Primary Industries
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Waste management
Waste is generated in numerous ways. Many of the goods we use every day are packaged in un-reusable packaging. Obsolete and broken items are often thrown away as waste. Surplus materials are often discarded. Food and garden waste make up a significant amount of the material that gets thrown away.
Waste can be classified as either biodegradable (ie it will break down in the environment) or it may be non-biodegradable, in which case it stays around for a very long time.
Waste can be dealt with in several ways:
- minimisation at the source
- disposal, although this is the least desirable strategy as it usually involves landfill or incineration, both of which have serious environmental consequences
- recovery of the materials after disposal.
Waste management relies on the strategies of:
- reduce - use only those items that are necessary
- reuse - use items more than once for the same or a different purpose
- recycle - this is the extraction and reconstitution of the raw materials in discarded items, e.g. glass, paper and some plastics.
Toxic or hazardous waste
Industry produces a variety of hazardous wastes that have the potential to cause serious problems for humans and the environment. Agricultural and horticultural industries use many chemicals to eliminate and control weeds, pests and diseases that threaten crops and livestock.
Some hazardous wastes are very difficult to dispose of and are known as intractable waste or scheduled wastes. These wastes cannot be destroyed as they may contain certain heavy metals or other materials, such as some pesticides or radioactive waste, for which there is no suitable disposal technique.
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