Environmental scienceLesson 1 of 5 in the course Waste management

Waste Management: Systems, Treatment, and Policy

5 flashcards · 5 quiz questions · 5 match pairs · 5 fill-in sentences · English

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Summary

Waste management covers the actions needed to handle waste from its creation to its final destination. It matters because poorly managed waste can harm people, ecosystems, and the resources on which communities depend.

Waste management includes the collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, as well as monitoring, regulation, laws, technologies, and economic mechanisms. It applies to solid, liquid, and gaseous waste, including municipal, industrial, chemical, organic, biomedical, and radioactive waste.

All flashcards

What is waste management?
The collection, transport, treatment, and disposal of waste, together with the monitoring, regulation, laws, technologies, and economic mechanisms that shape these activities.
What is municipal solid waste (MSW)?
Solid waste associated with household, commercial, and industrial activity that is commonly handled by municipal waste systems.
What are the 7Rs?
Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, Recycle, and Recover. They encourage preventing waste and using products and materials before resorting to disposal.
What is the waste hierarchy?
A ranking of waste strategies, generally from most to least preferred: prevention, reuse, recycling or composting, material or energy recovery, and final disposal.
What does the polluter-pays principle mean in waste management?
Those responsible for pollution bear its environmental costs; for example, a waste generator may have to pay for proper disposal of unrecoverable materials.

Quiz questions

  1. Which description best defines waste management?Answer: Coordinating waste collection, transport, treatment, disposal, and oversight.
  2. What does municipal solid waste (MSW) refer to?Answer: Solid waste associated with households, businesses, and industrial activity.
  3. Which action is generally preferred over recovering energy from waste?Answer: Preventing waste through refusal or reduced material use.
  4. How can product design support source reduction?Answer: By selecting lower-impact materials and reducing resource and energy needs.
  5. A waste generator must pay for the proper handling of unrecoverable waste. Which principle does this illustrate?Answer: The polluter-pays principle.

Based on the Wikipedia article Waste management, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted into a summary, flashcards and quizzes.

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