Solid Waste Management and Waste Reduction Techniques

In Solid Waste Management and Waste Reduction Techniques , you'll learn ...

• History of solid waste management in the US
• Discussion of solid waste terminology
• Current solid waste management techniques
• Discussion and analysis of the waste stream

Overview

Credit: 3 PDH

Length: 21 pages

The United States disposes of over 236 million tons of solid waste a year, a figure that has been steadily increasing for over 100 years. The traditional waste management bureaucracy is dominated by engineers. Engineers have been successful at designing more efficient and safer disposal methods, but they have been reluctant to effect strategic planning initiatives that address the whole waste generation cycle. Source reduction, material reuse, recycling, product packaging constraints, or industrial process changes-all are examples of steps that can be taken toward reducing the amount of solid waste. The current production and management mindset, though, is in many ways still focused only on finding bigger and better methods of solid waste collection and disposal.

This course will outline many of the strategies the engineers can implement to move past the current mentality and to more effectively reduce and manage solid waste.