Characteristics Of Hazardous Waste

Hazardous waste can be defined as any waste that is likely to cause danger to the environment or heath whether in isolation or in a combination with other wastes or substances by virtue of its physical, toxic, reactive, chemical, explosive, flammable or corrosive characteristics. Characteristics of hazardous wastes are: o Ignitability (i.e., flammable) o Reactivity o Corrosivity o Toxicity

These wastes may be found in different physical states such as liquids, gaseous or solids. A hazardous waste is a special kind of waste due to the inability of being able to dispose it off by common means like other by-products of our day to day lives. Based on the physical state of the waste, solidification and treatment processes might be required.

This occurs when the wastes reach water bodies such as rivers, ground water and lakes. Ground water gets adversely effected when residues from waste, leach into the ground water. Leachate is a waste that forms as water trickles through contaminated areas leaching out the chemicals. Movement of leachate from effluent treating plants, landfills and waste disposal sites may result in hazardous substances entering soil, surface and ground water.

Delving further, we realize that ‘Waste management’ essentially means “the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the supervision of such operations and aftercare of disposal sites”. However the latest concepts are of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle of waste’ over and above waste disposal.

The current state of hazardous waste management practices in India

In India, legally defined waste materials can be categorized into municipal solid waste, bio-medical waste and hazardous industrial waste. A list of waste sources, the type of waste and the applicable laws and regulations has been listed in the following table. “MSW” is the above table stands for Municipal Solid