| isposal management continues to be a rising challenge | | | | trash. Sometimes this is simply referred to as thermal |
| as population grows and along with the industrial | | | | treatment, as a general category of high |
| development of countries. Centuries ago, people | | | | temperature treatment of trash material. This |
| would have the trash from their homes transported | | | | method can be used to transform waste into heat, |
| and dumped in the places far away from the city of | | | | gas, steam and ash. One of the advantages of |
| village. Today, instead of open dumping, usually the | | | | incineration is that with this method, refuse volume |
| trash is collected and transported to landfills and then | | | | can be reduced by half or more and it requires little |
| buried. Of course, over these hundreds of years, | | | | usage of land. An incineration facility can be built in a |
| processes have certainly become more sophisticated. | | | | small area to process huge amounts of waste. It |
| Instead of just burying the trash in landfills, we also | | | | definitely saves a lot of space compared with using a |
| use methods like plasma gasification, ocean dumping, | | | | landfill only. This method is popular in countries like |
| incineration and recycling. Let's take a look at a few | | | | Japan where space is limited. |
| of them. | | | | Recycling |
| Landfill | | | | Recycling of waste material means taking the |
| Amongst the many waste management methods, | | | | materials and transforming them into new products. |
| using a landfill is probably the most practiced in more | | | | This is a key concept in the modern waste |
| areas of the world than any other method. Landfills | | | | minimization philosophy. It's about lessening the strain |
| are often old and abandoned quarries and mining | | | | on the environment through minimizing the need to |
| areas. Considered the most cost-effective way of | | | | fully dispose (eg. by incineration and causing air |
| waste disposal, about 75% of the cost of | | | | pollution) of the waste generated and reducing the |
| implementation is attributable to the collection and | | | | need to introduce new raw materials into the |
| transportation of waste from residential and | | | | environment and then having to dispose of them |
| businesses to the landfills. The waste is layered in thin | | | | later. In your everyday living, you may already be |
| spreads and then compacted, with a layer of clean | | | | separating out paper products, aluminum soda cans |
| earth covering the waste material before more | | | | or glass bottles into different waste containers so |
| layers are added over time. | | | | that these could be recycled. When bring your own |
| Incineration | | | | shopping bag to the supermarket instead of using a |
| Incineration as a disposal method involves burning the | | | | new plastic bag, that's another way of recycling. |