provide multiple crops and thoroughly recycle all nutrients and waste. Costs are high, but as water and energy become scarcer, these options may provide solutions for the future. D. Ecovillages and eco-hoods are small groups within urban and suburban areas that are designing and implementing more sustainable approaches to urban living. CASE STUDY: Living buildings are built around several design goals. The building should take into account the characteristics of the surrounding ecoregion, should only rely on renewable resources, should recycle all water, and should be energy efficient. Teaching Tips Large Lecture Courses: Invite students to suggest ways in which their city or town might be improved in terms of sustainability. Why has this not happened? Explore with them the many factors that tend to obstruct our path toward sustainability. Smaller Lecture Courses: Suppose that there is a measure to be voted on that would call for the creation of a greenbelt around your city or town. Divide the class on the issue and then foster a debate over whether or not this measure should pass. What would be the benefits? What would be the negative consequences? Key Terms land-use planning noise pollution smart growth urban growth urbanization urban sprawl zoning Term Paper Research Topics 1. Environmental effects of urban areas: air pollution; land degradation from urban sprawl; noise pollution; habitat preservation; recycling and birth rates in urban areas. 2. Sustainable cities—transportation, and land-use planning: central city lifestyles; mass transit systems: BART, METRO; case study in sustainable living: Davis, California; green spaces; building self-sufficient cities; Tapiola, Finland; the multiple-nuclei model of urban spatial structure; compact cities; Curitiba, Brazil; Chattanooga, TN. 3. Case studies of particular urban areas and their problems: Mexico City, the Boston-Washington corridor. 4. Migrations: rural-to-urban migration in the developing countries; the metropolitan-to-non-metropolitan shift; the Sun Belt shift—social, economic, and political implications; ghetto expansion—growth by invasion and succession; current immigration policy in the United States. 5. Case studies on one of the attempts to create ecocities; see community list on p. 567. 6. Individual: decisions individuals make about family size and urban conditions and ways individuals can influence government agencies and nongovernmental institutions concerned with population. 7. Urban area: discouraging the use of autos in crowded city centers; preserving small open spaces in cities; HUD's new-towns program; the free enterprise zone concept: is it working? 8. Regional: urban renewal programs; mass transit systems. 9. National: U.S. aid programs for cities; national land-use planning in Japan. Discussion Topics 1. Do you think it's right for middle- and upper-class whites to displace urban blacks and renew cities? What's the difference between urban renewal and black removal? Answer: It is problematic for middle- and upper-class whites to displace urban blacks under the guise of urban renewal, as it often leads to gentrification and the displacement of marginalized communities. Urban renewal should focus on inclusive development benefiting all residents, while "black removal" refers to the exclusion and displacement of black communities, often exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities. 2. Which cities do you think are most desirable in which to live? Why? Answer: Cities like Copenhagen, Tokyo, and Vancouver are often considered desirable due to their high quality of life, efficient public transportation, strong economies, cultural offerings, and environmental sustainability. These cities tend to offer a good balance of work opportunities, safety, public services, and a vibrant cultural scene. 3. Which patterns of urban development do you find most desirable? Why? Answer: Mixed-use, walkable urban development is most desirable as it promotes accessibility, reduces reliance on cars, and fosters vibrant, diverse communities. This approach integrates residential, commercial, and recreational spaces, encourages social interaction, and supports sustainable living by minimizing urban sprawl and preserving natural spaces. Activities and Projects 1. Ask your students to share with the class poems, short stories, songs, paintings, collages, photographic displays, slide talks, or other works expressing their feelings about urban life. 2. As a class project, investigate the fate of agricultural land in your city's vicinity. Is anything being done to prevent prime agricultural land from being overtaken by urban sprawl? 3. Ask an urban planner to talk to your class about the various problems and opportunities related to land-use planning in your locale. 4. Have several students attend a zoning hearing (or other public forum for land-use planning and decision making) in your locale and describe the proceedings to the class. 5. As a class, research the environmental impact of the growing populations of the developing countries and developed countries. Find data comparing the impact of children from developing countries and developed countries. Project the responsibilities for environmental degradation by future human populations from developing countries and developed countries. Collect data on the birth control policies of representative developing countries and developed countries. Hold a brainstorming session about strategies to control the human population. See if a consensus can be formed about appropriate strategies for limiting the environmental damage of human populations. 6. Show your students some color slides or photographs of urban blight in your community. Ask them to identify the causes of these problems and to suggest a variety of approaches to solving them. 7. As a class project, analyze your local transportation network. Outline a socially and ecologically responsible plan for an improved transportation network featuring a mix of individual and mass transit methods, and paratransit methods. Investigate the extent to which bicycling has been or could be adopted as an integral part of your community's transportation system. What specific policies and actions would promote commuter bicycling in your city or town? 8. Outline the principal elements of an ecological land-use plan for your community. Are there topographic or other physical elements of your community's landscape that offer unusually good opportunities to "design with nature"? 9. As a class project, investigate the fate of agricultural land in your city's vicinity. Is anything being done to prevent prime agricultural land from being gobbled up by urban sprawl? 10. What geographic patterns of land use are evident in your city? As a class exercise, have your students determine the extent to which your city's spatial structure resembles that of the concentric-circle, sector, and multiple-nuclei models. 11. Should "city troubles" or "civic nausea" be accepted as the price of enjoying the city's advantages? Ask your students to suggest ways that urban life in your locale can be made simpler, quieter, slower, friendlier, and closer to nature. 12. As a class exercise, try to identify open spaces in your city or town that should be preserved. What uses can be made of these spaces? What methods can be used to preserve them? Attitudes and Values 1. How do you feel when you see skyscrapers? Clover-leaf highways? Parks? Green spaces? Answer: Skyscrapers can inspire awe with their architectural design but may also feel overwhelming and impersonal. Clover-leaf highways often symbolize convenience but can be visually unappealing and environmentally disruptive. Parks and green spaces, on the other hand, evoke feelings of tranquility and are valued for their beauty and recreational opportunities, offering a refreshing escape from urban density. 2. Are you familiar with mass transit possibilities in an urban center in your area? Answer: Familiarity with mass transit options varies, but they typically include buses, subways, and light rail systems. Effective mass transit offers a sustainable alternative to car travel, reducing traffic congestion, pollution, and promoting accessibility within the urban center. 3. Are you familiar with zoning procedures in an urban center in your area? Answer: Zoning procedures regulate land use in urban areas, dividing regions into residential, commercial, industrial, and other zones. These regulations are crucial for urban planning, influencing city layout, density, and the separation of different land uses to manage growth and maintain quality of life. 4. How do you feel toward urban sprawl? Urban renewal? Answer: Urban sprawl is often viewed negatively due to its contribution to environmental degradation, increased traffic, and loss of green spaces. Urban renewal, if done inclusively and sustainably, is seen positively as it revitalizes aging areas, improves infrastructure, and enhances the quality of life for residents. 5. Do you feel that some forms of urban growth are more desirable than others? Which ones? Answer: Yes, compact, mixed-use development is more desirable as it promotes walkability, efficient land use, and community engagement. This form of urban growth reduces reliance on cars, preserves natural spaces, and fosters a vibrant urban environment with diverse housing and business options. 6. Are there any limits to urban growth? What are they? Answer: Urban growth is limited by environmental, economic, and social factors. Natural boundaries like water bodies, protected lands, and topography, as well as infrastructure capacity and resource availability, constrain expansion. Additionally, socioeconomic impacts, such as affordability and social equity, must be considered. 7. What efforts do you support to make cities more sustainable environments? Answer: Efforts to enhance urban sustainability include promoting public transportation, green building practices, renewable energy, and waste reduction programs. Encouraging green spaces, implementing effective zoning laws, and fostering community engagement are also key to creating livable and resilient urban environments. 8. “The responsible environmentalist should live in an urban area instead of rural locales or suburbs.” Comment. Answer: Living in urban areas can reduce an individual's environmental footprint through efficient use of resources, access to public transit, and proximity to amenities. However, the choice depends on personal values, lifestyle, and the capacity of the urban area to support sustainable living. Responsible environmentalists can make sustainable choices regardless of location by minimizing resource consumption and advocating for environmentally-friendly policies. News Videos Making the World Greener in San Francisco; Environmental Science in the Headlines, 2008; DVD; ISBN 0495561908 Additional Video Resources The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream (Documentary, 2004) http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ This is an interesting look at sprawl and dwindling oil resources. Escape From Suburbia (Documentary, 2008) http://www.escapefromsuburbia.com/ Explores the implications of declining oil production on the suburban model of habitation. Making Sense of Place – Phoenix the Urban Desert (TV series, 2007) http://www.makingsenseofplace.org/ Making Sense of Place, Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City (TV series, 2007) http://www.makingsenseofplace.org/ Web Resources New Urbanism http://www.newurbanism.org/ A valuable resource on creating livable environments. Suggested Answers to End of Chapter Questions Review Questions 1. Review the Key Questions and Concepts for this chapter on p. 587. Describe how Curitiba, Brazil, has attempted to become a more sustainable city (Core Case Study). Answer: • Curitiba has the world’s best bus system, in which clean and modern buses transport about 72% of the population every day through-out the city along express lanes dedicated to buses. Only high- rise apartment buildings are allowed near major bus routes, and each building must devote its bottom two floors to stores— a practice that reduces the need for residents to travel. Cars are banned from 49 blocks in the center of the downtown area. Curitiba uses less energy per person and has fewer emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants and traffic congestion than do most comparable cities. The city transformed flood- prone areas along its rivers into a series of interconnected parks. Volunteers have planted more than 1.5 million trees throughout the city, none of which can be cut down without a permit. Curitiba recycles roughly 70% of its paper and 60% of its metal, glass, and plastic. Recovered materials are sold mostly to the city’s more than 500 major industries, which must meet strict pollution standards. Most of these businesses are located in an industrial park outside the city limits. A major bus line runs to the industrial park, but many of the workers live nearby and can walk or bike to work. The poor receive free medical and dental, child care, and job training, and 40 feeding centers are available for street children. Poor people living in squatter settlements that garbage trucks cannot reach can exchange filled garbage bags for surplus food, bus tokens, and school supplies. Also, the city has a build- itself program that gives a poor family a plot of land, building materials, two trees, and an hour’s consultation with an architect. 2. Distinguish between urbanization and urban growth. Describe two factors that increase the population of a city. Answer: • Urbanization is the creation and growth of urban areas, or cities and their surrounding developed land. Urban growth is the rate of increase of urban populations. • Urban areas grow in two ways— by natural increase (more births than deaths) and by immigration, mostly from rural areas. 3. List four global trends in urban growth. Describe four phases of urban growth in the United States. Answer: • Urban populations are increasing, the number and sizes of large urban areas is mushrooming, urban growth is much slower in developed countries than in developing countries, and poverty is becoming increasingly urbanized. • In the United States, people migrated from rural areas to large central cities. Many people migrated from large central cities to suburbs and smaller cities. Many people migrated from the North and East to the South and West. Some people have fled both cities and suburbs and migrated to developed rural areas. 4. What is urban sprawl? List five factors that have promoted urban sprawl in the United States. List five undesirable effects of urban sprawl. Answer: • Urban sprawls is the growth of low-density development on the edges of cities and towns. • Five major factors promoted urban sprawl in the United States. First, ample land was available for most cities to spread outward. Second, low-cost gasoline and federal and state funding of highways encouraged automobile use and the development of outlying tracts of land. Third, starting around 1950, federal government home loan guarantees for World War II veterans stimulated the development of suburbs; since then, tax laws have encouraged home ownership. Fourth, most state and local zoning laws favored large residential lots and the separation of residential band commercial areas. Fifth, most urban areas consist of multiple local governments, which rarely work together to develop an overall plan for managing urban growth. • Similar processes have occurred in other countries. Five undesirable effects of urban sprawl: ○ Decreases energy efficiency. ○ Increases traffic congestion. ○ Destroys prime cropland, forests, and wetlands. ○ Increased use of groundwater. ○ Increased air pollution. 5. What are four advantages of urbanization? What are six disadvantages of urbanization? What is noise pollution and how can we reduce it? Explain why most cities and urban areas are not sustainable. Answer: • Four advantages of urbanization: ○ Are centers of economic development. ○ Provide innovation/technological advances. ○ Increase access to education. ○ Increase access to jobs. ○ Serve as centers of industry, commerce, and transportation. • Six disadvantages of urbanization: ○ Unsustainable. ○ Lack vegetation. ○ Water problems. ○ Pollution and health problems. ○ Affect local climates. ○ Cause light pollution.. • Noise pollution is any unwanted, disturbing, or harmful sound that impairs or interferes with hearing, causes stress, hampers concentration and work efficiency, or causes accidents. Many people in the United States have hearing loss caused by listening to music at loud levels. • Cities and urban areas have a high resource input of food, water, and materials that result in a high waste output. 6. Describe some of the problems faced by poor people who live in urban areas. How can governments help to reduce these problems? Describe the urban problems of Mexico City, Mexico. Answer: • The poor face a lack of medical services, poor sanitation, and increased poverty. Poor people living in shantytowns and squatter settlements usually lack clean water supplies, sewers, electricity, and roads, and are subject to severe air and water pollution and hazardous wastes from nearby factories. Many of these settlements are in locations especially prone to landslides, flooding, or earthquakes. • Governments can slow the migration from rural to urban areas by improving education, health care, and family planning in the countryside and encouraging investment in small towns. Governments can also designate land for squatter settlements and supply them with clean water and place composting toilets, which require no water, at locations throughout such settlements. Guaranteeing regular bus service enables workers who live in such settlements to travel to and from their workplaces. • Mexico City faces the problem of having too many people in a small area with increased poverty. 7. Distinguish between compact and dispersed cities, and give an example of each. What are the major advantages and disadvantages of motor vehicles? List four ways to reduce dependence on motor vehicles. Describe the major advantages and disadvantages of relying more on (a) bicycles, (b) mass transit rail systems, (c) bus rapid transit systems within urban areas, and (d) rapid- rail systems between urban areas. Answer: • If a city cannot spread outward, it must grow vertically— upward and downward (below ground)— so that it occupies a small land area with a high population density. Most people living in compact cities, such as Hong Kong, China, and Tokyo, Japan, get around by walking, biking, or using mass transit such as rail or buses. Many new high-rise apartment buildings in these cities contain everything from grocery stores to fitness centers. People living in the apartments hardly have to leave the buildings to meet their needs. • In some countries, a combination of plentiful land, cheap gasoline, and networks of highways have produced dispersed cities whose residents depend on motor vehicles for most travel. Car-centered cities are found in the United States, Canada and Australia. • Advantages of motor vehicles include mobility, convenience, comfort, and they can be a success symbol. Also, much of the world’s economy is built around producing cars, roads and fuel. Disadvantages include harmful environmental effects such as congestion and pollution, cars kill humans and wildlife and contribute to urban sprawl. • Ways to reduce dependency on motor vehicles include having drivers pay directly for most environmental and health costs of automobile use, develop mass transit systems, raise parking fees and charge road tolls, and encourage car-sharing. • Advantages of bicycles include: affordable, produce no pollution, quiet, require little parking space, easy to maneuver in traffic, take few resources to make. Disadvantages of bicycles include: little protection in an accident, do not protect riders from bad weather, impractical for long trips, can be tiring (except for electric bicycles) and lack of secure bike parking. • Advantages of mass transit rail systems include: uses less energy and produces less air pollution than cars, requires less land than roads and parking areas for cars, causes fewer injuries and deaths than cars and reduces car congestion in cities. Disadvantages of mass transit rail systems include: expensive to build and maintain, cost- effective only along a densely populated corridor, commits riders to transportation schedules, can cause noise and vibration for nearby residents. • Advantages of buses include: can be rerouted as needed, cost less to develop and maintain than heavy- rail system and can greatly reduce car use and air pollution. Disadvantages of buses systems include: can lose money because they need low fares to attract riders, can get caught in traffic and add to pollution , commits riders to transportation schedules and noisy. 8. What is land- use planning? What is zoning and what are its limitations? What is smart growth? List five tools used to promote smart growth. Describe strategies used by the U. S. city of Portland, Oregon, to help control urban sprawl and reduce dependence on automobiles. What are three ways to preserve open spaces around a city? Answer: • Most urban and some rural areas use some form of land- use planning to determine the best present and future use of each parcel of land. Much land- use planning encourages future population growth and economic development, regardless of the environmental and social consequences. Typically, this leads to uncontrolled or poorly controlled urban growth and sprawl. • One way for governments to control the uses of various parcels of land is by zoning, in which various parcels of land are designated for certain uses. Zoning can be used to control growth and protect areas from certain types of development. • Zoning has several draw-backs. Some developers influence or modify zoning decisions in ways that threaten or destroy wetlands, prime cropland, forested areas, and open space. Another problem is that zoning often favors high- priced housing, factories, hotels, and other businesses over protecting environmentally sensitive areas and providing low- cost housing, because higher-priced developments provide more property tax revenues that most local governments depend on. • Smart growth encourages more environmentally sustainable development that requires less dependence on cars, controls and directs sprawl, and reduces wasteful resource use. • Five tools used to promote smart growth: ○ Limits and regulations. ○ Zoning. ○ Planning. ○ Protection. ○ Taxes. • Three ways to preserve open space are the urban growth boundary approach, establishing a greenbelt, and setting aside large blocks of land for municipal parks. 9. What are new urbanisms the five key goals and why is Vauban, Germany a good example of it? What is cluster development? List eight goals of ecocity and ecovillage design. Summarize the scientific exploration of urban indoor farming. Describe three strategies used within ecovillages to make their neighborhoods more sustainable. Describe an example of a highly sustainable living building. Answer: • The five guiding principles of new urbanization are: ○ walkability, with most stores and recreational activities located within a 10- minute walk of homes and apartments ○ mixed- use and diversity, which provides a mix of pedestrian- friendly shops, offices, apartments, and homes to encourage people of different ages, classes, cultures, and races to move in ○ quality urban design emphasizing beauty, aesthetics, and architectural diversity ○ environmental sustainability based on development with minimal environmental impact ○ smart transportation with well- designed train and bus systems connecting neighborhoods, towns, and cities ○ Vauban is a good example because it is designed to be compact and not reliant on cars. • In cluster development, high-density housing units are concentrated on one portion of a parcel, with the rest of the land used for commonly shared open space. • Goals of ecocity and ecovillage design include: ○ Build and redesign cities for people not cars ○ Use solar and other locally available, renewable energy resources and design buildings to be heated and cooled as much as possible by nature ○ Use solar- powered living machines and wetlands to treat sewage ○ Depend largely on recycled water that is purified and used again and again ○ Use energy and matter resources efficiently ○ Prevent pollution and reduce waste ○ Recycle, reuse, and compost at least 60% of all municipal solid waste ○ Protect and support biodiversity by preserving surrounding land and protecting and restoring natural systems and wetlands ○ Promote urban gardens and farmers markets ○ Use zoning and other tools to keep the human population at environmentally sustainable levels • Scientists are exploring ways to produce food in an urban environment. Living roofs, vertical gardens and hydroponics are all promising approaches. • Ecovillagers use a diversity of methods to live more sustainably and to decrease their ecological footprints. Strategies include generating electricity from solar cells, small wind turbines, and small hydropower systems; collecting rainwater; using composting toilets; using solar cookers and rooftop solar collectors to provide hot water; cooperating in the development of organic farming plots; and using passive solar design, energy- efficient houses, and living roofs. • A sustainable living building should maximize passive solar gain, recycle all waste, no be dependent on non-renewable energy resources, and should be designed with the surrounding area in mind. 10. Explain how people in Curitiba, Brazil (Core Case Study) have applied each of the three principles of sustainability to make their city more sustainable. Answer: • Relying on solar energy. Curitiba has the world’s best bus system and cars are banned from the center of the city. As a result, the city uses less energy per person and has fewer emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants and traffic congestion than do most comparable cities. • Nutrient recycling. Curitiba recycles roughly 70% of its paper and 60% of its metal, glass, and plastic. • Biodiversity. Volunteers have planted more than 1.5 million trees throughout the city, none of which can be cut down without a permit. And two trees must be planted for each one that is cut down. Critical Thinking The following are examples of the material that should be contained in possible student answers to the end of chapter Critical Thinking questions. They represent only a summary overview and serve to highlight the core concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be anticipated that the students will provide more in-depth and detailed responses to the questions depending on an individual instructor’s stated expectations. 1. Curitiba, Brazil (Core Case Study) has made significant progress in becoming a more environmentally sustainable and desirable place to live. If you live in an urban area, what steps, if any, has your community taken toward becoming more environmentally sustainable? Answer: In my town in New Hampshire there is a free bus service that runs every day and transports passengers to drop off points in the town center, the shopping areas, the downtown area, and local major businesses such as the hospital, the college, and several companies that are the major employers in the area. The bus service has pick-up points that are near to housing developments so people can walk to the bus stop and then walk to work from the drop-off stop. The cost to the public is free. The actual costs to run the service come from the sponsorship of the local businesses themselves. This helps to keep cars off the road and gives access to a means of public transport to lower income people who cannot afford cars. This works great in the area that is covered by the service. People who live further out do not have such a transport system that promotes a more sustainable use of energy in terms of moving people from one location to another. 2. In Curitiba, Brazil (Core Case Study), recycling rates have fallen in recent years, even though they are still among the highest in the world. Former Mayor Jaime Lerner attributes this decline to failure on the part of the city’s leadership to encourage recycling. List five ways in which you think Curitiba, or any city, could encourage residents to recycle. Answer: The city could make it convenient for residents to recycle. They could instigate an advertising campaign encouraging recycling. They could charge for the amount of trash that is thrown away, and they could place convenient recycling receptacles in public areas. Additionally, they could provide educational materials and advertise about the benefits of recycling. 3. Do you think that urban sprawl is a problem and something that should be controlled? Develop three arguments to support your answer. Compare your arguments with those of your classmates. Answer: Yes, urban sprawl is a problem that should be controlled because it destroys habitat, fragments the landscape, and in the end is very energy consumptive because of the reliance on automobiles for transportation. 4. Write a brief essay that includes at least three reasons why you (a) enjoy living in a large city, (b) would like to live in a large city, or (c) do not wish to live in a large city. Be specific in your reasoning. Compare your essay with those of your classmates. Answer: Responses will vary, though students will likely focus on aspects of big cities such as walkability, access to multiple-use areas, public transportation, etc. Those who dislike cities may focus on the noise, crowding, pollution, and lack of open space. I would like to live in a large city because of its diverse cultural experiences, abundant career opportunities, and efficient public transportation. These factors contribute to a vibrant lifestyle and professional growth that are often less accessible in smaller towns or rural areas. 5. One issue debated at a U.N. conference was the question of whether housing is a universal right (a position supported by most less-developed countries) or just a need (supported by the United States and several other more-developed countries). What is your position on this issue? Defend your choice. Answer: In order for everyone to live in a fair and equitable society, it is necessary for each family to have access to the basics elements that are needed to function—namely, food, clothes, and shelter. Additionally, clean water and sanitary conditions, health care and education, employment opportunities, and female empowerment all play their part in alleviating poverty for the global population. I agree that housing is a right and not just a need, as the U.S. delegation stated. Many countries have governments that provide low cost subsidized housing for its people. That does occur in some parts of the U.S. but the push here is for everyone to own their own homes, which is nice if you can afford it. With minimum wages that are barely sufficient for a family to live on, this is out of the reach for much of the population. With the recent crisis in the housing market, where even people with what used to be a sufficient income cannot afford the rising mortgage payments and are losing their homes, some are becoming homeless. It is amazing to me that tent cities are springing up outside of Los Angeles that are inhabited not by what most people would regard as the “homeless” section of society, but by people who have lost their homes in this mortgage crisis. Are we not the wealthiest country in the world? How can this be happening? Maybe if more people in the government began to consider housing as a right and not simply a need, perhaps these problems might not occur. Maybe if some of these state and national officials had to spend a while in such a “tent city” they might change their tune pretty quickly and think of housing as a right. 6. If you own a car or hope to own one, what conditions, if any, would encourage you to rely less on your car and to travel to school or work by bicycle, on foot, by mass transit, or by carpool? Answer: Living close to school, as I did in the city, enabled me to walk to school. Some days I would ride my bike. Now that I live in the country, I have to go by bus to school as it is too far to walk and would take me a long time to ride my bike there. At least the students are not all using individual cars. I do now have a car and use it mainly on the weekend. Because the distances I have to travel to the movies, stores, etc. are much longer than when I was in the city, I am conscious of how much gasoline I am using. Whenever I can, I plan ahead and take turns with some other students by carpooling. It is sometimes difficult and not ideally convenient, but we all feel that it is the right thing to do, especially with the rising price of gasoline and our concern for the environment. 7. Do you believe the United States or the country in which you live should develop a comprehensive and integrated mass transit system over the next 20 years, including an efficient rapid-rail network for travel within and between its major cities? How would you pay for such a system? Answer: Wherever possible, the U.S. should provide integrated mass transport systems that would move people efficiently. This can be established in the cities and the outlying areas. London and Paris have had these for a long time. Boston and New York City also have long-established systems. Washington D. C. has a really good, new, modern transport system. The rail line from Boston to New Hampshire and Maine is being resurrected to provide a fast method for those people who work in the city but live far away, making a long daily commute by train a feasible alternate to the car. This is also true for those people who live in Connecticut and commute daily to New York City. The introduction of such transportation systems may not be an easy option for the rural areas around the country, as the populations are lower and introducing such mass transit systems may not be cost-effective. Such options for the cities and surrounding areas could be subsidized by the local government and businesses. Keeping the ticket costs down will be important to attract people to use mass transit options. This is a national issue and we need the government to begin spending money on helping the infrastructure of this country rather than on other expenditures that do not benefit Americans at home. 8. Consider the goals listed on p. 607 as part of the Ecocity concept. How close to reaching each of these goals is the city where you live or the city nearest to where you live? Pick what you think are the five most important of these goals and describe a way in which that city could meet each of those five goals. Answer: To align with Ecocity goals, a city could: 1. Reduce Pollution: Implement stricter emissions regulations and expand green spaces. 2. Improve Energy Efficiency: Invest in renewable energy and upgrade building codes. 3. Enhance Public Transportation: Expand and modernize transit systems. 4. Increase Green Spaces: Create more parks and support urban gardening. 5. Improve Waste Management: Enhance recycling, reduce plastics, and promote composting. 9. Congratulations! You are in charge of the world. List the three most important components of your strategy for dealing with urban growth and sustainability in (a) more-developed countries and (b) less-developed countries. Answer: The three most important features of my strategy for developed countries would be reclamation and redevelopment of abandoned city centers to focus on walkability and mixed-use, implementation of recycling programs, and development of sustainable agriculture systems in the urban centers. The three most important features of my strategy for developing countries would be the development of infrastructure that relies on public transportation, design of buildings that are carbon neutral, and conservation of biodiversity beginning at the urban edge. 10. List two questions that you would like to have answered as a result of reading this chapter. Answer: 1. How can cities effectively balance economic development with environmental sustainability? 2. What are the most successful strategies for increasing public participation in urban ecological initiatives? Ecological Footprint Analysis Under normal driving conditions an internal combustion engine produces approximately 200 grams (0.2 kilograms, or 0.44 pounds) of CO2 per kilometer driven. In a large urban city, there are 7 million cars and each car is driven an average of 20,000 kilometers (12,400 miles) per year. 1. Calculate the carbon footprint per car, that is, the number of metric tons (and tons) of CO2 produced by a typical car in one year. Calculate the total carbon footprint for all cars in the city, that is, the number of metric tons (and tons) of CO2 produced by all the cars in one year. (1 metric ton = 1,000 kilograms = 1.1 tons) 2. If 20% of the people were to use a carpool or take mass transit in the city instead of driving their cars, how many metric tons (and how many tons) of these CO2 emissions would be eliminated? 3. By what percentage, and by what average distance driven, would use of cars in the city have to be cut to reduce by half the carbon footprint calculated in question 1? 1. Answer: (a) Each car generates 0.2 kilograms of CO2 per kilometer and travels 20,000 kilometers. So each car generates 0.2 x 20,000 = 4,000 kilograms = 4 metric tons of CO2 per year. 4 metric tons x 1.1 tons/metric ton = 4.4 tons. (b) And 7,000,000 cars will produce 7,000,000 x 4 metric tons, or 28,000,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. 28,000,000 metric tons CO2 x 1.1 tons/metric ton = 30,800,000 tons of CO2 per year. 2. Answer: 28,000,000 metric tons of CO2 x 0.20 = 5,600,000 metric tons of CO2 5,600,000 metric tons CO2 x 1.1 tons/metric ton = 6,200,000 tons of CO2 3. Answer: To cut CO2 emissions per car in half, the average distance driven per car would have to be cut in half—50% per year. Thus the average distance traveled per car each year would have to be cut from 20,000 kilometers (12,400 miles) to 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles). Solution Manual for Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions G. Tyler Miller, Scott Spoolman 9780538735346