环境英语证书考试(PEC)-实用术语解释.doc

环境英语证书考试（PEC）-实用术语解释Solid WasteMostly the solid debris from households, industries and construction. It does contain some liquids, some gases, and some infectious materials from house bound ill persons.Sanitary LandfillA disposal technique resulting in burial of the waste using an engineered method intended to protect the environment, typically employing plastic liners and drains on the bottom to collect liquids and covers on the top to keep rain water out and to keep methane and other gases from escaping. See also Landfill.LeachateThe juice from garbage, usually, but not always, in alandfill. May be caused by water washing through and dissolving things or may be part of the original liquids that were in the garbage.NIMBYNotInMyBackYard. In other words, an attitude that says: Not near my house!TCLPTest Similar to the EP Tox Test referred to elswhere in this glossary. The Acronym stands forToxicCharacteristicsLeachingProcedure.Tipping FloorThe flat surface on which the arriving trash trucks dump their loads of solid waste at an incinerator.Transfer StationA place, usually a building, where smaller route trucks unload their garbage so that it can be transferred into large, over-the-road semi-tractor trailer trucks or special trains for long trips to the landfill or other disposal point.Integrated Solid Waste ManagementA management system that uses several techniques such as composting, recycling, incineration, landfilling, and education to dispose of and/or minimize solid waste.Tipping FeeThe fee charged to dump at an incinerator, transfer station, or landfill.White GoodsUnwanted appliances, such as washing machines, stoves, etc., very often white. It also includes other such waste metals as fencing, swing sets, buckets, etc.EP Tox TestExtractionProcedureToxicity Test. The test required by USEPA for the testing of waste materials to determine if they are Hazardous. It was meant to simulate the acid conditions and leaching that would naturally occur in asanitary landfill. It is generally agreed that the test, as presently configured, does not accurately simulate a sanitary landfill; it is far too aggressive (too acid).SludgeThe watery bio-solids removed from wastewater during treatment. Does not include the solids that were screened out of the wastewater as it came into the wastewater plant. Sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants (with good industrial oversight programs to minimize metals) is very good for farm soil. Sludge from industrial water treatment may, or may not, be good for farm soil. Horticulturists would need to make that determination individually because these industrial sludges can be very different.Fabric FiltersA device which uses fabric to remove particles from flue gas. See also Bag House.Flue GasThe exhaust gases from a combustion process contained for a time in the flue.Fly AshSolid particles that literally fly out of the combustion process. Often called particulate.Hazardous WasteWastes defined as hazardous by law. Most such waste is only hazardous if mis-managed. Such terms can lead to public concern or complacence if not used with care. Regular municipal solid waste can be a hazard to health and the environment if left unmanaged.Infectious WasteSolid wastefrom doctors offices and hospitals. Most states have legal definitions which need to be considered. Such definitionsexclude as well asinclude, so the result is not always as expected. For example, all municipalities have some ill and homebound people which renders all municipal solid waste potentially infectious. Further, most legal definitions of infectious waste exclude the small quantity generator, ie small doctors offices even the offices of large doctors, perhaps, and thus the waste from such offices is mixed in with the regular municipal solid waste.Allmunicipal solid waste is potentially infectious. Always has been.LitterWaste not managed.Mass BurnA type of incineration that requires virtually no pre-processing. The mixed municipal refuse is burned as is - generally everything that is no larger than a bread box.ParticulateTiny pieces (particles) which are suspended in the smoke or exhaust from any process. See fly ash.PICsProducts of Incomplete Combustion, ie carbon monoxide (CO2) and other compounds.POCsPrimary Organic Constituent. A term usually applied to Hazardous Waste combustion situations, not a municipal waste concern.DensitySolid waste has many different densities, all valid. Loose, in a Dumpster container for example, it weighs 100 - 250 lbs. per cubic yard. Squashed into a modern route truck it weighs from 400 lbs. to 800 lbs. per cubic yard. Crushed and compacted into a modern landfill it can weigh more than 1000 lbs per cubic yard. Incinerator ashes in an ash monofill weigh approximately 1 ton per cubic yard.Lime, Hydrated Lime, and Quick LimeThese are forms of Calcium bearing minerals which are often used to clean up various environmental situations. The terms are sometimes used carelessly for the different forms. Natural Limestone is mostly calcium carbonate and is often used in powdered form to neutralize acids in water, soils or air. Limestone powder is plowed into some fields by farmers and it is also used to make cement. The different forms listed here have differing amounts of material other than Calcium such as water molecules and carbon. The Hydrated lime is more aggressive than plain limestone, and the Quick lime is very aggressive and more difficult to handle safely.DioxinsPolychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs), a class of several chlorinated organic compounds, some of which are quite toxic to laboratory mice and rats, though not necessarily to humans.One should note that incinerators are only a small source of ambient dioxin. At least half of ambient air dioxin comes from natural sources according to Dr. G. W. Gribble, a professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, in athoroughly documentedpaper published in 1994 in the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology. Only about 10% comes from manufacturing processes and incineration.Co-disposalThis definition references several things and must be taken in context such as: the co-disposal of incinerator ash with mixed municipal raw garbage in a landfill, or the incineration of sewage sludge in incinerators designed for the burning of municipal solid waste, or the composting of grass and lawn organics with sewage sludge.Combustion /BurningA natural chemical process which rapidly breaks down organic materials largely composed of Carbon (C), Oxygen (O), and Hydrogen (H) into more stable compounds largely carbon dioxide CO2and water vapor H2O while releasing heat energy from the break down of the organic compound. Additional Oxygen is required for combustion. For example: methane (CH4) plus Oxygen (O) yields CO2and H2O plus heat energy in the home furnace.AshThe largely incombustible residue left after incineration. In American Municipal Incineration, the ash residue is approximately 85% glass, rock, and crockery, and approximately 13 -15% iron and steel. In American Municipal Incineration, very little of this ash material resembles typical household fireplace ash.LandfillAn earthworks designed for the disposal of solid waste. As of the 1990s modern landfills in America were required to have liners to prevent liquids from contaminating the groundwater and liners to prevent landfill gas from escaping from the biologically active trash buried therein. Such liners are made up of several layers of clay, sand (for drainage), and plastic blankets. USEPA has mandated in the 90s that most water from rainfall (as much as possible) be kept out of the landfill in order to minimize the danger to the groundwater posed by leaching liquids escaping out the bottom. USEPA has also required that all landfills have gas extraction systems installed and that the gas be at least flared to minimize its environmental impacts.Landfill GasWastes in landfills continue to break down from natural biological activity giving off gas which contains mostly carbon dioxide and methane, although organicacid gasis very obviously present. Buildings located on the perimeter of old landfills often give clear evidence of acid gas attack. Steel doors and door frames show corrosion very quickly in many cases. Occupants of such buildings sometimes feel the effects of such acid gases each summer as the ground warms up and biological activity increases.This author has witnessed such conditions. In Dayton, Ohio, the EPA tested and documented at the Cardington Road Landfill thatmostknown organic compounds are emitted in some quantity from a closed landfill. These particular tests were done at least 10 years after the landfill was closed. Many of the organic gases detected in these landfill gasemissionsare known carcinogens.USEPA has required as of the 90s that all new landfills and some recently closed landfills have gas extraction systems installed and that the gas be processed (at least flared) to minimize its environmental impacts. There is, however, no monitoring required for this uncontrolled flaring which has many products of incomplete combustion in its exhaust.RecyclingRecycling is the recovery for sale of materials from the waste stream. Typical materials to recover include plastics, paper, glass, steel, and aluminum. Recycling work costs money, however, and the value of the recovered material should justify the effort of recovery.The recovered materials from municipal solid waste are typically dirtied in some manner from food, paints, or other wastes. Imperfect separation causes their value to be less than for new raw materials in many cases. Recycling plastic beverage containers into new beverage containers, for example, has proved to be quite difficult due to Food and Drug Administration rules for cleanliness and the weakened material strength in the plastic itself.Curb side recycling is the process of separately collecting fairly clean materials from the residential curb side in concert with collection of the regular mixed trash.All recycled material requires reprocessing in some fashion such as repulping used paper to make new, or remelting plastic to make new.While often thought by the general public to be environmentally clean trash disposal, recycling has its own emissions: extra truck (often diesel) exhaust, hot water requirements, wastewater from cleaning, exhaustemissionsfrom melting and smelting. Some recycling has been around for many years because it has been economically justifiable: junk yards in every community are recycling steel and auto parts. Dayton, Ohio, has had three large firms recycling office paper and cardboard for over 30 years. Unfortunately, such recycling efforts are often unwelcome because of their ragged appearance; the margins of profit are not all that large.CompostingThe controlled organic digestion of materials such as grass clippings, food wastes, and lawn debris. Composting can be used to manage the disposal of a large part of the American waste stream; grass and lawn debris in 1990 constituted 20% of American solid waste. Composting can be done in the residential yard in conjunction with gardening, or it can be done with separate collection and a large central processing facility.If the product is to be sold, it needs to be very uniform and pure with no bits of plastic or metals to cause appearance problems. In Holland, for example, municipal waste compost was used widely on farm fields where it seemed to be doing well from a crop production standpoint. Unfortunately, now those fields that have received several annual applications of such compost are beginning to look like fields of plastic debris.I have reviewed many composting processes and found the key to clean compost to be keeping the plastic out in the first place; it cannot be completely removed once it is in the compost.The composting process has its own emissions, mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor (like organic combustion), but also a plethora of organic gases and acids which, to be fair, need further study.Waste StreamThe daily quantity of municipal solid waste and trash. The control of this stream of material is the key to financing disposal facilities. Many states are now receiving a stream of waste from other states which do not have adequate disposal facilities within their own borders. Waste stream control, however, has been found to be a violation of US Constitutional guarantees against Unfair Restraint of Free Trade. The public is generally unaware that the US Constitution provides for such control, however, under Rules to be established by the US Congress. Congress has failed to establish such rules because landfill and trucking lobbys have been so effective.Ironically, in 1992 the Congress failed to institute such rules by one vote from Virginia, which is now inundated with the waste stream coming from New York and New Jersey. In 1992, Virginia thought it had 100 years of landfill space available. Now it appears to have less than 20 years of space because of the stream from out of state.Flow ControlThe laws and ordinances used to direct Solid Waste to a certain facility for disposal. Unlike a wastewater plant which is tied to its intended customers with piping, a solid waste facility has no physical control to direct the stream of waste into the processing plant once it is constructed. Thus, in order to be financed, solid waste plants need to have other guarantees that they will receive the solid waste they are intended to process. Recent US Supreme Court Rulings, however, have found local and state flow control ordinances to be in conflict with the free trade provisions of the US Constitution. Only when rules are adopted by the US Congress to address this matter, may some form of flow control become legal once again.Acid Gas EmissionsGases which exhaust from power plants, other combustion processes, and landfills contain substantial amounts of various chemical compounds which go into the atmosphere and combine with natural moisture to form various acids which fall as acid rain. New York rainfall appears to have a higher level of acidity when it lands on the earth than rain which falls downwind of the industrial Midwest.In many northeastern American states, such as New York, the natural alkalinity of the ground isnotsufficient to neutralize acid rain water. Here in Ohio, however, natural limestone based soil is sufficient to neutralize such acid rainfall. In New York State, the lakes are actually becoming more and more acidified. Some are so acidified that aquatic life has ceased to exist. There is substantial disagreement among the technical community about the true source of this aci