Chemical Disposal Methods

The Environmental Protection Agency has put together a set of laws and regulations in order to keep hazardous chemicals from getting into the environment and polluting our drinking water, our land, or the air we breathe. Chemicals can be disposed of in several ways, from being placed in landfills or deep wells, to being incinerated so that their key components can be reclaimed and reused by the industry.

Hazardous Waste

• According to the EPA, listed hazardous wastes fall under four different categories; the F-list identifies wastes from common manufacturing and industrial processes, the K-list identifies wastes from specific industries such as petroleum refining and pesticide manufacturing, the P-list and the U-list wastes include specific commercial chemical products in an unused form, like pharmaceutical products.

Treatment

• Before a hazardous waste or chemical can be disposed of, it must be treated. Treatment is a process that changes a property of a substance to make it less toxic to the environment. A chemical can be neutralized, recovered for further use in another industry, or made safer for ease of transport, storage and disposal.

Land Disposal

• Disposal refers to the placement of chemical waste into or onto the land. Disposal facilities are built to permanently contain and prevent their release into the environment. A land disposal unit can be a landfill, surface impoundment, a land treatment unit, injection well or a waste pile.

Injection Wells

• Injection wells are underground wells that are used for the disposal of hazardous waste that is liquid. The wells are dug deep into isolated rock formations that are thousands of feet below our underground sources of drinking water. These wells are highly regulated to ensure that our sources of drinking water do not become polluted by them.

Incinerators

• Incinerators are used to destroy hazardous waste or to treat it for disposal. According to the EPA, incineration destroys the toxic organic constituents in hazardous waste while reducing it's overall volume or size. Types of hazardous waste incinerators include rotary kilns, liquid injection units, fixed hearth units and fluidized bed units.

Boilers and Industrial Furnaces

• Boilers and industrial furnaces are used to burn hazardous waste for energy and to recover materials for later use. A boiler is an enclosed device that uses controlled flame combustion to create energy from steam, heated fluid, or heated gases. Boilers are used to burn waste to create energy. An industrial furnace is a part of a manufacturing process that uses thermal energy treatment to burn waste for material recovery and energy. Cement kilns, aggregate kilns, phosphate kilns, coke ovens, lime kilns, blast furnaces, smelting furnaces and oxidation reactors are all types of industrial furnaces.