Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste Management - Essay Example

Solid wastes are wastes discarded by households, commercial, industrial agriculture, and other institutions. Hazardous wastes are substances that pose danger and potential harm to the health and environment. They can be solids, liquids, or in the form of sludges (US. EPA, 2012). These hazardous wastes must be segregated, separated, and isolated from the non-hazardous solid wastes.

To combat the problem regarding solid waste management and hazardous waste management is challenging work. This is not a one-man job. Rather, this would include the government at the national and local levels, the initiating organization and the whole community. For the purpose of this paper, let me take the Philippine context in their solid waste and hazardous waste management.

Based on the existing law, there are systematic, comprehensive, and ecological solid waste management programs implemented. Basically, the national government calls for mandatory solid waste avoidance (initially to divert 25% of solid wastes year by year), volume reduction through reuse, recycle and reduce, and final disposal of residual and special wastes only on designated landfill areas and materials recovery facilities or MRFs (RA 9003, 2012). On the other hand, hazardous wastes are dealt with a separate law that mandates the control and management of import, manufacture, process, distribution, use, transport, treatment, and disposal of toxic substances and hazardous wastes in the country (“Hazardous Waste Management”, 2004).

Need Assessment Procedures:

In order to gauge the effectiveness of the implementation of the set of law in the community and the needs for further improvement, the following means can be done:

1. Actual visual inspection of the waste sources of the community, from the households, industries, and other sources of solid and hazardous wastes. Starting from this step, it can be checked if the actual segregation of wastes, the 3 R’s, and the waste avoidance are being done by every entity of the society. Waste segregation and labeling at source is the start of SWM and HWM good practices. Random checking of households and institutions through interaction with the residential and industrial people can result in data for analysis. For effective inspection and wider exposure, a team can be organized involving some local people from the community. A checklist can be provided for them as a basis for the inspection.
2. Ocular examination and inventory of their waste facilities such as garbage cans from the individual households, community garbage facilities, MRFs, sanitary landfills, septic vaults, and other waste-related facilities. Basing on these facilities, it can be derived if the law has prevailed. A positive action from the people would show that there is the presence of these facilities, operation, supervision, and as a whole, a sanitary visual result. This step needs to have interactive correspondence with local officials in charge of the community.
3. Checking and monitoring of the frequency of garbage collection, the volume, the segregation, and the integrity of the people involved. Data that can be derived from here would reveal if there is indeed a reduction of wastes from source through comparison with volume collected every now and then. Along with this step, interviewing the personnel involved in the actual waste collection can help in the gathering of data regarding the many practices of solid waste management.
4. Conduct surveys on the people in the community regarding their actual practices with regards to solid waste management. This would reveal the government's actions towards the community, the effectiveness of the implementation, and their response to the imposed laws.
5. Conduct an information drive with the community involving all the people living in the area. Through this, the people in the community can be educated and informed with regard to proper solid waste management. Also, through this, an interactive open forum or question and answer can help in the gathering of data about the needs of the community for their proper solid waste management. If they would be informed and educated, they would be inquisitive about the proper practices and the necessary procedures in handling hazardous waste. In retrospect, the absence of facilities and procedures would be revealed through the audience interaction. Information drive must include the people in the community, the local government unit, the department of environment representative, and the organization represented.