Energy Production and Air Pollution

Solid waste plan

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The Northern Maine community, which will be home to 100,000 people, is the main target for the planned solid and hazardous waste treatment and recycling plan. As previously highlighted, the current community consists of private individuals, private industry owners and government agencies whose role in sustaining the plan is critical. It is important to consider how the plan will affect the community’s ecosystem, which includes wildlife, land, wilderness, and wetlands. Plans are underway to establish a sustainable management plan that will minimize the impact on the environment. However, a case in point is fostering sustainability that will minimize the impact of the community on climate change.

The planned building of a large shopping mall, single-family homes (freestanding) and an assortment of styles of multi-user (attached) apartments, demands that an effective waste disposal system is in place. This is in consideration of preserving the overall ecosystem and human health. The plan shall entail hazardous waste generation, which shall ensure that wastes are identified, transported, treated, stored and recycled or disposed of. With the collaboration of the local level law agencies and community leaders, the following recycling policy will be carried out.

General statement

The community’s policy is that the planned community development shall adhere to efforts of practicing good environmental habits through business and personal activities. It is the purpose of the community to develop and implement a solid and hazardous waste treatment and recycling plan to promote the campaign of sustaining a safe and healthy environment. It is also the aim of the community to engage community members in initiating measures in sustaining this plan through proper waste disposal and recycling.

Sustainability efforts

The plan is developed with the aim of generating and maintaining sustainability that will create coexistence between people and nature. Education and engagement of the community in understating the entailments of solid waste management are critical. The community’s commitment to cleanliness is directly linked to their involvement in sustainable solid waste management (Permana et al., 2015). The plan is designed to integrate the following components: prevention, reuse, waste sorting (recyclable and perishables), collecting, transport, recycling, treatment, and disposal. Each of these steps is important to the plan as they track the movement of waste from sources to the disposal point. Furthermore, the plan categorizes points of collecting solid and hazardous wastes from the sources to optimize time, efforts and resources.

a) Household recycling- all households shall have designated waste recycling points which consist of waste generators that will perform the recycling and disposal process. Before this, each household shall be educated on the importance of proper waste management, sorting out of hazardous and organic wastes and proper handling.

b) Commercial recycling- these target business owners, particularly manufacturing businesses whose operations shall be reviewed for compliance with EPA and Rapid Methods for Assessing Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) standards and regulations. The plan shall execute regulations of solid waste handling, routes for collection, transport to the recycling plant and subsequent treatment and recycling or disposal.

Laws and regulations

It is imperative that the community adheres to the relevant laws that govern solid waste disposal and management. The United States Environmental Protection Agency is mandated to regulate household, industrial, and manufacturing solid and hazard wastes (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2017). The agency spells out the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which will act as the basis for the plan. The act guides states on developing solid waste programs and hazardous waste program, therefore, it will foster the sustainability efforts of the project. An Environmental Impact Study is also critical since it is important that the new community plan does not adversely affect the environment. This shall be conducted with the collaboration of environmental experts and the community leaders including the project managers.

Economics

The community development and solid waste plan demand significant budgetary allocations for successful completion. Ferreira et al. (2012) quote Massarutto et al. (2011), that recycling increases cost for private or the public-sector businesses. The community’s economy is sustained by various economic activities including industries, small business owners, tourism, and fishing. This, therefore, increases the local reserve; however, it is important that the two projects do not affect other sectors of the community’s economy.

The projected costs for the solid waste program shall entail the construction of a solid waste plan, purchasing of equipment and hiring of staff which will enhance its operations. Additionally, the planned initiative for educating the community on proper waste management shall be taken into consideration. The estimated cost of the solid waste management system is expected to amount to $ 2,500,706 for a five-year period. The rationale behind this estimated budget cost is to ensure that all the 100,000 community members are part of the waste management program. This can only be possible if the appropriate infrastructure is already in place in the form of a constructed waste disposal plant, waste collection transport operations, garbage disposal points and compliance with state and local laws.

Ethical issues

The solid waste program prompts certain ethical issue that affects the community, and it is important to consider them. According to Wapner and Matthew (2009), there two barriers to environmental ethics, which are difficult in identifying ethical concerns and the experts’ inability to articulate them. One of the ethical issues in the community plan is adhering to local land use laws and critical environmental laws. This implies that each section of the plan including collection, transport, sorting, treatment, recycling and disposal shall be conducted based on the relevant was to ensure there is no further environmental pollution. The other issue is transparency among the industry owners who tend to release very toxic waste from their manufacturing processes. They, therefore, have an obligation to report that they are handling toxic waste beforehand for proper arrangements to be made. This helps to prevent leakages to the surrounding environment and costly reversal efforts.

References

Ferreira, N., Simoes, P., & Marques, R.C. (2012). Economic cost recovery in the recycling of packaging waste: the case of Portugal. Journal of Cleaner Production, 37, pp.8-18.

Permana, A.S., Towolioe, S., Aziz, N.A., & Ho, C.S. (2015). Sustainable solid waste management practices and perceived cleanliness in a low-income city. Habitat International, 49, pp. 197-205.

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2017). Regulatory Information by Topic: Waste. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/regulatory-information-topic/regulatory-information-topic-waste

Wapner, P., & Matthew, R.A. (2009). The Humanity of Global Environmental Ethics. The Journal of Environment and Development, 18(2), pp. 203-222.