ABSTRACT
This chapter provides critical information on soil as a treatment system as opposed to a resource system for disposal of a wide variety of wastes: solid, liquid, and gaseous, toxic and nontoxic, hazardous and nonhazardous, and pathogenic and nonpathogenic. The major benefit of land treatment is to engage the natural assimilative capacity of the land for disposal. Modern methods of land treatment, just as the sanitary landfill, developed out of necessity to provide better control of waste disposal than indiscriminant spreading of raw wastes over land surfaces or mixing into surfaces of garden soils. The most abundant hazardous wastes originate from the dying and finishing operations and in wool scouring. The waste falls into 6 classes depending primarily on the nature of the chemical(s) they contain: fiber; reactive dyes; dispersed dyes and pigments; flame retardants; water repellent finishes; and pigments.
