Solid Waste & Disposal Systems
An engineered waste disposal site designed to isolate solid waste from the environment.
What is Sanitary Landfill?
What is Upcycling?
the managed, biological decomposition of organic materials by microorganisms
What is Composting?
using living organisms to break down, detoxify, or remove pollutants from contaminated soil
What is Bioremediation?
when minerals are removed in layers during mining
What is Strip Mining?
The solution (or suspension) that forms when liquid travels through a solid and removes some components of that solid with it.
What is Leachate?
recycling waste materials into new products that are of lower quality
What is Downcycling?
the process of converting non-recyclable waste materials, like municipal solid waste (MSW), into usable energy forms
What is Waste-to-Energy?
a green technology using plants to clean up contaminated soil, water, and air by absorbing, stabilizing, or degrading pollutants
What is Phytoremediation?
Prior to reaching and extracting the minerals via mining, the surface minerals must be removed first.
What is Surface Mining?
The everyday trash and garbage from homes, businesses, and institutions.
What is Municipal Solid Waste?
taking apart products, repurposing them, and turning them back into the exact same product
What is Primary (closed-loop) Recycling?
a plant, commonly located near poorer areas, where solid waste is disposed of through burning.
What is Incinerator?
solid waste that includes lithium batteries, wires, etc.
What is E-Waste?
What is Mountaintop Removal Mining?
any solid, liquid, or gaseous material that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment
What is Hazardous Waste?
What is Secondary (open-loop) Recycling?
a hierarchy of actions to minimize waste (hint: refuse, ___, ___, etc.)
What are The 5 Rs Of Solid Waste Reduction?
the rock, water, and chemical waste left over after minerals are extracted during mining
What is Tailings?
the economically and legally mineable portion of a measured or indicated mineral resource
What are Reserves?
a waste disposal method that involves pumping liquid waste deep into underground geological formations
What is Deep Well Disposal?
where products are made to be endlessly reusable, mimicking natural cycles
What is Cradle-to-Cradle Design?
models industrial systems like natural ecosystems, viewing them as networks where businesses cooperate to use each other's waste as resources
What is Industrial "Ecosystem" Reduction?
the estimated duration until a significant portion (often 80%) of a non-renewable resource reserve
What is Depletion Time?
these are considered “rare” because they are difficult to find in concentrations that are large enough to be profitable
What are Rare Earth Metals?