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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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Waste characterisation (or waste characterization in the United States), also called waste stream analysis, waste assessment, or a waste audit, is the process of separating and analysing the components of a waste stream. Waste characterisation supports efforts to improve waste management, such as evaluating the effectiveness of waste sorting programs and identifying opportunities for improving recycling.[1] For example, analyzing the composition of biodegradable waste in a waste stream is vital in systems such as composting or anaerobic digestion.[2]
Waste characterisation studies may be conducted at different scales by waste management companies, local governments, and private companies and organizations.[3]
Waste characterisation is a manual process. For example, at a waste management plant, it may consist of taking a tonne from a garbage truck, dividing the sample into four parts, mixing them, dividing again into four parts, and taking one of them (250 kg) to analyze manually.[4] This process takes around 3–4 hours to complete and generally involves 2-4 people.
Even if this process is carried out very frequently (usually every 2 or 3 days), it is only a sample of the waste composition. Solid material waste is classified in material recovery facilities with mechanical tools (magnetic for metal, air pumps for plastic films, ramps for rolling objects, etc.), and the contents of the garbage truck are unknown until the process takes place.
Some universities and schools involve students in waste characterisation studies as educational activities, sometimes called "garbology".[5]
A typical set of categories for waste characterisation are: paper and paperboard, glass, metal, plastic, textiles, organics, construction and demolition (C &D), special care, and other.[6]
Municipal solid waste may be broken down further into:[7][8] film plastic (LDPE), dense plastic (HDPE, PET), ferrous metal, non-ferrous metals, glass, textiles, paper and cardboard, garden waste or green waste, fines (items below a certain screen size), food, and other.
The European Waste Catalogue (EWC) refers to a set (non-exhaustive) list of wastes from households and businesses inside the European Union.[9][10] The EWC is a code (six numbers in three sets of two) that adequately describes the waste transported, handled, or treated. The EWC is where Duty of Care Notices or Waste Transfer Notes are passed between waste management companies and waste carriers to report volumes received or treated back to the governing agency (such as the Environment Agency in England and Wales, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) in Scotland, Northern Ireland (NI) Environment Agency, etc.).
The first step in characterising waste is to decide on the appropriate EWC code. These codes carry three categories - absolute non-hazardous, mirror entries, and absolute hazardous. The initial assessment for the majority of wastes follows a simple derivation of industry (twenty main categories) from which they were obtained (agricultural, woodworking (furniture), electronics, etc.). Each derived section is denoted by the first two sets of two numbers, referring to a particular industry or sector. The final set of two numbers relates directly to the waste. The waste is hazardous by its very composition. An asterisk follows behind the EWC.
Each member state's Environment Agency throughout the European Union must adopt the EWC in its reporting methods and enforce its use by the respective waste management sector. The lists are available through the European Commission's website.[9] Submissions by Waste Management Companies to their respective member states' Environmental Agencies are collated, in many instances, by conversion to EWC STAT (European Waste Catalogue for Statistics)[11] for submission to the EU, which oversees all member states and ensures compliance with unilaterally agreed standards and recycling rates.[12]
Waste entries are hazardous, not by the composition of the waste, but by virtue of the process that produced it.[9] The same is true for non-hazardous absolute entries. Mirror entries can be hazardous or non-hazardous, depending on the waste composition.
Deciding whether a mirror entry is hazardous or non-hazardous by composition involves the usage of the Approved Supply List (ASL). A substance not listed in the ASL permits other sources, such as Manufacturer's Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), to classify the waste. These documents contain "Risk Phrase," which describes the hazards that the substance or substances present. Risk phrases have threshold values that indicate what concentration of a substance must be present for the waste to be classified as hazardous by the Hazard Code attached to the Risk Phrase.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Waste characterisation (or waste characterization in the United States), also called waste stream analysis, waste assessment, or a waste audit, is the process of separating and analysing the components of a waste stream. Waste characterisation supports efforts to improve waste management, such as evaluating the effectiveness of waste sorting programs and identifying opportunities for improving recycling. For example, analyzing the composition of biodegradable waste in a waste stream is vital in systems such as composting or anaerobic digestion. Waste characterisation studies may be conducted at different scales by waste management companies, local governments, and private companies and organizations.
The waste management industry, or waste industry for short, includes all industrial branches involved in waste management, waste dumping, waste recycling, waste characterisation, and, to a lesser degree, waste prevention. The industry includes a large number of waste management companies, including multinational corporations. On a global scale, the market size is expected to reach $530.0 billion by 2025 from $330.6 billion in 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.0%. The growth might even continue when, according to a World Bank report, global waste production will grow by 70% from 2018 to 2050, unless severe measures are taken. For example, within Germany, waste management has evolved into a large economic sector. There are more than 270,000 people working in some 11,000 companies with an annual turnover of around 70 billion euros (~$78 billion). More than 15,500 waste management facilities help to conserve resources through recycling and other recovery operations.
Garbology is the study of modern garbage, especially post-consumer waste, in the fields of archeology and environmental science. Garbology is also the practice of searching for information in discarded materials as part of an investigation, including dumpster diving conducted by journalists, hackers, activists, and private investigators. As a sub-field of anthropology and contemporary archeology, garbology involves studying behaviors and practices related to waste management and landfills to better understand human cultures and reduce environmental issues. It was pioneered by William Rathje at the University of Arizona in 1973. The Tucson Garbage Project studied the contents of residential waste and people's perceptions of waste, including identifying misconceptions about the contents of landfills. In environmental science education, influenced by Rathje's work, garbology includes teaching about waste minimisation and conducting waste characterisation activities. The practice of searching for information in people's trash cans does not have a standardized name, but in 1971, American writer A. J. Weberman described his controversial practice of searching for scoops in celebrity trash cans as "garbage-ology", which influenced others to use the term garbology as well. This form of dumpster diving is also called "trashing" or "information diving". In British English, the practice is sometimes called "binology", especially when used to find information for tabloid journalism. As a law enforcement and intelligence agency practice, dating back to at least the 1950s, it is typically called a "trash cover", "trash pull", or "garbage pull". The term "garbology" is also a humorous word for waste management in general, such as calling garbage collectors garbologists, first used in the 1960s.
Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm (e.g. by being inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin). Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue. Increased rates of cancer in humans and animals are linked to exposure to toxic chemicals. Toxic waste disposal is often seen as an environmental justice problem, as toxic waste is disproportionately dumped in or near marginalized communities.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
