Every year, the United States produces at least 236 million metric tons of hazardous waste. Hazardous waste is defined as solid waste that can pose a substantial threat to human health and the environment when disposed of incorrectly. Some commonly used household products, when disposed of, become hazardous waste; historically, much of this household hazardous waste (HHW) has been disposed of into systems not designed to safely handle hazardous waste. One solution to this disposal problem is providing safe disposal systems for household hazardous waste in the community. The purpose of this study was to survey the population of Benton County, OR to assess the residents' HHW disposal practices, attitudes and beliefs about HHW as an environmental health risk, and preferences for a safe disposal system. Benton County residents' awareness of the current community program for recycling used household items was also investigated. This study indicated that incorrect disposal methods were used by the majority of subjects for almost all HHW surveyed, and that for nonautomotive HHW, landfilling was the most common means of disposal. The majority of subjects in this study disposed of used motor oil and lead-acid batteries by recycling these HHW. A permanent collection site for HHW disposal was the preferred disposal option for 62% of subjects, and 100% of those subjects choosing this option said they would drive up to 5 miles to use this facility. This study indicates that the largest number of subjects preferred the option of paying a user fee for HHW disposal as a means of funding a HHW disposal system. Three-fourths of the subjects reported a high or moderate amount of concern about the contribution of HHW to pollution of surface and groundwater, and 68% of the subjects stated that they lacked confidence in the landfill to safely contain chemical wastes. Approximately one-half of the subjects recalled reading or hearing about HHW disposal in the past year, and 62% of the subjects stated that they would call their garbage disposal company for HHW disposal information. The results of this study indicate that 90% of the Benton County residents surveyed were aware of their curbside recycling program. This study suggests that Benton County residents are concerned about the possible adverse environmental health effects of incorrect HHW disposal, and supports a permanent collection site for the safe disposal of HHW, as well as increased public education, as means of reducing the risks to human health and the environment caused by incorrect HHW disposal. / Graduation date: 1992

This study aims to demonstrate the critical role of waste management in urban sustainability, promote planners' contribution to proactive and efficient waste management, and facilitate the integration of waste management into mainstream sustainability planning. With anticipated increases in population and associated waste generation, timely and effective waste management highlights one of the most critical challenges of sustainable development, which calls for meeting "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED, 1987). Waste management in urban areas plays a particularly important role, given that waste generated from urban areas are often exported out of the region for processing and treatment, and the impacts of waste disposal activities may pass on to the other jurisdictions, and even to the next generations. An urban system cannot be sustainable if it requires more resources than it can produce on its own and generates more wastes than the environment can assimilate. The current waste management practice, which focuses on short-term impacts and end-of-pipe solutions, is reactive in nature and inadequate to promote sustainability within urban systems, across jurisdictions, and across generations. Through material flows in and out of urban systems, many potential opportunities exist to reduce waste generation and to minimize the negative impacts on the environment, the economy, and the society. City planners' involvement in waste management, however, has been largely limited to siting waste management facilities. Linking waste management with three important lenses in planning-land use, economic development, and environmental planning, this study investigates the impacts of urban growth on waste management activities, the need of transforming the reactive nature of current waste management, and the challenges and opportunities that planners should address to promote urban systems' self-reliance of material and waste management needs. This study includes three empirical analyses to complement theoretical discussions. First, it connects waste statistics with demographic data, geographic characteristics, and policy instruments at the county level to examine whether waste volume can be decoupled from urban population growth. Second, it examines the life cycle costs of different waste management options and develops a simulation study to seek cost-effective strategies for long-term waste management. Third, it compiles evidence of geographic-specific characteristics related to waste management and demonstrates why waste management policies cannot be one-size-fit-all. This study finds that, with successful implementation of strategic policy design, waste generation and its associated impacts can be decoupled from population and urban growth. Good lessons about waste reduction programs can be learned from different communities. Meanwhile, this study also reveals various challenges facing communities with heterogeneous characteristics, such as housing density, building age, and income. Accordingly, this study discusses the potential opportunities for planners to contribute to community-specific waste management programs, the prospect of transforming waste management practice from a cost burden to a long-term economic development strategy, and the need to incorporate waste management into the sustainable urban planning agenda.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This dissertation is an examination of the formation processes operating at nineteenth-century housesites in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The approach stresses the reconstruction in behavioral terms of all urban deposits, including those considered "mixed" or "disturbed." The data base for the dissertation consists of three disparate archaeological collections at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth. The analysis was performed under a unifying research agenda and with a consistent set of analytic techniques in a kind of "postexcavation salvage." These methods include developing a Harris matrix to reconstruct site stratification, plotting deposition locations in reference to known activity areas (such as doors and windows), measuring relative sherd size, and calculating a minimum number of vessels through the examination of ware, form, and surface decoration and the refitting of sherds. This latter exercise of crossmending helped to establish the horizontal and vertical displacement of sherds. Measures of diversity included counting the number of artifact classes to determine richness and developing a prevalence index to assess evenness; i.e., the distribution of artifact types within a deposit. The behavioral unit of analysis was the household, as it was hypothesized that individual households generated refuse in patterned ways. Nineteenth-century households from three sites were reconstructed from historical sources such as city directories, census information, family genealogies, and tax assessment records. Twelve households occupying three different housesites were linked with various refuse deposits and compared over time and space. Several patterns of trash-disposal behaviors recurred at the three sites. Preferred modes of refuse discard included the use of open-air middens, privies, and opportunistic middens. Households apparently also transformed or redeposited secondary-refuse aggregates to create tertiary deposits. Often characterized as mixed or disturbed, these tertiary deposits can be informative about depositional behaviors in the urban context. Conclusions summarize how immigrant status, stage in household development, tenancy, and owner occupation affect the discard behaviors at the three sites. Once a "grammar of garbage" is reconstructed in behavioral terms, more abstract constructs, such as the worldview of hygiene and sanitation, can be suggested.

abstract / toc / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

A significant segment of the urban population in many low-income countries derives their living from the harvest of marketable materials from urban waste streams. The activities of so-called "scavengers" or waste pickers in many African, Asian, and Latin American cities have also come to be understood to have environmental benefits: the diversion of materials from the urban waste stream decreases the volume of wastes that need to be collected, transported and disposed of. However, due to their daily contact with garbage, these men, women, and children are usually associated with dirt, disease, and squalor. The work of the scavenger is often conceptualized as being poverty driven and undertaken as a survival strategy or coping mechanism in a harsh urban environment. In recent years, various programs and projects have been developed by nongovernmental organizations, religious institutions, community-based organizations, and local governments to address the needs of scavengers. Such intervention schemes are designed in one way or another to alter the scavengers' existing situations. This study looks at the possible linkages between the evolving understanding of scavenging and the various approaches to intervention that it engenders. This study first examines how scholars and researchers analyze waste picking issues and their suggestions for potential interventions and then relates this understanding to how institutions, citizens, non-governmental organizations, and aid agencies are addressing these issues in practice. It is found that different conceptualizations of waste picking issues have led to different intervention prescriptions, and that the prescribed interventions are motivated by environmental, economic, or humanitarian concerns. This study contends that the recommended and implemented intervention prescriptions are simply promoting market means in an attempt to achieve humanitarian ends, and, therefore, are only short-term measures that will not solve the identified waste picking issues. Data sources used in this effort include academic journals, conference papers, case studies of development programs, newspaper articles, Web sites, and field reports. Data were also obtained by contacting researchers and organizations that have studied or are currently working with waste pickers in a variety of geographical settings.

Landfills in British Columbia are reaching capacity; this has sparked renewed efforts to curb the output of household waste. Extending previous quantitative studies, I use a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore what influences the perception of waste and activates the intention to recycle and compost. Participants from Ucluelet, British Columbia, accumulated their refuse, recyclables, and compost during a four week period; simultaneously, I interviewed them about the meanings and feelings they associated with the process. My results suggest that participants' attitudes about waste are strongly influenced by what they see. Because garbage is regularly hauled away and dumped out of sight, participants were relatively unaware of how much they produce and its environmental impact. Increasing awareness appears to be a key factor in changing waste diversion intentions; incorporating small pro-environmental changes may lead to further changes. This reaffirms previous findings that adopting one environmental behaviour can empower further change.

This dissertation describes the characterisation of, and development of a novel integrated waste management strategy for, hydroxide scouring effluents produced during cotton processing. Such effluents are typical of mineral salt-rich waste waters which are not significantly biodegradable in conventional treatment plants. The proposed strategy focuses on two complementary concepts: process-oriented waste minimisation adopts a systematic approach to identifying potential problems and solutions of waste reduction in the manufacturing process itself; while add-on controls reduce the impact of the waste after it has been generated, by recycling and treatment. The basic procedures for ensuring effective water and chemical management within the scouring process are described. Examples are given of factory surveys, which have resulted in significant chemical and water savings, reduced effluent discharge costs, maximum effluent concentration, and minimum pollutant loading and volume. Pilot-plant investigations demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of a four stage treatment sequence of neutralisation (using carbon dioxide gas), cross-flow microfiltration, nanofiltration and electrochemical recovery to remove colour and impurities from the scouring effluent and produce directly reusable sodium hydroxide and water. Fouling and scaling of the cross-flow microfiltration, nanofiltration and electrochemical membranes are minimal and reversible if the operation is carried out under carefully selected conditions. A long anode coating life is predicted. Current efficiencies for the recovery of sodium hydroxide (up to 20 % concentration) are 70 to 80 % and the electrical power requirements are 3 500 to 4 000 kWh/tonne of 100 % NaOH. Pilot-plant trials are supplemented by extensive laboratory tests and semi-quantitative modelling to examine specific aspects of the nanofiltration and electrochemical stages in detail. Electromembrane fouling and cleaning techniques, and other anode materials are evaluated. The effects of solution speciation chemistry on the performance of the nanofiltration membrane is evaluated using a combination of speciation and membrane transport modelling and the predicted results are used to explain observed behaviour. Based on the results of pilot-plant trials and supplementary laboratory and theoretical work, a detailed design of an electrochemically-based treatment system and an economic analysis of the electrochemical recovery system are presented. The effects of rinsing variables, processing temperatures, and background rinse water concentrations on the plant size requirements and capital costs are determined. The implementation of the waste management concepts presented in this dissertation will have significant impact on water and sodium hydroxide consumption (decreasing these by up to 95 and 75 % respectively), as well as effluent volumes and pollutant loadings. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1994.