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2.4.5 Waste Management in the Home A. Practicing the 4 Rs A.1 Reduce/reject A.2 Re-use A.3 Recycle A.4 Repairs B. Handling of household hazardous wastes and products C. Disposal of oven cleaners, sink drain cleaners, bleaches, toilet bowl cleaners, rust removers, and other acid and alkali products D. Disposal of spot removers, carpet and furniture cleaners, floor and furniture polishes, glues, paint and solvents E. Disposal of barbecue starter fluid, lighter fluid, gasoline, furnace and motor oil F. Disposal of prescription medicines and over-the-counter drugs G. Disposal of garden pesticides H. Disposal of all other products Section 2.4.5 Assessment Scoring 2.4.6 Water Management in the Home Section 2.4.6 Assessment Scoring 2.4.7 The Home Transportation System Section 2.4.7 Assessment Scoring 2.4.8 Shopping Habits Section 2.4.8 Assessment Scoring |
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Environmental pollution is an integral part of human activities which, in turn, have an impact upon environmental quality. We, as individuals and as part of a community, have control over some of the things and actions that can improve environmental quality: driving smaller automobiles and keeping them in good conditions; reducing solid wastes by practicing the 4 Rs; joining other people in the community to attempt solving environmental issues; and organizing a local project. We are all expected to reduce solid wastes, re-use, recycle or recover more of our waste. The amount of garbage produced per capita in Canada is increasing steadily. More than 55% of all solid waste collected in Canada is household garbage, and at least one-third of that is packaging. We are running out of places to put it, and landfill sites are becoming increasingly expensive. Incineration to reduce garbage volumes is creating air pollution, health risks, and the problem of disposal of toxic ash. Landfills and dumps are home to hazardous substances which leak out and contaminate soil, lakes, groundwater, and rivers. Recycling is only a partial solution. We need to find more ways to reduce waste, eliminate waste before it has been created instead of afterward. It is the preventive approach that should be our ultimate goal. Some environmental tips about consumer products and packaging: buy materials or product that * minimize packaging material where food safety is
not compromised;
The true costs of packaging include the environmental ones: * the resources and energy used during manufacture,
transportation and disposal;
A. Practicing the 4 Rs Practicing the 4 Rs should always be part of our way of life: reduce/reject, re-use, recycle, and repair. A.1 Reduce/reject Reduce the amount of hazardous and toxic materials or products to do a particular job, and use other more environmentally friendly products and materials; buy only the amounts you need. Select products with minimal packaging. ____1. Do you always buy less than you really need?
A.2 Re-use Re-use materials and products instead of throwing them away as garbage; give leftovers to friends and neighbors to use. Use an item again for the same or different purpose. ____1. Do you try to be creative in finding further
uses for things instead of just discarding them?
A.3 Recycle Recycle materials and products. Participate in oil recovery and take your waste oil (engine oil, hydraulic and gear oils, automatic transmission fluid) to a service station or rural bulk fuel agency for recycling. Separate from your garbage all packaging materials which can be recycled through curb side collection or a recycling depot. ____1. Have you contacted environmental groups in
your area to find out more about the recycling programs and collection
services in your community (motor oil, newspapers, glass and cans are recycled
in many communities)?
A.4 Repairs Repair materials whenever possible instead of disposing of it. ____1. Before buying an item, do you ask yourself
whether it is likely to breakdown or be damaged and, if it can be repaired
at a reasonable price (a cheap wristwatch that cannot be repaired, etc.)?
B. Handling of household hazardous wastes and products Hazardous wastes and hazardous products are commonly found in our homes. Hazardous materials are defined and federally regulated under the Hazardous Products Act administered by Consumer & Corporate Affairs. Because of their chemical composition, they require careful management and special treatment. Otherwise, they are a potential hazard to life, health or the environment. Those products are classified in four hazard categories: 1) Corrosive (such as acids)
2) Toxic (poisonous to humans)
Many communities do not have proper disposal facilities, thus making it impossible for individuals to dispose safely of hazardous wastes. Using hazardous materials and products require taking special health precautions such as wearing rubber gloves to prevent skin contact, ventilating the work area, avoiding mixing with other chemicals to prevent skin contact, ventilating the work area, avoiding mixing with other chemicals and not inhaling the fumes. If hazardous wastes are not disposed of properly, they end up in the regular garbage, poured down the drain or buried, which cause environmental damage and are potential health hazards to everyone. The best solution is to avoid using these harmful products and, if you must, to buy only what you need for the job. ____1. Do you take advantage of your community services
about hazardous waste collection days?
C. Disposal of oven cleaners, sink drain cleaners, bleaches, toilet bowl cleaners, rust removers, and other acid and alkali products These products are toxic and corrosive. Take them to a collection center in your community. If no collection center, then rinse containers, and use up rinse water, and pour down drain with plenty of water; then wrap empty containers and discard in garbage. Aerosol cans should not be put in the garbage if not completely empty. ____1. Do you try to use these products completely,
or pass them to other people?
D. Disposal of spot removers, carpet and furniture cleaners, floor and furniture polishes, glues, paint and solvents ____1. Do you try to use these products completely,
or pass them to other people?
E. Disposal of barbecue starter fluid, lighter fluid, gasoline, furnace and motor oil These products can be flammable, reactive, toxic, and/or corrosive. They should not be poured down the drain or placed in the garbage. Take the products to a proper collection center, or, if not already empty, give them to a neighbour to use up. Recycle wastes if possible. ____1. Do you pass to your local pharmacy prescription
medicine leftovers?
F. Disposal of prescription medicines and over-the-counter
drugs
These drugs are toxic. Rinse empty containers and use up rinse water, and pour down drain with plenty of water, then discard them properly in the garbage. It is always better to pass leftovers to your local pharmacist. ____1. Do you pass to your local pharmacy prescription
medicine leftovers?
G. Disposal of garden pesticides These products are toxic and corrosive. They should not be poured down the drain. Discard empty containers properly in the garbage or, better, take them to a proper collection center. ____1. Do you call the environment department for
instructions to dispose of the pesticides?
H. Disposal of all other products ____1. Do you take liquids, oils, herbicides, pesticides
and other chemical wastes to sanitary landfill sites for proper disposal?
*paint *varnishes
*stains *paint thinner and stripper
*glues
____8. Do you make sure never to store broken glass
and other sharp items in plastic bags for garbage collection?
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Section Assessment Scoring
I(normalized) = 0.220
In this assessment, the values used for I(normalized) are the
same as those obtained and described in section 2.3 The Mathematical
Model. The two tables in The Scale of Values obtained from
the survey, guess-estimated and standard give all normalized
values in their last columns. Although most values were not given here,
they were obtained a few years ago by evaluating each impact as shown in
section
2.3 under Impact equation example: Forestry. It is obvious
now that one has to keep updating these impact equation calculations every
year as the world is changing very fast. Their calculations are a very
powerful educational tool and should be used in school to educate students
in thinking globally and in terms of interactions and their multidimensional
effects within themselves and on all four major interacting quality systems.
To become responsible in sustaining Earth has to start at early stage in
someone's life and calculating impact equations would be one of their first
steps.
Section Rating
= Sub-section % total
x 0.220
= GESDI for
this section Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
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For centuries we have found it necessary to control water so as to have it where we wanted it. Despite our efforts, some areas still suffer from drought, and some from flood, due partly to the nature variability of climate to change fast than it used to, and this is now impacting on the availability and distribution of water. Our fresh water sources are already being used and yet, the world population is expected to almost double by 2050. This increase in population and the increase of pollutants in our drinking water sources have created conflicts which will only become more and more serious in the near future. The policy of privatization and full-cost pricing of water in a city such as in Canada or the U.S.A. sound appropriate as there is plenty of help to the poor who has a need to drink water. Is this policy appropriate in other countries where drinking water sources are rare, sometimes non-existant, and sometimes were polluted by transnational corporations from our industrialized world and which companies became rich by mining or manufacturing products in those countries. Should anyone be allowed to control our freshwater resources? Is freshwater a 'human right' or is it a 'human need'? Should water resources be privatized and commodified for profit? Should privatization be under the condition that there is plenty of help to the poor in a community? Or should water be declared a 'human right' in the Earth Charter of The Global Community organization? Is it no true that water is just as important to an individual as the air we breathe? This World Congress is about finding universal values that are very important to the survival of life on Earth. Should people in a Third World country have different Human Rights than others? One of the very important Global Community concepts of this World Congress is about asking everyone to be a responsible human being. If we are all responsible in the management of Earth than everyone should have the right to breathe clean air and drink fresh water. Noone individual (an 'individual' was defined in the Vision of earth in Year 2024 as being either a person, a corporation, a NGO, a local community, businesses, a nation or a government) should be allowed to control and profit from a basic Human Right such as drinking water. Noone individual should be allowed to pollute Earth. Even tough this may look like an impossible task we still have to find in our heart and mind what is right and show the direction to take and propose the concepts to The Global Community. Water in the home comes from either spring water, a deep well, a river or a city reservoir, and is never 'pure'. If water was untreated, it would contain man-made contaminants, minerals, gases, salts, and microorganisms, which would cause unacceptable taste or health risks. Hazardous compounds present in water are mercury, lead, agricultural chemicals, arsenic, organochlorine compounds formed by the chlorine added to municipal water to destroy microorganisms, industrial pollutants, solvents, pesticide, fertilizer, and other contaminants. Our body absorbs equally these contaminants through drinking water or while bathing. City water is regulated for health hazards and does not contain dangerous bacterial contamination. It may contain chemical contaminants from industrial discharge or hazardous waste disposal, vinyl chloride from P.V.C. plastic pipe. Most people take for granted the water we use to wash the car, to water the lawn, cook and flush our wastes away, to shower, do half-loads of laundry, run the water while brushing our teeth, and ignore a dripping tap, and dump down the drain motor oil, solvents, paints, cleaners. We treat oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams more like parts of our sewer system them our life-support system. We are being made use to this behavior from childhood while watching television. We often see commercials on TV showing a person washing an automobile or spraying a lawn wastefully and without care. There is also too much violence shown on television and in cinemas. We think it is right, our right to be as we are. The entire television networks and film makers and producers over the world should be re-educated in what is right and what is not. They should be responsible and be made accountable for the counter-educating commercials and products they are advertising on their networks. What the school system is doing in educating children is being negated by the television networks. It is counter-productive and, at the end, the costs hit the taxpayers at home, one way or the other. The Polluter-pays Principle should apply to television networks and film making industry. They may use Human Rights for their defence but they should pay all the costs of the impacts of their advertisings and mindless production. They create behavioral patterns in the general population from childhood and they should be billed big time. Groundwater is also a natural resource. The main interest in groundwater resources has been as a supply of safe, potable, readily available water for drinking purposes and for industrial water supplies. Yet groundwater resources, just as are surface freshwater resources, are taken for granted, abused, and undervalued. Groundwater may transport contaminants from a land based facility resulting in impacts upon our drinking water, fish habitat (and therefore our food chain), wetlands, streams, and lakes. There is little information about toxicity, persistence, and mobility of toxic chemicals in a groundwater system. It is hard to calculate the impact equation for groundwater pollution. The application of the national classification system for contaminated sites prepared by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment requires a knowledge of the adverse impacts on humans or the environment from these contaminated materials. The absence of this information makes it impossible to classify a site. Groundwater can be unfit for human consumption because of contamination which may be due to leaking from gasoline storage tanks, pipes, process equipment, tailing ponds, septic tanks or feedlots, landfills or from accidental spills, pesticides and fertilizers from farmland, or from contaminants in rain, snow, or atmospheric fallout. As individuals, we can make changes in our ways of using water and dispose of wastes, both inside our homes and outdoors, and find ways to conserve and protect our water supplies. Water conservation is a means to ensure that there will be enough water for future generations. Good quality of water supplies to satisfy our lifestyle carries a price tag defined here: P(water) = P(storing) + P(distributing) + P(treatment) + P(maintaining and operating) + P(e,h) where P(e,h) is the term representing the associated environmental and health price tags i.e. the impacts on the environment and our health. The costs of obtaining, storing, heating, distributing water are steadily increasing, and so are the environmental and health impacts associated with those costs. The costs for treating wastewater to make it suitable to return to river systems are equally increasing and many communities now charge residents an extra fee for treating wastewater. Consumption rates vary largely from one community to another, and between urban and rural areas. Some communities have been forced to restrict water consumption for short periods of time. Overwatering is an important environmental concern because the water washes fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides off residential lawns into street drains that lead to rivers and creeks. Overusing and wasting water will force a city to expand its water treatment plants, pump stations, water pipes, and storage reservoirs, and force us to produce and use more energy which leads to environmental problems as the pumping, treatment, delivery, and heating of water use energy. ____1. Do you use a water flow-reducer attachment
in your sink faucets and shower heads to reduce water use and wastage?
* conventional shower head: water cost of $15.75/35
m3 = $0.97;
A $10.00 low-flow shower head is paid back in one year, and in less
time when you consider energy savings and the environment, too)?
____12. Do you make sure that the water drawn from
a deep waterwell does not contain radon gas (there may be radon gas if
the well is drilled in radioactive bedrock; there may be dissolved minerals
if the well is in limestone formations; there may also be PCB contamination
from deep well submersible pumps manufactured before 1978)?
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Section Assessment Scoring
I(normalized) = 0.150
In this assessment, the values used for I(normalized) are the
same as those obtained and described in section 2.3 The Mathematical
Model. The two tables in The Scale of Values obtained from
the survey, guess-estimated and standard give all normalized
values in their last columns. Although most values were not given here,
they were obtained a few years ago by evaluating each impact as shown in
section
2.3 under Impact equation example: Forestry. It is obvious
now that one has to keep updating these impact equation calculations every
year as the world is changing very fast. Their calculations are a very
powerful educational tool and should be used in school to educate students
in thinking globally and in terms of interactions and their multidimensional
effects within themselves and on all four major interacting quality systems.
To become responsible in sustaining Earth has to start at early stage in
someone's life and calculating impact equations would be one of their first
steps.
Section Rating
= Sub-section % total
x 0.150
= GESDI for
this section Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
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The disavantages of driving include accidents, air pollution, congestion, noise, oil pollution, energy consumption and consumption of land and other natural resources for the production of vehicles and infrastructures. Vehicles contribute to the emission of air pollutants which are carried across borders (e.g. NOx) or contribute to global pollution (CO2). The most important air pollutants emitted from vehicles include CO, Pb, VOCs, NOx, particulate matter, and CO2. They cause health problems (irritation of respiratory, eye systems; mutagenic or carcinogenic action; acute toxic systemic effects; adverse effects on defence mechanisms against infections) and environmental damage (loss of agricultural productivity; forest damage; material soiling; acidification of soil and water). Noise disturbance is an increasingly common nuisance, especially in density built-up residential areas. Low cost solutions of problems arising from driving vehicles: * local authorities should purchase quiet, low-pollution
vehicles;
High speed increases the potential for collisions and increases fuel consumption. Vehicles operate with greater efficiency at moderate, steady speeds. Challenge yourself and reduce your fuel consumption by recording your values and verifying that you can save money using better habits. The automobile, which in past three generations of use has become an outstanding hallmark in our culture and economy, is unquestionably the largest single source of environmental catastrophy. Despite the poisoned air, crowed highways, and thousands of acres of over-crowed parking lots which strangle most urban centres, the number of motor vehicles continue to rise at a staggering rate. Government programs have been rigorously setting pollutant standards in order that the air surrounding us will be protected sufficiently to ensure clean air. Each year motor vehicles emit and dump millions of kilograms of pollutants into the atmosphere. The dominant pollutants are carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, particulates, and lead. Cars are the main source of materials for photochemical reactions which cause smog. A major problem in controlling vehicle emissions is that control systems deteriorate with use. Vehicles which meet standards after a short period of use are no longer able to maintain these standards after a short period of use. Legislation therefore should require not only that manufacturers produce cars sufficiently well-equipped with control devices, but also that owners maintain those control devices so that they continue to function within the standards set by the government. ____1. Are you concerned about protecting the atmosphere
from vehicle emissions?
* increasing use of public transit;
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Section Assessment Scoring
I(normalized) = 0.240
In this assessment, the values used for I(normalized) are the
same as those obtained and described in section 2.3 The Mathematical
Model. The two tables in The Scale of Values obtained from
the survey, guess-estimated and standard give all normalized
values in their last columns. Although most values were not given here,
they were obtained a few years ago by evaluating each impact as shown in
section
2.3 under Impact equation example: Forestry. It is obvious
now that one has to keep updating these impact equation calculations every
year as the world is changing very fast. Their calculations are a very
powerful educational tool and should be used in school to educate students
in thinking globally and in terms of interactions and their multidimensional
effects within themselves and on all four major interacting quality systems.
To become responsible in sustaining Earth has to start at early stage in
someone's life and calculating impact equations would be one of their first
steps.
Section Rating
= Sub-section % total
x 0.240
= GESDI for
this section Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
Back to top of the page
Environmentally friendly consumer products and building materials will not add harmfull substances to our air, water, soil, or our bodies; they do not contain hazardous chemicals; they are recyclable and offer minimal packaging; and they are bio-degradable after use. Instead of buying and keeping hazardous and poisonous chemicals and storing them around your home, replace them with environmentally friendly products. While shopping choose items with minimal packaging and shop with reusable cotton or synthetic material bags. Look for unpackaged bulk goods where possible. Buy durable multiuse items instead of single use disposable items. ____1. Do you reject excessively packaged and hazardous
goods and do you tell the retailer and manufacturer why you are doing so?
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Section Assessment Scoring
I(normalized) = 0.180
In this assessment, the values used for I(normalized) are the
same as those obtained and described in section 2.3 The Mathematical
Model. The two tables in The Scale of Values obtained from
the survey, guess-estimated and standard give all normalized
values in their last columns. Although most values were not given here,
they were obtained a few years ago by evaluating each impact as shown in
section
2.3 under Impact equation example: Forestry. It is obvious
now that one has to keep updating these impact equation calculations every
year as the world is changing very fast. Their calculations are a very
powerful educational tool and should be used in school to educate students
in thinking globally and in terms of interactions and their multidimensional
effects within themselves and on all four major interacting quality systems.
To become responsible in sustaining Earth has to start at early stage in
someone's life and calculating impact equations would be one of their first
steps.
Section Rating
= Sub-section % total
x 0.180
= GESDI for
this section Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
Back to top of the page
Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
Back to top of the page
Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
Back to top of the page
Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
Back to top of the page
Back to Index of Report on GESDI measurement
Back to Preliminary Program
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