• THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF WASTE
• POLLUTION PREVENTION IN RESOURCE-RELATED SETTING
• GARBAGE/SOLID WASTE PREVENTION STRATEGIES
• DOMESTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF WASTE
Almost 160 million tons of solid waste are generated in the U.S. each year. By the year 2000, the municipal solid waste stream is expected to increase by 20% to 193 million tons. Today, each American generates between 3 and 4 pounds of solid waste per day. This means that U.S. citizens generate the most garbage per capita in the world.

Experience has now shown that there is no completely safe method of waste disposal. All forms of disposal have negative impacts on the environment, public health, and local economies. Landfills have contaminated drinking water. Garbage burned in incinerators has poisoned air, soil, and water. The majority of water treatment systems change the local ecology. Attempts to control or manage wastes after they are produced fail to eliminate environmental impacts.

The toxic components of household products pose serious health risks and aggravate the trash problem. In the U.S., about 8 pounds in every ton of household garbage contains toxic materials, such as lead, cadmium, and mercury from batteries, insect sprays, nail polish, cleaners, and other products. When burned or buried, toxic materials also pose a serious threat to public health and the environment.

The only way to avoid environmental harm from waste is to prevent its generation. Pollution prevention means changing the way activities are conducted and eliminating the source of the problem. It does not mean doing without, but doing differently. For example, preventing waste pollution from litter caused by disposable beverage containers does not mean doing without beverages; it just means using refillable bottles.

POLLUTION PREVENTION IN RESOURCE-RELATED SETTING
Preventing pollution in a sensitive resource-related setting means thinking through all of the activities and services associated with the facility and planning them in a way that generates less waste.

Waste prevention leads to thinking about materials in terms of reduce, reuse, recycle. The best way to prevent pollution is not to use materials that become waste problems. When such materials must be used, they should be reused onsite. Materials that cannot be directly reused should be recycled.

Everyone associated with the facility must change their habits and adopt a more responsible attitude toward waste. This includes the ownership and management of the facility - the architects, engineers, designers, and contractors; the employees; and the visitors. Each of these groups needs to consider the issues so that no waste will be generated that adversely affects the environment.

Visible, Participatory Systems

The "out of sight, out of mind" mentality regarding waste is perpetuated because the systems that deal with waste problems are all behind the scenes and off-limits. Prevention can only be accomplished by paying attention to the issue up front, rather than waiting until after the problem has been created. An environmentally sound tourism facility would ensure the visibility of systems to prevent the generation of waste. Such systems require conscious participation by visitors, users, and operators. They should not dominate the experience of a visitor at the facility. If each visitor does his or her share, the facility can be operated in a more environmentally sound manner. An additional benefit is that this can lead to long-term changes in behavior benefiting the participant and the earth.

Training and Maintenance

Waste prevention requires training the operators, educating all users of the system, and performing diligent maintenance. Most waste problems have been created because attention has not been paid. Conventional disposal systems are designed for ease of use with the user having little idea of how the systems operate or where the waste goes. Because waste prevention represents a change in the way activities are carried out, it requires an extra effort to ensure that these practices are maintained until they become routine. In situations with high turnover of both employees and visitors, continuous training and education would be essential.

Host and Visitor Attitudes

Preventing waste means taking a measure of responsibility for activities. This can conflict with the attitude that going on vacation means escaping responsibilities. Without an attempt to change this attitude, the necessary participation may be difficult to obtain. Fostering a sense of responsibility in visitors is an important element of environmentally sound development in many other ways as well. One way to encourage this attitude is to convey to visitors that they are privileged visitors, and as a result, they may naturally feel obliged to follow certain guidelines established by their hosts. Facility operators should behave as hosts that care about making waste prevention work. Employees of the facility must care about it, and that caring must be visible to the visitors.

GARBAGE/SOLID WASTE PREVENTION STRATEGIES
In planning for facilities, a comprehensive design strategy is needed for preventing generation of solid waste. A good garbage prevention strategy would require that everything brought into a facility be recycled for reuse or recycled back into the environment through biodegradation. This would mean a greater reliance on natural materials or products that are compatible with the environment.

Any resource-related development is going to have two basic sources of solid waste - materials purchased and used by the facility and those brought into the facility by visitors. The following waste prevention strategies apply to both, although different approaches will be needed for implementation:

• use products that minimize waste and are nontoxic
• compost or anaerobically digest biodegradable wastes
• reuse materials onsite or collect suitable materials for offsite recycling

Use of Products that Minimize Waste

Much of the growing volume of garbage is from the use of disposable consumer products and excess packaging. Consideration must be given to materials or products that minimize waste disposal needs. Purchase items with minimal packaging; buy in bulk; replace disposable products with durable, reusable items. Durable, reusable products can be substituted for disposable ones, such as the use of returnable glass bottles instead of aluminum cans or the use of rechargeable batteries. Use of plastics for packaging is increasing, thereby replacing recyclable products and materials. Plastics, which account for about 20% of solid waste by volume, are nonbiodegradable, difficult or impossible to recycle, have a high volume to weight ratio, and are toxic when burned. Consequently, communities across the U.S. are beginning to pass laws banning certain types of packaging that inevitably become disposal problems. Cutlery and dishes need not be disposable.

When selecting materials and goods, nothing should be purchased that will ultimately become toxic. Nontoxic materials can often be substituted for products that cause contamination problems during disposal.

Materials should be purchased locally whenever possible. Locally produced goods needing less transport and less storage should have less waste packaging.

No matter how diligent people are in purchasing materials, certain items will need to be handled. There are two methods to consider - biodegradation or recycling. Technology and economics are continually changing and the system selected must have the flexibility to adjust to market conditions. The scope of composting or anaerobic digestion of organic materials and the availability of markets for recycled materials should be considered in planning for a facility. These decisions are site-specific and must be made at the outset before final design is completed. Factors such as land availability, local markets, and isolation all contribute to that decision.

Biodegradation

In the process of biodegradation, microorganisms break down the products of other living things and incorporate them back into the ecosystem. Biodegradable or bioconvertible material includes anything that is organic. Plastics are not considered includable, despite industry contention that they are. Most of the organic components of garbage, such as paper and food wastes, can be eliminated through composting. Between 60% and 75% of the solid waste is bioconvertible.

In a tourism development, the greatest fraction of waste would be generated by the support and maintenance services. Wastes that are bioconvertible include newspapers, magazines, and wet wastepaper in the kitchen and restaurants. Also included are food waste, cardboard materials, paper office supplies, and leaves, grass, and tree trimmings. The solid fraction of the sewage waste is also considered available for the bioconversion process, and is often the most costly to dispose of otherwise, usually in a special landfill.

The biodegradable or bioconvertible percentage of the waste stream is large enough to consider at least two options for the conversion process. Two obvious options for conversion are composting and anaerobic digestion.

Composting. Composting is a familiar concept, and is used for handling yard waste and even sewage sludge. Both of these organic wastes require mixing of other materials to achieve a nutrient balance. Large chunks of relatively inert material (most commonly wood chips) add bulk and aeration to make the process work. This is typically done in open windrows or piles, with mixing done daily to provide aeration and homogeneity. This takes land space on a drainable surface, and a collection of any runoff for redispersal of the liquid to the process. It produces a quality soil amendment and reduces the bulk of the original material by approximately 40-50%.

Composting does off-gas ammonia and carbon dioxide and produces offensive orders. It typically takes 50-60 days to process. Screening of the final product is necessary to remove the bulking material, and provide granulation before use in the soil bed.

The use of this product as a soil amendment is valuable, particularly in the tropics, because the soil is essentially sterile, with only about 2% organic content. Affected by humidity, rainfall, temperature, and normal soil activity, the organic material placed on the soil will typically last only 30-40 days in the tropics. In a temperate climate, that same material may last as long as six months.

Most composting operations of the size typical for communities could be suitable for tourism development use, considering the opportunity to also process construction debris and landscape waste. This will typically be the smallest scale and cost approximating $250,000. The construction debris process equipment can be transferred directly to the operations management and be capable of handling the full volume of waste.

Anaerobic Digestion. Anaerobic digestion is used extensively worldwide for the processing of food waste, animal waste, the solids of human waste systems, and for the total array of solid waste such as waste paper, green waste, and landscape waste. This wet fermentation process converts the waste stream into three usable by-products: (1) Biogas - an energy-rich gas stream, comparable to natural gas, that can be used to offset the cost of energy utilities of the development; (2) a high quality organic fertilizer solid that may be useful in landscaping efforts or even crop production; and (3) a dilute liquid organic fertilizer that may be used in drip irrigation as an additive to any planting program, for foliar feeding of ornamentals, or in landscape plots for replenishing native or endangered plant species of plants.

The anaerobic digestion process does need management supervision in startup. Design of the system should be simple and modular as well as easy to operate. The modular design allows seasonal loading rather than using one large vessel. This also provides for stages of digestion that help the natural biology of the fermentation reach its optimum capacity. While this requires more capital investment, the savings to be made in maintaining operations through seasonal fluctuation will prove to be cost effective. The advantages of this system are in the smaller space it would require and in the energy it would produce, which may make the facility more self-sufficient. The value of the by-products cannot be understated, particularly in the case of remote development.

Recycling

A material doesn't become waste until it is thrown in the garbage can. If a material can be reused it is a resource, not waste. Reuse is the best form of recycling.

There are markets in the United States, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world for many recyclable materials including aluminum, paper, glass, steel, and some types of plastics. These may be available to a facility depending on location and the quantity of the materials generated. Recycling can be maximized through the purchase of products for which there is a ready market as recycled materials. The feasibility of recycling a given material depends on the price offered by a buyer for that material and shipping costs, both of which may vary over time. However, if no other reuse or recycling option exists, materials used at the facility should be recycled even at a net loss rather than sent for disposal.

In circumstances where there is no available market for a given material, often a beneficial end use can be developed locally. Every effort should be made to work with the local community to determine if any of the materials generated by the facility can be used. - e.g., glass beverage containers can be ground up and incorporated into materials for construction and road building.

Efficient recycling requires sorting of materials; convenient bins should be provided at the facility for the materials being recycled.

Offsite Disposal

If a garbage prevention strategy has been fully executed, actual remaining waste should be minimal. Remaining residuals mean that the facility is not entirely environmentally sustainable. All residuals must be collected separately and disposed of offsite. Although disposal of residual waste anywhere would have an adverse impact on the environment, in an environmentally sound development special care must be taken that this will not be borne locally. In most cases residuals must be returned to their place of origin. Toxic material residuals must be segregated and disposed of separately.

Materials Brought in and/or Purchased Onsite

Visitors and guests normally bring various materials that are consumed onsite, often leaving behind disposal problems. Products purchased onsite and in the surrounding community can exacerbate the problem. Such materials may include toxic and difficult to dispose of items (e.g., batteries, flash bulbs, instant film refuse, and repellents. Education, including what is incorporated in the written materials about the facility and what is available, is important in minimizing these types of waste materials.

DOMESTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

General Considerations

Domestic wastes in park and tourism developments come from toilets and urinals, showers, bathroom sinks, kitchen sinks, laundry facilities, and most floor drains. Varying amounts of water are used to carry these wastes through pipes to a treatment point. Different processing techniques are used to convert the wastes for reuse or disposal. True sustainable development would not permit direct disposal of either liquids or solids before reuse.

Responsible waste management recognizes the value of reducing water needs. Properly treated wastewater can be used for toilet flushing (after approved disinfection) and irrigation (landscape needs or agricultural plantings).

The solids separated from domestic waste may be incorporated into the solid wastes (garbage) and composted into an excellent soil amendment product or anaerobically digested to produce a gaseous energy source and a residue that can also be used as a soil amendment.

If wastewater recycling for toilet flushing is used without concurrent irrigation of vegetation, there will be a volume of excess liquid that must be sensitively disposed of. This will be the amount of liquid wastes coming in each day from all sources, less the recirculated amount used for toilet flushing. Best disposal practice would use a suitable area for subsurface movement of the liquid through soils that provide good filtering and additional treatment before reaching any body of water. Direct discharge to a waterway should be the lowest priority of alternatives investigated.

Using treated, recycled wastewater for toilet flushing, rather than an equal volume of drinking-quality water, would save a large amount of water. There are also strong economic and environmental reasons for using one of more than 20 different low-volume flush toilets (1.6 gallons per flush) currently on the market, rather than the more conventional water-wasting models. In seawater development sites, toilets may be flushed with seawater and processed with septic tank and subsurface treatment and disposal. This provides a reliable system if the corrosive nature of seawater is addressed in selection of materials used in the piping, plumbing, pumping, and treatment systems.

Similar water conservation can be realized through the use of flow-restricted, fine-spray shower heads, and sink faucet aerators. Spring-loaded handles should be installed on faucets. Laundry waste volume can be reduced through the use of machines with suds-saver cycles.

Park and tourism developments that make use of water conservation devices should make an effort to educate their visitors on the amount of water (or energy) they have conserved during their stay, compared with the conventional development. It is important to monitor the conservation devices in order to evaluate their performance.

As with all pollution, sewage is best treated by not creating it in the first place. Human waste only becomes waste when there is no use for it.

Specific Waste Treatment Technologies

Technologies that avoid or minimize the use of water and reuse the nutrients in domestic waste in beneficial ways are described below.

General. Conditions at sustainable developments favor simple, reliable, passive techniques for waste treatment. Systems that have few moving parts, controls, and monitoring requirements should be used. Continuity of operation and maintenance knowledge is essential.

Waste treatment systems must also be able to withstand seasonal fluctuations in use. Preparation for an idle period should be simple, and no energy should be required when the system is not being used.

If an innovative technology is to be employed for waste treatment, it should have a conventional backup system, or be sufficiently redundant that multiple failures are unlikely.

Dry Toilets (Composting Toilets). A composting toilet consists of a large tank located directly below the toilet room. Wastes enter the tank through a large diameter chute connecting to the toilet, and decompose in an oxygen rich environment. No water is used for the toilet, but a bulking agent (such as wood shavings) is added to improve liquid drainage and aeration, and to provide fuel. A small fan draws air through the tank and up the vent pipe to ensure adequate oxygen for decomposition and odorless operation. Internal components (such as ducts, baffles, and rotating tines) enhance the composting process. The finished compost can be removed from the lower end of the tank about once each year. It can be used as a fertilized for soil.

Composting toilets need a mild temperature, moisture, fuel, and air to function. Liquid may have to be added to the tank to keep the compost pile moist during periods of little use or a bulking agent added periodically to improve the compost texture.

Composting toilets have several advantages over other systems - e.g., no water is used and only a small amount of energy is needed for an exhaust fan; valuable nutrients are used to benefit soils; proper maintenance requires little time.

There are some disadvantages to this system. The user is close to the sewage treatment systems and this bothers some visitors. Without proper maintenance, the tank can become anaerobic and unpleasant odors arise. Undesirable pests can take up residence in the composting tank. The availability of a bulking agent in some areas can also be a problem.

Anaerobic Waste Treatment. Anaerobic waste treatment (septic systems) is accomplished through microorganisms living in the wastewater. Anaerobic microorganisms work in an environment where there is no free oxygen. Complex reactions and interactions take place with the resulting generation of some offensive gaseous by-products. These unpleasant odors are actually an indication of an efficient progression of the anaerobic process to remove the pollutants from the waste stream.

This type of system is reasonable to consider for smaller developments, where the by-product gases can be separated from occupancy areas, dissipated with good air movement, or neutralized with soil or carbon filters. Since slow treatment means longer holding periods (shallow depth tanks), large, isolated treatment and disposal areas are needed. Treated wastewater (effluent) is usually disposed of in an underground system that passes the effluent through carefully selected undisturbed soil profiles. These soils must further filter and remove nutrients as the effluent makes its way to the groundwater or other bodies of water.

One variation of this type of treatment uses part of its treated effluent for toilet flushing. The stored recycled effluent should receive some aeration to ensure odor-free recycle water in the toilets.

This type of waste treatment system has several advantages. It is relatively inexpensive to install, and is not complex to operate and maintain. It provides a consistently good quality effluent. Most components can be installed aboveground, or they can be buried or partly buried. Good quality flushing water can be provided to reduce water supply needs and final disposal volumes.

The disadvantages are that septic tank odors must be dealt with properly. Several pumps and blowers can be involved, which creates maintenance and power costs, and can cause noise in some developments. Septic tank solids require proper disposal. An aerobic digestion tank would reduce volumes for disposal. A sand drying bed can be used for digested sludge drying, and the dried sludge should be buried in a landfill. A fairly large area is required for installation. There is no known manufacturer of a complete package system.

Prior to committing time and resources, it is prudent to contact actual users of similar systems - talk with a designer, system operator, an owner, and possibly a regulatory agency inspector who has observed performance.

Aerobic Waste Treatment. Aerobic waste treatment is also accomplished with microorganisms. However in this system, air is bubbled into the treatment process to ensure plenty of free oxygen. Aerobic organisms work about 20 times faster than anaerobic organisms. No offensive gas odors are released in this treatment process. Since they process is so much faster, much less holding time is required and less treatment area is needed.

This type of treatment plant is reasonable to consider for all sizes of park and tourism development, and because offensive odors are not normally produced, this type of system can be located close to occupied areas. The normal effluent quality of a properly designed and operated system meets most all secondary treatment standards With a reasonably small filter, high quality effluent can be produced for irrigation and recycled toilet flushing water. With carefully planned effluent recycling and irrigation reuse, little or no effluent disposal would be required. If disposal is required, several options are possible.

There are several manufacturers of small aerobic treatment plants. The best plants for harsh environments and isolated areas are fabricated from durable, low maintenance materials, simple to operate and maintain, designed to use the fewest moving parts, and consistent in effluent quality. They are also quick to install and put in service, proven in similar installations, and completely assembled and warranted by one manufacturer. A good manufacturer also provides, at a reasonable cost, technical and monitoring services on the new plant for at least one year after initial startup.

Advantages of such a system are that all materials in contact with liquids are noncorrosive (plastic, fiberglass, rubber, stainless steel) and can be buried or installed aboveground. The blower is the only moving part and requires only simple, routine maintenance. Effluent quality is consistently good. Excellent recycle and reuse options are available. The process easily handles surge loadings, as well as underloaded periods. Land area required is about 0.1 acre per 10,000 gallons of rated capacity. Site installation and startup can usually be accomplished in five working days or less. Few spare parts are needed. Purchase costs are competitive with other similar-sized treatment units. Unskilled operators have successfully followed infrequent, telephoned system adjustment instructions to maintain top performance.

The disadvantages are that most components are fabricated, assembled, and shipped from Colorado - few local materials would be used. The blower, although small, needs to be run continuously. The noise would have to be muffled, and a constant power cost would be involved.

The National Park Service has five of these plants in service in four widely varying environmental areas. One plant has been in service for several years.

Alternative Disinfection Methods

Traditionally, water from conventional treatment systems is disinfected with chlorine or chlorine compounds before being released back into the environment or reused. A side effect of this is that the chlorine or chlorine compounds are very reactive and sometimes produce highly persistent, toxic chemicals. Many environmentalists believe that there is no justification for use of chlorine and its compounds for disinfection.

Most public health codes call for disinfection with chlorine, and they would have to be changed to allow for either no disinfection or the use of other disinfectants. Less desirable possibilities include using less chlorine or removing the chlorine after the proper contact time. Dechlorination requires additional chemical feed and training.

The purpose of disinfection is to ensure that no virulent organisms are present after the water has been processed in one of the systems described earlier. The most common alternative disinfectants are ozone and ultraviolet light.

An entirely new treatment technology, introduced in September 1993, appears to provide excellent disinfection without the formation of environmentally harmful by-products. The National Park Service is arranging pilot studies at existing water and sewage treatment facilities to evaluate this emerging innovative technology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Interpretation
Chapter 3: Natural Resources
Chapter 4:CulturalResources
Chapter 5: Site Design
Chapter 6: Building Design
Chapter 7: Energy Management
Chapter 8: Water Supply
Chapter 9: Waste Prevention
Chapter 10: Facility Maintenance and Operations
Bibliography