18-Env-B5 Industrial & Hazardous Waste Management · May 2016
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; Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes (1989); Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) regulations on radioactive waste; provincial hazardous waste regulations (e.g. BC's Environmental Management Act and Hazardous Waste Regulation).
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.
A hazardous waste is any discarded solid, liquid or gaseous material that, because of its quantity, concentration, or physical, chemical or infectious characteristics, poses (or may pose) a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly managed. Regulatory schemes (in Canada, CEPA 1999 and the provincial hazardous-waste regulations it interlocks with) generally define a hazardous waste by one or more diagnostic characteristics — ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity and toxicity — or by appearing on a specific listed-waste schedule (e.g. spent solvents, electroplating sludges, PCBs). A waste that meets any one of these tests must be tracked, stored, transported and disposed of under the hazardous-waste regulatory chain of custody (manifest system) rather than as ordinary municipal or industrial solid waste.
