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Landfill fridges still leaching CFCs

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Landfill fridges still leaching CFCs

Old equipment such as building insulation foam, refrigerators, cooling systems, and foam insulation are still leaking ozone-destroying gases into the atmosphere, scientists have said.

Researchers have found "unexpectedly high" levels of man-made chemicals known as CFC-11 and CFC-12, which belong to a group compounds responsible for creating a hole in Earth's ozone layer known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), despite a worldwide ban on the production of these gases.

The team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US traced the source of these CFCs to "large banks" of old equipment which were manufactured before the global phase-out, which began in 20

All Landfills Leak, and Our Health and Environment Pay the Toxic Price | Conservation Law Foundation

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All Landfills Leak, and Our Health and Environment Pay the Toxic Price | Conservation Law Foundation

The theory behind landfills is that once waste is buried, the contamination remains inert in landfill “cells.” To keep the waste dry and contained, landfill cells today are required to have two plastic liners, each backed with synthetic clay, putting a few inches between decomposing trash and the soil beneath it. Once the landfill cell is full, gravel, a flexible plastic cap, and some sod are then built on top of the cell.

This should be a nice, tidy end to that waste, but in reality, it is impossible to keep landfill cells dry. Rain and snow get into them while they’re open and accepting waste (which can be for years). And even after the cell is sealed, the plastic caps develop holes over time, letting in more rain and snow.

The water that gets into landfill cells picks up contaminants from the waste and becomes “leachate.” What’s in the leachate depends on what’s in the landfill, but some chemicals can be counted on, such as volatile organic compounds, chloride, nitrogen, solvents, phenols, and heavy metals.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS):Incineration to Manage PFAS Waste Stream

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EPA Technical Brief: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS):Incineration to Manage PFAS Waste Stream

The effectiveness of incineration to destroy PFAS compounds and the tendency for formation of fluorinated or mixed halogenated organic byproducts is not well understood. Few experiments have been conducted under oxidative and temperature conditions representative of field-scale incineration. Limited studies on the thermal destructibility of fluorotelomer-based polymers found no detectable levels of perfluorooctanoic acid after 2 secondresidence time and 1,000oC (Yamada et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 2014). Emission studies, particularly for PICs, have been incomplete due to lack of necessary measurement methods suitable for the comprehensive characterization of fluorinated and mixed halogenated organic compounds.

The extent to which PFAS-containing waste material in the United States is incinerated is not fully documented or understood. PFAS compounds are not listed as hazardous wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) nor as hazardous air pollutants under Clean Air Act regulations, so they are not subject to the tracking systems associated with these regulations.

New coalition aims to advance polypropylene recycling despite viability questions | Waste Dive

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New coalition aims to advance polypropylene recycling despite viability questions | Waste Dive

The Recycling Partnership and others are calling for more investment in sorting #5 plastics and some buyers say they can't get enough. Booming virgin production makes this an expensive proposition.

Many MRFs aren’t investing in robotic or optical sorting fit for pulling out polypropylene (among other materials) or they aren’t connected to buyers interested in the material, according to Harrison. That's why the nonprofit plans to launch a Polypropylene Recycling Coalition (originally called the Polypropylene Industry Council) representing local government members, MRF operators and manufacturers to address the problem.

“You can’t solve this from just a design point of view and you can’t just label your way out of this," said Harrison.

Recent research by Closed Loop Partners also notes how many MRFs lack the necessary technology to sort polypropylene. Their work concluded that, based on calculations using a five-year trailing average for PP prices, it takes two to five years to see a return on investment for the appropriate equipment.​

But Greenpeace and Dell question whether this kind of investment is worthwhile without stronger pricing and a larger-scale investment in the entire system. Last month, Greenpeace reported how much of the plastic actually gets recycled and pointed to a wide gap in changing that situation.

The Poisoned Generation

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The Poisoned Generation

Inside the apartment, her boys were insulated from the crossfire outside. But like thousands of others seeking shelter behind the peeling walls muffling the bubbling bass dripping from Crown Vic speakers, the poison of lead would find a way into her sons’ bodies all the same. Ryan and Ronnie, along with thousands of other poor children in New Orleans whose parents believed they could shelter their children from the violence outside, would become an entire poisoned generation.

Lead was only one of many ecological risks her family faced. The playgrounds where Ryan and Ronnie played often brimmed with pools of fetid, standing water—owing to New Orleans’s fabled and constant flooding—that were sometimes tainted with battery acid. Billieson had heard tell about the regurgitated sewage and chemical waste from Louisiana’s booming petrochemical operations that flowed back into dirt common spaces where her children learned to walk, all while they breathed in the emissions from the nearby roads and highways.