My Part of the Assignment: Organic wastes and Heavy Metals

Organic wastes

Disposal

Modern incinerators are designed to destroy around 99.9% of the organic waste material they receive. Organic materials that have little or no heavy metals can be detoxified biologically. If the materials are not detoxified before they flow into groundwater then there’s a high risk of water pollution. Livestock waste created by large livestock operations create large amounts of wastes which are converted into commercial quantities of a pathogen free, nutrient rich, soil building material.

Strategies for control

Composting and land farming, in which materials are spread out over a large land area so that microbes can decompose them, are examples of biological treatment of organic waste. The use of a garbage disposal still sends liquid food waste to the landfill, but in smaller amounts. The disposal unit manages food waste, which is washed down the drain and into the sewer system. From there is makes its way to the water treatment plant where the solids are separated from the liquids and sludge is created. The sludge is processed in a chemical industrial method and buried in the landfill.

Heavy metals

Disposal

A method of disposing of wastes containing heavy metal compounds is neutralizing the wastes, oxidizing the neutralized wastes and then solidifying the oxidized wastes using binding agents such as cement.