Bem 3701 Waste Management : Assessment Answer

Waste management is the process of assemblage, shipping and discarding of all sorts of waste materials in the most environmentally conscious manner. Nowadays, all municipalities and counties possess the proper infrastructure of managing waste materials. Waste Management has also become a specific discipline of study in colleges and universities. This essay outlines the fact to make a critical review of a particular case study involving the improper disposal of oily rags (Hoornweg & Bhada-Tata, 2012).

The oily rags definitely must not stay on the power plant site. Previously, the oily rags were brought to the power plant site from the Fleet Operations maintenance bays for the purpose of burning them. However, since now, the process of putting the waste into flames has been called off by the EPA; therefore, it is useless to bring back the oily rags to the power plant site. Uselessly, the oily rags are just destroying the cleanliness of the power plant site.

The responsibility of the fleet operations in this case is paramount. The fleet operations should have taken into serious consideration about the oily rags disposal. The oily rags belong to them and they must take the full responsibility of properly disposing them , instead of just dumping them uselessly on the power plant site. The fleet operations should have enquired with the EPA about its new waste policies and find out a new alternative disposal practice for the oily rags (Ankalgi & Gujar, 2016).

The EH&S should have raised the question of the non-disposability of the Fleet Operations’ oily rags in the city managers meetings. The EH&S manager should have asked the other managers that how do they dispose their organization’s waste and if there is any alternative to burning them. Then, the EH&S manager would have gotten a fair solution about the matter and the situation would clearly have been different.

The specific section of the RCRA that applies to this scenario is the CFR part 262, which is given in the title 40. The CFR part clearly mentions the rules and regulations, which must be strictly followed by the companies that generate dangerous waste. Fleet Operations is an organization that generates perilous waste because oily rags, when left open, can catch fire easily.  Therefore, the case of Fleet Operations pertains to this specific section of RCRA ("Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Laws and Regulations | US EPA", 2017).

There will be an occurrence of serious health and safety concerns if the oily rags are loaded into the incinerator. This is because the pollutants, which are emitted from the incineration system, would severely hamper the respiratory system of the workers and the nearby residents. Additionally, the nearby ponds and lakes would become contaminated as well. The consumption of the fishes of those water bodies would pose a serious health and safety threat. The consumption of the befouled food produced in the nearby factories would also be perilous for the humans (Wiesner & Plata, 2012).

Thereby from the above discussion, it is clear that waste management is a very pressing issue in today’s industrialized world. The factories and the organizations that generate dangerous waste must have the proper infrastructure of waste disposal and if they do not have such, then they must take strong action about it. The corporate generators of all sorts of waste must hold strong responsibility for their waste disposal systems.

References

Ankalgi, D., & Gujar, Y. (2016). Briquettes Production Using Oil Contaminated Cotton Waste. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2(4).

Hoornweg, D., & Bhada-Tata, P. (2012). What a waste: a global review of solid waste management.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Laws and Regulations | US EPA. (2017). US EPA. Retrieved 27 October 2017, from https://www.epa.gov/rcra

Wiesner, M. R., & Plata, D. L. (2012). Environmental, health and safety issues: Incinerator filters nanoparticles. Nature nanotechnology, 7(8), 487-488.