The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. It does not, however, address the movement of radioactive waste. The convention is also intended to minimize the rate and toxicity of wastes generated, to ensure their environmentally sound management as closely as possible to the source of generation, and to assist developing countries in environmentally sound management of the hazardous and other wastes they generate.
Hazardous waste is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. Hazardous waste is a type of dangerous goods. They usually have one or more of the following hazardous traits:ignitability, reactivity, corrosivity, toxicity. Listed hazardous wastes are materials specifically listed by regulatory authorities as hazardous wastes which are from non-specific sources, specific sources, or discarded chemical products. Hazardous wastes may be found in different physical states such as gaseous, liquids, or solids. A hazardous waste is a special type of waste because it cannot be disposed of by common means like other by-products of our everyday lives. Depending on the physical state of the waste, treatment and solidification processes might be required.
Chemical waste is any excess, unusable, or unwanted chemical, especially those that cause damage to human health or the environment. Chemical waste may be classified as hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste, universal waste, or household hazardous waste. Hazardous waste is material that displays one or more of the following four characteristics: ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and toxicity. This information, along with chemical disposal requirements, is typically available on a chemical's Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Radioactive waste requires special means of handling and disposal due to its radioactive properties. Biohazardous waste, though it often contains chemicals, is also handled differently.
Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm. Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue.
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program is designed to investigate and clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Sites managed under this program are referred to as "Superfund" sites. There are 40,000 federal Superfund sites across the country, and approximately 1,300 of those sites have been listed on the National Priorities List (NPL). Sites on the NPL are considered the most highly contaminated and undergo longer-term remedial investigation and remedial action (cleanups).
Dangerous goods, abbreviated DG, are substances that when transported are a risk to health, safety, property or the environment. Certain dangerous goods that pose risks even when not being transported are known as hazardous materials. An example for dangerous goods is hazardous waste which is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, mixed waste (MW) is a waste type defined as follows; "MW contains both hazardous waste and radioactive waste. It is jointly regulated by NRC or NRC's Agreement States and EPA or EPA's RCRA Authorized States. The fundamental and most comprehensive statutory definition is found in the Federal Facilities Compliance Act (FFCA) where Section 1004(41) was added to RCRA: "The term 'mixed waste' means waste that contains both hazardous waste and source, special nuclear, or byproduct material subject to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954."
The Bamako Convention is a treaty of African nations prohibiting the import of any hazardous waste. The convention was negotiated by twelve nations of the Organisation of African Unity at Bamako, Mali in January, 1991, and came into force in 1998.
GeoMelt is a process by which dangerous, contaminated material is mixed with clean soil, a blend of industrial minerals, and/or glass frit and melted to create an extremely hard and leach-resistant glass product. Vitrification immobilizes nearly all of the inorganic contaminants present in the initial mixture by incorporation into the glass matrix. Organic wastes in the melt are destroyed by pyrolysis, and gaseous contaminants released during the melting process are treated separately.
Under United States environmental policy, hazardous waste is a waste that has the potential to:
The environment of Russia
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.
The 'Ndrangheta, a criminal organization from Calabria, Italy, has been involved in radioactive waste dumping since the 1980s. Ships with toxic and radioactive waste were sunk off the Italian coast. In addition, vessels were allegedly sent to Somalia and other developing countries with toxic waste, including radioactive waste cargoes, which were either sunk with the ship or buried on land. The introduction of more rigorous environmental legislation in the 1980s made illegal waste dumping a lucrative business for organized crime groups in Italy. The phenomenon of widespread environmental crime perpetrated by criminal syndicates like the Camorra and 'Ndrangheta has given rise to the term "ecomafia".
ASCE Library is an online full-text civil engineering database providing the contents of peer-reviewed journals, proceedings, e-books, and standards published by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Library offers free access to abstracts of Academic journal articles, proceedings papers, e-books, and standards as well as many e-book chapters. Access to the content is available either by subscription or pay-per-view for individual articles or chapters. E-books and standards can be purchased and downloaded in their entirety. Most references cited by journal articles and proceedings papers in the library are linked to original sources using CrossRef. Linking provides researchers with the ability to link from reference citations to the bibliographic records of other scientific and technical publishers’ articles. ASCE also offers librarians usage statistics which are compliant with the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases. All articles are in PDF and many journal articles are also available in HTML format.
Waste management laws govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manner of waste, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment in a manner that may cause ecological or biological harm, and include laws designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing waste types and mandating transport, treatment, storage, and disposal practices.
The Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre is a governmental service under the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia.
Toxic colonialism, or toxic waste colonialism, refers to the practice of exporting hazardous waste from developed countries to underdeveloped ones for disposal.
The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries.
