Talk:Waste management/Archives/2013 and before

Incineration and NPOV

I think that the section on incineration needs a certain amount of editing to maintain a NPOV. This section was always going to be controversial, but at the moment the POV is negative and needs reworking. For the record, I'm not a fan of incineration as a waste management tool but it should be acknowledged as a common and legitimate practice. I'll have a go in a day or two and see what people think. ropable 23:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ropable, I did a lot of reworking of the main incineration and waste to energy articles but didn't get round to doing the section in this article. I have tried to keep a NPOV as possible, whilst diambiguating waste-to-energy and energy-from-waste which I feel can be misconstrued in a encyclopedia article. I welcome any comments.--Alex 10:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I did a simple copy-and-paste from the main Incineration article over what was already there, with a couple of minor wording changes. I didn't realise that it was so good! I think that this topic really only needs the basic info regarding different waste management techniques, with appropriate links to the main articles (which are now looking a whole lot better than they used to). ropable 00:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation link to Waste Management, Inc

Just checking - you moved the link "For the corporation, see Waste Management Incorporated" from the bottom to the top. It seem to give a disproportionate emphasis on a single local company over the who field. Is that simply to be in line with standard Wiki practice? (by Beineix)

Yes, moved to be "standard location" - after all, if you happen to be looking for a secondary link, you don't want to have to scroll thru and entire article to find it, and you may not know to, since the vast majority of thses are at the top of pages. Zotel - the Stub Maker 14:59, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

And also, it is not a "local" company, it covers the US and Canada and is a fortune 500 company. I didn't know how large it was until I looked at their site and wiki entry. Bigger than I thought they were Zotel - the Stub Maker 15:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

More importantly, the company has the same name as this article. - Centrx 22:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I was actually looking for the company, and I couldn't find a link or notice for the company anywhere on this page. Good thing I visited the talk page, huh? Can we replace the "For the corporation..." link at the top of the page? UNDATED

Any views on the link at the top of this page? Personally I think it's a little too favourable for the company and this should be moved to the bottom of the page with "see also". If there are no objections I will move it.--Alex 16:33, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No objections so I have moved the link to the bottom.--Alex 09:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally I believe it should be at the bottom of the page. I accept that WM is a major US company however I think it acts to publicise the company and integrally links it to the topic whenever the subject is typed. Other companies such as Veolia, and Onyx are arguably larger and do not get the same promotional benefit, from not linking their names to the subject. I vote keep the link at the bottom as this is primarily an encyclopedia and I believe companies are secondary to the main subjects.--Alex 10:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it ironic that there was no disambiguation link on the Waste Management, Inc article related to waste management this is now inserted.--Alex 11:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Why should there be any disambiguation links there since any search for waste management will lead here. Plus a link for waste management is already in the first sentance of that article.--Chrisdab 23:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I dont see the reason for debate on this. Its pretty standard to have a top page link to other articles with same name. Especially when the only search link leads to this page and not a disambiguation page. With WM commercials on TV people will search for the company, like I did.--Chrisdab 23:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Besides if you search for Onyx, you get a link to a disambiguation page which lists the company, likewise if you search for Veolia, you get its company webpage. Like I said, there is no debate, if you do a search, you need to have quick links to all results for that search name.--Chrisdab 23:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Map

Greetings from Harrisburg Pennsylvania! I am looking to do a map of all the resource recovery facilities in the US.

I am hoping someone there can help me:

Greeting for the City of Harrisburg Pennsylvania!

The City of Harrisburg is preparing to retrofit its Waste to Energy facility, where we burn trash-make\sell steam, the steam powers an 8 MW electricity generator-whereby we sell excess electricity to Pennsylvania Power & Light [PPL]

Does your state website have a web page that shows a map of your state with such facilities? Or is this available through your GIS? I appreciate your reply. Thank You,

Lou Colón Mayor's Office of Special Projects City of Harrisburg 10 N. 2nd St. Suite 405 Harrisburg, PA 17101 www.harrisburgcity.com

Alternative technologies

I believe I have now addressed some of the issues raised in the old posts shown below. I have spent some extensive time linking in alternative technologies such as anaerobic digestion, mechanical biological treatment, amongst others. Included with this is list of alternative waste treatment technologies. The articles on gasification and pyrolysis remain very scientific and I do not have the relevance experience to update these.

Extra work is required on the composting technology side of things for areas such as windrow composting, in-vessel composting and tunnel composting.

--Alex 16:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This page needs topics on alternative technologies such as:

Mechanical Biological Treatment MBT (Systems such as ArrowBio (Israeli), Herhof (German), Ecodeco (Italian) Pyrolysis Gasification Anaerobic digestion Composting (Aerobic digestion)

I'll try and do this for you Supposed 05:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

This work has now been largely completed --Alex 10:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Green Bin Program

As far as I remember, Etobicoke and Scarborough, former municipalities of the amalgamated Toronto had Green Bin programs several years before Markham. Why is Markham being mentioned, implied as a pioneer in this program?

Recycling is not reuse

"Recycling means to reuse a material that would otherwise be considered waste"

Just to point out that if you recycle a product you are not really reusing it. Reuse is a different thing. --Supposed 05:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I definitely see where you're coming from on that, yet recycling is "destroying the product and reusing its material," as opposed to reusing, which implies "reusing the product as-is". Just wondering if you think the wiki page should be clearer about this distinction. --georgeperson 17 June, 2006

This article also makes the unverified and contentious claim that recycling programs result in a net environmental benefit. I say unverified because the quote and citation refer exclusively to aluminum, one of the few materials that it is agreed is cheaper and safer to recycle (and also one of the few with actual market value second-hand). That government-mandated recycling is environmentally or economically good is much disputed, thus this section is POV.Atripodi 01:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

As a rule, government-mandated recycling (depending which government!) is studied before promulgation and the environmental benefits are usually clear, although there are exceptions (e.g., EU Directive WEEE is contentious). Whether it is economically viable is less important provided that it helps to avoid the depletion of limited resources. Paper, cardboard, bottle glass, PET, aluminium, other non-ferrous metals (precious, copper, tin etc.), iron and steel and some plastics are all economically viable where the quantities are sufficient. Other metals, such as lead, mercury and cadmium, may be less economical to recycle, but are so environmentally harmful that recycling is necessary. There is a big problem with small island states, in that the volumes of waste may be insufficient to justify recycling low-value materials, such as paper, glass and some plastics, but the cost of containerisation and shipping them to mainland treatment plants is too great to justify the effort. However, high-value materials, such as aluminium and PET, can always justify exportation. I live on such an island with ~750,000 inhabitants and know this problem first-hand. I suggest that paper and low-value plastics would be better recycled into energy (in appropriate plant), rather than exported in these conditions. This is opinion! Devilinhell (talk) 16:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Reverse Polymerization

Why is there no mention of reverse polymerization as a waste management tool? As I understand it, the process can be used, for example, to recycle old tires and other petroleum-based waste. Pacific1982 14:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I've read about a couple of different methods of breaking down long-chain polymers (e.g. waste plastics, poultry carcasses, etc) into simpler hydrocarbon products. There are a few companies with proprietary methods out there (Ozmotech, CWT Ltd). This is probably a generic enough process to belong under 'Alternative Technologies', but it's not a very common method of reprocessing waste material yet. ropable 03:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ozmotech seems to be a good system concept. Represented by www.cynarplc.com in the UK. This originated from widely proven Japanese first generation systems.--Alex 16:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Waste Management In Popular Culture?

Would it be appropriate on Wikipedia to include a reference to waste management as a euphemism for organized crime (i.e. The Sopranos)? Or is that more appropriate for Wiktionary? Akira 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I would think it best either as a wikitionary article or if there is enough information background for a new article and it to be used as a "other meanings" section.--Alex 10:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Waste Management Concepts

It seems to me that this section would benefit from some vigorous editing - the subheadings of Recycling and Consumer vs Machine Waste Separation (as they currently stand) are inappropriately detailed for the section. I believe that this section should briefly touch on the broader concepts relating to Waste Management in general, and leave the detailed descriptions of processes and techniques to separate articles. Examples would be 1-2 paragraph descriptions of EPR, Product Stewardship, etc. I realise that different countries/regions might have different names and definitions for things, but there must be some broad concepts in common. Anyone else got any thoughts? --ropable 00:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ropable, it sounds logical to me. I'm not so keen on the concepts part of waste management, more the practical and logical, which in this industry doesn't always seem to follow. Zero waste springs to mind!--Alex 16:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Recycling Conatiner[sic] & Systems Provider

I can't see that this little section is adding anything to the article, consisting of just a couple of direct links to company websites. It might belong in the recycling article, but not here. Unless anyone objects, I'm going to remove it. ropable 05:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Major article reorganization required?

This article has grown a lot in the last couple of years, to the point where it has a large amount of info regarding specific subtopics (which are mostly now covered in separate articles). I'd like to do a major prune/rewrite, but I'd like input from other experts first. I propose the following article structure. Please feel free to modify this as appropriate. ropable 07:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Further refinement done. I'm going to go ahead and reorganise the article based on the layout below. ropable 07:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ropable, I support the revised layout, the article does need restructuring.--Alex 10:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

1 Introduction

2 Waste management methods

2.1 Disposal

2.1.1 Landfill (description of burying waste products)

2.1.2 Incineration (description of thermal destruction of waste)

2.2 Recycling and Recovery

2.2.1 Physical processing (includes 'classic' recycling, recovery of raw materials, demanufacturing, etc)

2.2.2 Biological processing (includes composting and mechanical biological treatment)

2.2.3 Energy recovery (includes incineration, pyrolysis & gasification)

2.3 Avoidance (includes waste avoidance, reduction and reuse)

3 Waste handling & transport

3.1 Collection containers (bins, compactors, etc)

3.2 Transport (examples of different transport vehicles & methods)

3.3 Processing (sorting, separation, compaction, volume reduction, etc)

4 Waste management concepts

4.1 Waste hierarchy

4.2 Extended producer responsibility

4.3 Polluter pays principle

5 Waste management trade associations

6 See also (related Wikipedia articles)

7 References

UKI?

This acronym is used in the introduction yet there's no definition for it. Can someone define it for us?

No idea what this means or its context; might just be vandalism. Edited 'UKI' back to read 'waste management'. ropable 04:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Article Reorganization

I've just rearranged this article according to the layout above, and edited some section heavily. I've trimmed some text and will move this into other articles as appropriate (e.g. the economics of recycling text & references). Most of the linked articles are now well-developed, meaning that Waste management was becoming too long and disorganised.

Some sections still require further work:

• Avoidance and reduction
• Waste handling & transport

ropable 07:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

New paragraph and references: Tridel SA

I have added these because this plant proves that garbage incineration can be environmentally sound without dangerous emissions. Devilinhell (talk) 15:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that this paragraph belongs on the Incineration page. I'll move it there in its entirety tomorrow. ropable (talk) 07:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, the paragraph doesn't belong on the Incineration or waste-to-energy pages. I'll move it to its own page Tridal SA ropable (talk) 07:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

List of WtE plants

It would be useful to include a list of WtE plants throughout the world, their purpose and energy output, possibly as a separate article. I would suggest a format like:

Lausanne, Switzerland, Tridel SA, household and light industrial garbage, electricity 20 MW, heat 60 MW.

Devilinhell (talk) 13:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I have developed an article for list of incinerators in the UK. I would suggest this comment be more relevant to the incineration page or develop a new international article accordingly. --Alex Marshall (talk) 13:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely no references

Just thought that was interesting. II | (t - c) 07:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

slogan

pleaes sand an slogan on cleaness —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.192.241.143 (talk) 09:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Dumping in developing countries

Perhaps the illegal dumping of waste from European and North American ports (eg Antwerp to Cotonou, Accra, North America to Accra, other routes, ... can be decribed. perhaps a map can be shown with arrows indicating the routes. See this article, rudimentary documentary about article, see here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.188.188 (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Recycling Methods

"The recycling of complex products (such as computers and electronic equipment) is more difficult, due to the additional dismantling and separation required."

Although, The whole section should be rewritten to be more inline with the headings, this sentence is misleading. Complex products that should be demanufactured are CRT's, LCD's, microwaves, refrigeration units, vehicles... This is due to hazardous waste contained in component parts that can not be removed otherwise. Demanufacturing, disassembly, and special handling are not universally required. All complex products including computers, cell phones... should be demanufactured in order to maximize the recovery of reusable components and recyclable materials. Again not required unless maximization is desired.Noprimenumbers (talk) 13:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Litter and trash

This is an article of litter and trash. As we right this we will write about it. Stay tuned... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carchuleta (talk • contribs) 16:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

2 matters not covered

Are these covered in another article? I'm surprised they are absent from this article.

• Ocean dumping (including nuclear waste)
• Dumping to third-world nations

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Weird sentence

Maybe I'm just plain stupid, but I don't quite grasp what "The management of wastes treats all materials as a single class, whether solid, liquid, gaseous or radioactive substances, and tried to reduce the harmful environmental impacts of each through different methods." is supposed to mean. Before we had "Waste management can involve solid, liquid, gaseous or radioactive substances, with different methods and fields of expertise for each." which in my opinion is much clearer, while slightly obvious and unnecessary.Frohfroh (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree - sentence changed to something which I hope makes more sense.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   11:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)