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ENVIR 300

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATION


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 THURSDAY, MAY 15
URBAN WASTE STREAMS

We begin today with our second broad case study, using urban waste an what happens to it both as a case of complex systems and as an introduction to the concepts of materials life-cycle an life-cycle analysis. The basic concepts are that waste, too, is part of any ecological, economic, and even cultural system, and that we can use some of the same concepts and ideals--increasing sustainability and resilience--and some of the same thoughts about systemic interrelations and cross-scale interactions here as we used in our farming case study.

To begin with, for today you should read four, all relatively short and simple, sources on the nature and problems of urban waste streams:
  • The EPA's report on Municipal Solid Waste Generation will give you a start in understanding qualitative and simple quantitative aspects of the problem and its spatial and temporal scales.
  • Next, Professor Sally Brown's website gives a good introduction to biosolids, one important and potentially useful downstream product of urban waste streams. Read what you want, but you might look particularly at What are Biosolids?, Risk Assessment, and her report on Biosolids for Biodiesel.
  • For the government's more propagandistic take on the same question, look at Metro King County's report on biosolids recycling.
  • Finally, turn your attention to a completely different part of the waste stream, looking at Jan Schut's article on E-waste
    • Based on these specifics, I will talk about how we can think of modeling urban waste.

    After we have discussed the topics and concepts we will be using in this case study, we will go over both the 4th quantitative exercise and the 4th paper assignment