18-Env-B5 Industrial & Hazardous Waste Management · May 2014
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
Reference texts: Nemerow & Dasgupta, Industrial and Hazardous Waste Treatment, 2nd ed.; Metcalf & Eddy, Wastewater Engineering: Treatment and Resource Recovery, 5th ed.; Davis & Cornwell, Introduction to Environmental Engineering, 6th ed.; LaGrega, Buckingham & Evans, Hazardous Waste Management, 2nd ed.; CCME, Guidelines for the Management of Biomedical Waste in Canada (1992); Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), 1999; provincial Environmental Protection / Hazardous Waste Regulations (e.g. BC's Hazardous Waste Regulation, O.Reg. 347 in Ontario).
All eighteen questions are compulsory on this paper and are answered in full below.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
When on-site disposal and discharge to the municipal sewer are both ruled out, an industry generating hazardous waste has three principal off-site disposal routes: (1) transport to a licensed commercial hazardous-waste treatment, storage and disposal facility (TSDF) — a permitted third-party facility that treats (e.g. chemical stabilization, incineration) and/or disposes of the waste (e.g. a licensed secure/engineered hazardous-waste landfill); (2) transport to another industrial facility for waste exchange, reuse or recycling — where the "waste" of one process is a usable raw material or fuel for another (a waste-exchange program), recovering value rather than simply disposing of it; and (3) transport to a dedicated off-site hazardous-waste incineration or thermal-treatment facility, which destroys organic hazardous constituents and substantially reduces the waste's volume before any inert residual (ash) is landfilled. In every case the industry generating the waste remains legally responsible for it under "cradle-to-grave" liability (documented through a manifest system) until it reaches its final, permitted disposal point — the generator cannot discharge that liability simply by transferring physical custody of the waste.
