| Aragonite Hazardous Waste Incinerator | |
|---|---|
 Aragonite Hazardous Waste Incineration facility on I-80, Aragonite Utah | |
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| Coordinates | 40°44′34″N113°0′10″W / 40.74278°N 113.00278°W |
The Aragonite Hazardous Waste Incinerator is a waste disposal facility currently operated by Clean Harbors. It is located in Aragonite, Tooele County, Utah, United States, located in the western portion of the state.
The Utah Test and Training Range lies to the west and the Dugway Proving Grounds lie to the southwest. Interstate 80, exit 56 provides access to Aragonite. The site lies northwest of the Cedar Mountains. The low Grassy Mountains lie to the north. [1]
Aragonite lies along the Hastings Cutoff, a historical transmontane route taken by nineteenth-century pioneers. Aragonite was established in the early twentieth century for the mining of aragonite, though all mining operations in the area have ceased. [2] A 1950s-era mining guide described a small townsite, [3] but the area is now uninhabited and almost totally demolished.
The historical Aragonite site has been described as "an old mining town from the early 20th century that mined aragonite. This mine was only in operation for a few years but today [in 2009] the mineshafts are still open and a few bunkhouses remain, as well as an old truck." [4]
Just east of the historical townsite is a large hazardous waste incineration facility. This facility was known as the Aptus Incinerator, and was built there in 1991 after Tooele County established the surrounding lands as the West Desert Hazardous Industries District. [5] [6]
According to the Provo Daily Herald, the Aptus incinerator at Aragonite was the first hazardous waste incinerator in Utah. In 1992, it had the capacity to burn 70,000 tons of waste per year, most of which came from out-of-state sources. [7] The incinerator was, at times, operated by Westinghouse, Rollins, Laidlaw, and Safety-Kleen, and is now operated by Clean Harbors. [5] In 2013, it was reported that Utah medical facilities were considering using the Aragonite disposal facility instead of the Stericycle facility, which is much closer to Salt Lake City. [8]
The facility has been the subject of several penalties administered by the EPA. [9] [10] A 2009 Associated Press story reported on a settlement reached after 48 regulatory violations were uncovered, including some relating to fires at the facility. [11] The Salt Lake City Tribune described the facility as an "alleged serial violator" in 2014, noting yearly fines for reporting errors, inventory discrepancies, improper storage, and inadvertent air pollutant releases. [12]
In 2017, an armed man threatened to explode a bomb at the facility, and was shot dead by state highway patrol officers. [13]
Hazardous waste is waste that must be handled properly to avoid damaging human health or the environment. Waste can be hazardous because it is toxic, reacts violently with other chemicals, or is corrosive, among other traits. As of 2022, humanity produces 300-500 million metric tons of hazardous waste annually. Some common examples are electronics, batteries, and paints. An important aspect of managing hazardous waste is safe disposal. Hazardous waste can be stored in hazardous waste landfills, burned, or recycled into something new. Managing hazardous waste is important to achieve worldwide sustainability. Hazardous waste is regulated on national scale by national governments as well as on an international scale by the United Nations (UN) and international treaties.
Tooele County is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 72,698. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year.
Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and gravel, masonry and concrete, scrap metal, oil, solvents, chemicals, scrap lumber, even vegetable matter from restaurants. Industrial waste may be solid, semi-solid or liquid in form. It may be hazardous waste or non-hazardous waste. Industrial waste may pollute the nearby soil or adjacent water bodies, and can contaminate groundwater, lakes, streams, rivers or coastal waters. Industrial waste is often mixed into municipal waste, making accurate assessments difficult. An estimate for the US goes as high as 7.6 billion tons of industrial waste produced annually, as of 2017. Most countries have enacted legislation to deal with the problem of industrial waste, but strictness and compliance regimes vary. Enforcement is always an issue.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.
The J. R. Simplot Company is an agribusiness company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, United States.
Articles related to waste management include:
The Deseret Chemical Depot was a U.S. Army chemical weapon storage area located in Utah, 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Salt Lake City. It is related to the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.
The Skull Valley Indian Reservation is located in Tooele County, Utah, United States, approximately 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Salt Lake City. It is inhabited by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah, a federally recognized tribe. As of 2017 the tribe had 134 registered members and 15-20 people living on the reservation.
Under United States environmental policy, hazardous waste is a waste that has the potential to:
Stericycle, Inc. is a compliance company that specializes in collecting and disposing regulated medical waste, such as medical waste and sharps, pharmaceuticals, hazardous waste, and providing services for recalled and expired goods. It also provides related education and training services, and patient communication services. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois, with many more bases of operation around the world, including Medical waste incinerators in Utah and North Carolina.
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero.
Clean Harbors, Inc. is an American provider of environmental and industrial services, including hazardous waste disposal for companies, small waste generators and federal, state, provincial and local governments.
The Kettleman Hills Hazardous Waste Facility is a large hazardous waste and municipal solid waste disposal facility, operated by Waste Management, Inc. The landfill is located at 35.9624°N 120.0102°W, 3.5 mi (5.6 km) southwest of Kettleman City on State Route 41 in the western San Joaquin Valley, Kings County, California.
Solid waste policy in the United States is aimed at developing and implementing proper mechanisms to effectively manage solid waste. For solid waste policy to be effective, inputs should come from stakeholders, including citizens, businesses, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, universities, and other research organizations. These inputs form the basis of policy frameworks that influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Effective solid waste management is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, regional, and local entities. Thus, the RCRA's Solid Waste program section D encourages the environmental departments of each state to develop comprehensive plans to manage nonhazardous industrial and municipal solid waste.
It is estimated that 290 million tonnes of waste was produced in the United Kingdom in 2008 but volumes are declining. In 2012 municipal solid waste generation was almost 30 million tonnes, according to Waste Atlas Platform.
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The Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) is an act passed by the United States Congress in 1965. The United States Environmental Protection Agency described the Act as "the first federal effort to improve waste disposal technology". After the Second Industrial Revolution, expanding industrial and commercial activity across the nation, accompanied by increasing consumer demand for goods and services, led to an increase in solid waste generation by all sectors of the economy. The act established a framework for states to better control solid waste disposal and set minimum safety requirements for landfills. In 1976 Congress determined that the provisions of SWDA were insufficient to properly manage the nation's waste and enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Congress passed additional major amendments to SWDA in the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA).
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, formed in 1997, is a multiracial grassroots organization based in San Francisco that works with low-income and working class urban, rural, and indigenous communities. It runs campaigns in the United States to build grassroots networks, and advocate for social justice.
The A.O. Polymer manufacturing site is located in Sparta Township, New Jersey. This facility created special polymers, plastics, and resins. It was also used for reclaiming spent solvents. The facility's poor waste handling led to serious contamination of the ground. It also contaminated the water in the ground with volatile organic compounds. The site has been a threat to the Allentown aquifer, which provides drinking water to over 5,000 people. Initial clean ups started with getting rid of old drums and contaminants from their original disposal area. The company took them and decided to dispose of them elsewhere, thus not fixing the problem. Primary cleanups of the site were ongoing as of 2008. The EPA has been using water pumps to remove contaminants from the water in the ground. A soil extraction system has been put at their disposal to remove harmful contamination within the soil as well. All wells in the affected areas have been closed.
Municipalities and communities of Tooele County, Utah, United States | ||
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| Indian reservations | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |