Waste disposal problem- How to slove it?

Currently, Malaysia is still using traditional waste method, mainly landfilling, as a way of disposing waste. However, no matter how much land the country owns, it will be exhausted one day. In other words, Malaysia might end up with no more area for landfilling. Clearly, now is the time of a systematic way in disposing waste should be introduced and well devolpoded in Malaysia.

First of all, the three-stream collection system shoud be introduced in Malaysia. Acccording to Collins.J (2002), this method is currently used in those high-achieving cities, such that waste being seperated into organics, dry recyclables and tricky residual. From there, we can make use of these wastes accordingly. For instance, orgainic waste may be used in producing fertilizer or even generates electricity. By the means of advanced technology, hydrocarbon which is the main composition among organic waste may be extracted from organic waste and then used as fuel to generate electricity, while the remaining residual may still be used as the raw material of fertilizer.

Meanwhile, dry recyclables will be sent to a collecting center and be further seperated to paper, plastic, metal, etc. These valuable resources will be sent to respective recyling center for direct recycling purpose. At the same time, the tricky residual, which composed by mainly chemical ingredient, should be handled carefully. Unlike the dry recyclable waste, most tricky residual can not be recycled. Hence, they should be chemically treated until they do not pollute the environment when disposed.

Also, according to Collins.J (2002), New Zealand is quite successful in the zero waste ambition. Malaysia should send a team there to learn their way of disposing waste, and apply what is practical to fit Malaysia's needs. It is always better to learn from other who is more experience, especially the succeed one.

Despite the technology used, what Malaysia really needs to learn is how to educate its people. This highly efficient way of disposing waste can't be used as long as people there do not take the initiative to seperate the waste themselves.

Source: Collins.J (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean-up. The Guardian Weekly. p.25

The Chernobyl disaster. [ Upgraded ]

Essay Prompt: Choose one recent "engineering disaster" that has affected the environment in one country and explain how could it be avoided.

The Chernobyl disaster was the most serious nuclear plant accident in history. On 26 April 1986, together with the explosion of reactor Unit 4 in V.I. Lenin Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station, the radioactive material it released polluted almost all the countries in Europe. The city was abandoned as the area was contaminated with dense nuclide toxic. Overall, 56 people died within a few months, either due to the explosion directly or after being exposed to massive radiation doses (Uranium Information Centre, 2008). Also, it raised the possibility of the people who settled in the affected area getting cancer or passing other problems such as genetic defects to their children. These consequences were caused by the flawed reactor design, coupled with some consecutive serious mistakes that were made by the plant personnel. Obviously, the horrible disaster could have been avoided.

The RBMK-1000 reactor, which was designed in 1954 and operated safely for over 30 years, had several inbuilt design faults(Park, 1989). The combination of water coolant and positive void coefficient of the RBMK was the biggest design fault since that made the reactor just like a “time-bomb”(Park, 1989,p149). A modern reactor is either using gas coolant or set to negative void coefficient, which guarantee no repetition of Chernobyl-like explosion. Furthermore, the RBMK reactor should has more automatic safety features that could not be disabled by an operator, in order to minimizes man-made mistake, just like a modern reactor today. For instance, the control rods should be inserted into the reactor at once automatically when the temperature or pressure goes beyond the standard range, while ensuring the power supply of the control rods and the monitoring system. Therefore, the chance of explosion in modern nuclear plant that triggered by the reactor itself is almost nil.

At the same time, a nuclear power plant should not be built at a densely populated area to prevent people from the exposure of radioactive toxic. “A nuclear reactor site must have a population exclusion zone, for example, no population within 800 meters” (Ramsey & Modarres, 1998, p180). However, the initiative to prevent the material from spreading should be taken, as the disaster taught us. Hence, a fallout shelter which performs that task should be built in any nuclear based facilities, not just at a nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, the possibility of any external factors that affecting safe operation such as aircraft crashing or natural disasters should be taken into account in the design of a nuclear plant( Ramsey & Modarres, 1998). The plant building structure must have some ability to absorb external forces, for example the collision of aircraft or earthquake, and protection against fire in order to gain some buffer time for the automatic safety features to operate.

Another approach to prevent such a disaster from happening again is to ensure that all plant operators are familiar with the safety guidelines, in addition to the knowledge of nuclear science. Take UK as an example: their nuclear plant operators are highly trained graduates who need to work in Central Electricity Generating Board for several years before they receive strict training of nuclear plant operation (Park, 1989). Any newly constructed nuclear power plant should hire those experienced operators as their first badge operators. Also, all experiments with the reactor should be approved by more than one nuclear expert so that the experiment can be done safely. Since the disaster was begun by an unauthorized experiment with the reactor.

In conclusion, no matter how ‘safe’ a nuclear plant it declared, it is still a risky tool for human beings. Therefore, the ultimate method to prevent the disaster is, of course, not to build a nuclear plant at all! This is possible with the development of alternative energy source such as solar power and fuel cells.

References:

Mark Resnicoff.(n.d.) My visit to Chernobyl : 20 Years After the Disaster .Retrieved March 10, 2008, from

http://www.chernobylee.com/articles/chernobyl/my-journey-to-chernobyl-1.php

Park, C.C. (1989). Chernobyl: The long shadow. London and New York: Routledge.

Ramsey, C. B. & Modarres, M. (1998). Commercial nuclear power : Assuring safety for the future. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, INC.

Uranium Information Centre. (2008, Feb). Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 22: Chernobyl Accident .Retrieved March 10, 2008, from

http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm

Draft

In Singapore and Malaysia, people pronounced 'tree' and 'three' in the same way which is totally wrong. When i showed this to one of my friend from China, he simply don't understand it.

save trees /= save 3s

"Saving Nature, But Only for man"-Charles Krauthammer

I would raise up both my hands for it.

Civilization is a process that destroy nature in order to cater human needs. Its motive is to build an environment that more comfortable for man. Human work hard for centuries to achieve that goal. Sarcastically, it also build an environment that not suitable for human at the same time. Polluted air, polluted water, polluted land, chemical composed food, climate change , and ozone depletion are typical examples.

Therefore, somebody realized it and shout out: " Hey, we can't let this continue; we must save the world! ". So, man began to study what is wrong. Since then, man created a new word-'recycle'. Recycling is recognized as a symbol of environmental friendly action. But is it just because of we want to preserve virgin forest? The answer is no. A simple answer is the cost of recycling is much more cheaper than if we produce the same thing from the raw material. It is a definite result from economic. Also, how many people are using solar power water heater which is more environmentally friendlier? You know the answer, since solar power heater is expensive.


After being educated, most people would agree 'green' is good and essential. But they will only practice it if and only if convenient and economical benefit.

ON YOUR MARK

Comparison and Contrast

Recycling has been identified as one way to conserve resources. How might the approach to recycling differ between a developed country and a developing country?

There are many differences between a developed country and a developing country in the effort of recycling. In Japan, trash is being categorized as either 'flammable' trash or 'inflammable' trash. A can recycle bin will be placed beside every aluminum can based vending machine. In Malaysia, you can hardly find a functioning recycle bin---there are recycle bin but either people don't use them or no clearance of the full bin. The basic difference is recycling is already assimilated in almost every Japanese's life where as in Malaysia it's just a start. Although children in Malaysia are being educated and encouraged to recycle, but the society as a whole doesn't has such awareness. A reusable or recyclable thing are indifference with other trash. It is also a consequence that Malaysia are so rich in resources until people just take it as granted and never appreciate it.

Problem-Solution

Choose one recent "engineering disaster" that has affected the environment in one country and explain how could it be avoided.

[Edited]

The Chernobyl disaster is the most serious nuclear plant accident in history. Together with the explosion of reactor unit-4, the radioactive material it released polluted almost all the countries in Europe. The city was abandoned; overall 56 people died within a few months. Also, it raised the possibility of the people live in affected area from getting cancer and even a handicapped baby. These impacts are caused by the flawed reactor design, besides some consecutive serious mistakes made by the plant operators. Obviously, the horrible disaster can actually be avoided. Modern reactor is highly emphasized with safety property. It was designed in such a way that zero radioactive material will be spread when it explode, even though the chance of explosion is almost null. On the other hand, in order to cease man made mistake, automatic safety property should be introduced. For instance, control rods will be inserted in reactor at once automatically when the temperature or pressure over the standard range, while ensure the power supply of control rod and monitoring system. The disaster had taught us that something should be done to prevent the radioactive material from spreading. Thus, a fallout shelter which performs the task should be build for any nuclear-based facilities, including nuclear power plant. Another approach to prevent the disaster happen is to ensure all plant operators are clear with the safety guidelines, besides the knowledge of nuclear science. The ultimate method to prevent the disaster is, of course, not to build a nuclear plant at all! This is possible with the development of alternative energy source such as solar power and fuel cell.

My blogging buddy was Tiffany. =)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some facts regarding Chernobyl power plant:

"The agreement to build the Chernobyl power plants dates from 1966, when the former Soviet Union decided to develop nuclear production of electricity. The RBMK reactor design also dates from this period. Six 1 000 MWe reactors were planned at that time.

Unit 1, which begin production in 1977, stopped in November 1996. In December 1997, it was decided to decommission.

Unit 2, which was first connected to the grid in December 1978, was stopped in 1991 after damage due to fire. The Ukrainian national authorities decided to definitely close this plant in March 1999.

Unit 3, which started in 1981 has had many shut downs for maintenance, inspections and repairs since 1997. In June 2000, the Ukrainian authorities decided to close it definitely on 15 December 2000.

Units 5 and 6 were under constructions at the site at the time of accident, but were never finished."

-http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c08.html