Types of waste at Higher Level: The same statement as SL, with different real cases: the Ajka red mud spill, the rise of e-waste, COVID-19 medical waste and Henderson Island. At HL, ask who makes each kind of waste and who has to deal with it.
Practise this as you read
- Sort any waste by its source and by its type.
- Link each type to why it needs special handling.
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Every use leaves waste: Everything we take from nature, from food to metal, leaves something behind. One way to sort waste is by its source.
Waste by source
- Using natural resources always makes waste: what is left over or thrown away.
- Source = where the waste comes from.
- Domestic waste comes from homes: food scraps, packaging, old clothes, broken furniture.
- Industrial waste comes from factories, mines and building sites: slag, chemicals, ash, rubble.
- Agricultural waste comes from farms: manure, straw and crop stalks, pesticide containers.
- Shops, offices and schools make waste like a home's; with homes it is municipal solid waste.
Real example: in October 2010 a reservoir of red mud at an aluminium works in Ajka, Hungary, burst. About a million cubic metres of industrial waste flooded villages and killed the life in the Marcal River.
Remember it as: Source is where it came from; type is what it is.
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The second way to sort waste is by its type. The guide names three types to know: e-waste, food and biohazardous materials.
Waste by type
- Type = what the waste is made of or how it behaves.
- E-waste: thrown-away electrical goods; holds gold and copper but also lead and mercury.
- Food waste: food lost in homes, restaurants and shops; it rots and gives off methane.
- Biohazardous waste: used needles, blood, swabs, masks; it can spread disease.
- Other types: hazardous (toxic, flammable, corrosive), radioactive, plastic, construction rubble.
Real example: during the COVID-19 pandemic the UN sent about 87,000 tonnes of masks, gloves and gowns to countries. Once used, most became biohazardous waste, and many hospitals had no safe way to treat it.
Two labels on every item: Source and type are two different labels. A question asks for one of them: read which.
Source and type together
- One item has both a source and a type: name the one the question asks for.
- A phone thrown out of a home: source domestic, type e-waste.
- Hazardous waste is toxic, flammable, corrosive or reactive; it needs special handling.
- Radioactive waste needs long-term, guarded storage.
- The type decides how waste must be collected and treated, not only where it came from.
Sorted by source
- Domestic: homes
- Industrial: factories, mines, building
- Agricultural: farms
Sorted by type
- E-waste
- Food
- Biohazardous
- Hazardous, radioactive, plastic
Real example: a used syringe from a clinic in Nairobi is biohazardous by type; a burst battery from a car factory is industrial by source and hazardous by type.
Do not mix the labels: Asked for a source? Give where it came from (a farm, a factory, a home). Asked for a type? Give what it is (e-waste, food, biohazardous).
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How this comes up: Paper 2, Section A: a figure about plastic far from people, then a one-mark question on where it came from.
Figure 1 is a fact file on Henderson Island, which has no people living on it.
State a possible source of the plastic debris on Henderson Island's beaches.
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