What are some trends related to U.S. waste and disposal methods?
U.S. municipal waste has increased by about 80%.
About 50% of waste is sent to landfills, which is the most common method of disposal.
There’s growing concern about where to put our waste as landfills fill up.
There is increasing emphasis on recycling, composting, and energy recovery to reduce landfill use
What is the EPA waste management hierarchy?
A decision pyramid ranking disposal options from most to least preferred:
Source reduction and reuse
Recycling and composting
Energy recovery (e.g., incineration for energy)
Treatment and disposal (landfills, least preferred)
What are different ways to dispose of waste?
Landfills: Sanitary, compacted, covered with dirt, with liners and drainage.
Incineration: Burns waste for energy but creates residual ash.
Recycling: Reprocessing materials into new products.
Composting: Breaking down organic matter into nutrient-rich soil.
Anaerobic digestion: Converts waste into biogas and fertilizer.
Hazardous waste treatment: Specialized containment and cleanup processes.
What are trends by country related to how they handle their waste?
Most countries rely on landfills and incineration.
Many export waste to other countries (often in Southeast Asia).
China banned waste imports in 2018, shifting global waste flows.
Some wealthier nations now send waste to countries like Thailand, creating environmental burdens there.
What is the definition of recycling? What did we discuss related to challenges of recycling, specifically plastic recycling?
Recycling = Reprocessing discarded materials into new, useful products.
Challenges:
Single-stream recycling is easier for consumers but harder to sort.
Plastic recycling rates are low: Only ~25% reused.
After China’s ban, countries had nowhere to send plastic waste, leading to increased landfilling or burdening other nations like Thailand.
What’s going on with China and waste, and what have been the international effects? (Discussed in class and featured in the video linked on the slide.)
In 2018, China banned trash and e-waste imports, including many plastics, due to environmental and human health concerns.
This caused a global waste crisis: plastic waste surged in Southeast Asia.
Countries like Thailand were overwhelmed.
Highlighted the need for domestic recycling infrastructure in wealthier countries.
What is the definition of composting?
Composting = Decomposing organic waste (like food scraps) into a nutrient-rich soil additive through natural processes.
What are anaerobic digesters? What are some environmental and economic benefits of them, as featured in the video we watched in class and linked on the webpage?
Anaerobic digesters are systems that break down organic waste without oxygen, producing biogas (used for energy) and fertilizer.
Benefits:
Reduce landfill use.
Provide renewable energy.
Create economic opportunities in green energy.
Lower greenhouse gas emissions.
How is Love Canal connected to hazardous waste? What are policies related to Love Canal that we discussed in class?
Love Canal (Niagara Falls, NY) was a neighborhood built on a toxic waste dump, leading to severe health issues (birth defects, cancer).
Led to public outrage and policy reforms:
RCRA: Tracks hazardous waste from creation to disposal.
CERCLA: Also known as Superfund, it targets cleanup of uncontrolled toxic waste sites and holds companies accountable.
What is phytoremediation? What are examples we talked about in class?
Phytoremediation = Using plants to remove or neutralize pollutants from soil or water.
Examples (as discussed): likely included plants that absorb heavy metals or toxins from contaminated sites (exact examples not specified in your notes, but common ones include sunflowers, willows, or poplar trees).
What are general trends related to people living in cities/moving to cities? What is projected for the future?
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities
By 2050 ⅔ of pop will live in cities, started from the industrial revolution
For the most part there have been an increase in population for all of these cities and high population growth in some such as Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego
Define a city: an urban areas has more than 2500 residents there
What are different ways to define a city?
an urban areas has more than 2500 residents there
Some define based on function
Why are cities growing in size? What are examples we discussed?
Where are they expecting the greatest population growth? In urban areas in developing countries. A challenge they may have is making sure there is enough resources and infrastructure to accommodate.
Why are we seeing cities growing in size? Improved food, medical care, resources for having children, and increased immigration to cities overall.
More people are leaving rural areas and going to cities.
Push factors are why people leave areas, and pull factors attract people to cities. These can also get switched around as well.
Air pollution, wastewater treatment, water shortages, rising sea levels, informal settlements
Unlimited outward extension of city boundaries that lowers population density, consumes open space, generates freeway congestion, and causes decay in central cities
What are some problems with population increases in cities?
- air pollution
Wastewater treatment
Water shortage
Rising sea level
Informal settlements
What is urban sprawl? What are characteristics of urban sprawl?
Urban sprawl:
Unlimited outward expansion of city boundaries, that lower population density,consumes open space,generates freeway congestion, and causes decay in central cities - it causes more CARS
Characteristics:
Unlimited outward extension
Low density residential and commercial development
Leapfrog development that consumes farmland and natural areas
Fragmentation of power among many small units of government
Dominance of freeways and private automobiles
No centralized planning or control of land uses
Widespread strip malls on big box shopping centers
Great fiscal disparities among localities
Reliance on deteriorating older neighborhoods for low income housing
Decay city centers as a new development occurs in previously rural areas
What are some environmental issues with cars?
Relying on automobiles and increases air pollution
A lot of cities are trying to revitalize downtown areas
Average US driver spends 443 hours/year behind a steering wheel
We use a lot of material for production of cars, and the waste that comes from disposal of the cars, reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels, urban heat island effect from roads and blacktop, building of roads interrupts ecosystems.
Policies to address such as congestion pricing
What is smart growth? What are some features/examples of smart growth?
Solution for urban sprawl is smart growth: Strategies for well planned developments that make efficient and effective use of land resources and existing infrastructure.
Public transportation, more green, water
More walking, social contact that includes physical exercise
Essentially college campuses. A mixed use type of place.
Cluster development
.features (from slide)
1.Mix land uses.
2.Take advantage of compact building design.
3.Create a range of housing opportunities and choices.
4.Create walkable neighborhoods.
5.Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense
of place.
6.Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical
environmental areas.
7.Strengthen and direct development towards existing
communities.
8.Provide a variety of transportation choices.
9.Make development decisions predictable, fair, and cost
effective.
10.Encourage community and stakeholder collaboration in
development decisions
cluster dev
a type of land-use planning and design that focuses on grouping buildings or homes together in a concentrated area on a piece of land, while leaving a significant portion of the land open and undeveloped (more for visual appeal or recreation)
open space zoning
Everything is equidistant apart
conservation dev
t is same amount of space but clustering homes together and conserve more open space (for nature hence conservation)
What is the definition of economics? How are economic decisions determined?
Economics: a social science that deals with the production distribution and consumption of goods and services to satisfy people’s needs and wants
Economic decisions are determined by Supply and demand which influences the price.
What are the different types of capital we went over?
Natural capital: the natural resources and ecosystem services that support human life
Human capital:
Physical and mental talents of people that can provide labor and innovation
manufactured/built capital
Built environment such as tools, factories, roads
So natural capital +manufactured capital + human capital = goods and services
What’s the difference between neoclassical economics and ecological economics?
Neoclassical economics: view the earths natural capital as a part of the human economic system- the potential for economic growth is unlimited- and we find substitutes for any resource or ecological service that is depleted or degraded
Ecological economics: there are no substitutes for many natural resources- including clean air and water fertile soil, biodiversity, and they provide important ecological services.
Need to pay attention to environment when creating goods and services
What are different ways to value natural resources, including nonuse values?
Costanza 2014:
Gave monetary value to different biomes in order to value different ecosystems. Ex: forests-15.6 trillion. If so, are we charging enough for lumber??
Values 17 ecosystem services to be at least 125 trillion per year.
There is debate in making something subjective into an objective amount of money.
What about nonuse values?
The value of nature just being there!
Endangered species or an old growth forest.
Aesthetic values
Option value: willingness of people to pay an amount to protect some form of natural capital
What are some benefits/drawbacks of trying to calculate ecosystem services and nonuse values in monetary values?
Benefits:
Gets people to value who only think in money terms.
Drawbacks: cant money on something so beautiful and valuable, does putting a number on something actually make it less valuable?
