Early Concepts of Waste Disposal

Early concept of waste disposal was “dilute and disperse” as the volume of waste produced was relatively small. Factories were located near rivers because the water provided a number of benefits, including easy transport of materials by boat, sufficient water for processing and cooling, and easy disposal of waste into the river. With a few factories and sparse population, dilute and disperse seemed to remove the waste from the environment.

As industrial and urban areas expanded, the concept of dilute and disperse became inadequate and a new concept “concentrate and contain” is giving way to concepts of waste management focusing on managing materials and eliminating waste. It has become apparent; however, that containment was and is not always achieved. Containers, whether landfills or drums, natural or artificial, may leak or break and allow waste to escape.

Modern Trends

The environmentally preferable concept with respect to waste management is to consider wastes as resources out of place. It seems apparent that the cost of raw materials, energy, transportation, and land will make it economically feasible to reuse and recycle more resources. Moving toward this objective is moving toward an environmental view that there really is no such thing as waste, only resources. Under this concept, waste would not exist, because it would not be produced or, if produced, would be a resource to be used again. This concept is referred to as the “Zero waste” movement where waste from one part of the system would be a resource for another part.