Industrial and Hazardous Waste Management
Discuss any experiences you have had with solid and hazardous waste. If you have not had any experience, what about family and friends? Have you wondered if you should put certain chemicals out with the garbage? Do you have old chemicals lying around that you would like to discard? Considering the references in the required unit resources, are any of them hazardous? Share your findings with the class.
Please include the name of the person or question to which you are replying in the subject line. For example, “Tom’s response to Susan’s comment.”
ALSO PLEASE RESPOND TO ANOTHER STUDENTS COMMENT BELOW
Douglas:
As a safety specialist I have some personal experiences when dealing with solid and hazardous waste especially in the military. I was a jet mechanic for the A-6 Intruder, F14 Tomcat, and the F/A 18 Super Hornet which I required me to ensure that oily rags, oil cans, hydraulic cans, spills were taken care of and disposed at designated hazmat sites. There was a time where I was performing a maintenance turn on F-14 Tomcat that I had to do and emergency shutdown because I was dumping fuel on the ground. We rushed to contianed it so it did not travel into the ground or find it’s way into the storm drain system.
There are times where I wonder if I have stuff in my garage that is hazardous and back before I knew things and understand why recycling and paying extra to have hazardous material disposed of properly is worth it. For example, when I change my own oil, it goes into a collection container where I can take it to the local Autozone and have them dispose of it for me and the oil filter as well. Now of course it comes with a fee but if it is to protect the environment and health others it is a win win.
I some TV’s have been known to have hazardous material when they were made which prevents them from being just discarded at the curb on trash day. I currently have one in my garage that I had to replace over the weekend which I feel could have some hazardous material and from my previous class (solid waste management) that it is my duty to not send unnecessary to our landfills. So I plan on calling Best Buys or see if there is a local company that takes used TV to be recycled.
I had a neighbor that was painting his house and I saw the empty paint cans (I hope was empty) but had me wonder if he was going to let the paint dry before placing in the trash. When I used to paint military aircraft, we had to let the paint dry because in liquid form it was considered hazardous because it is isocynate in the paint to create a harder. However, once the paint has dried and harden it is not hazardous and was safe to discard in proper containers.
At my previous job which was a small shipyard in Norfolk, VA I dealt with solid waste such as blast shot from vessels being stripped of paint as well as painting of vessels and empty paint cans. These were all hazardous to both workers health and environment too. The one incident that I will never forget when the contractor placed paint cans in a steel bin which still had paint inside. Then it started to rain and the pain that was in the cans drained out of the container and ended up in the river which was a huge mess.
I do not work closely with solid hazardous waste with my current job but I am aware and stay cautious when it comes to certain solid waste that I am even suspect to be hazardous. I whether treat has such them to take a chance and put people’s health at risk as well and jeopardizing the environment.
