ABSTRACT
The product has undergone most of its life cycle at this point. It has been manufactured, distributed, sold, used, and now it has reached the end of its expected life. In the past, the natural termination of the product would have been, most likely, a landfill if it were a solid object, the sewage treatment plant by way of a sewer if a liquid. The environmental movement started the country thinking about the rate the landfills were filling up and the amount of "stuff that was being dumped in sewers. The effects of these practices were put under a magnifying glass. We did not like what we saw. For example, thousands of hair dryers are dumped into landfills every year. The main problem with most of them is that the on/off switch is broken. The whole hair dryer goes into the landfill. The landfill gets, on a daily basis, such things as paper wastes, yard wastes, glass, plastics, metals, etc. In some locations around the country, there are recycle programs for certain wastes. Typical recycle wastes are shown in Figure 9-1. The main reason any recycle program is successful is money. If it is cost effective to recycle a particular material, a higher percentage of it will be collected and recycled. The other form of financial incentive is fines for not recycling a material. Both incentive programs are based on money. If it costs more to collect and transport the materials than they are worth (i.e., it's cheaper to use virgin materials) then the materials will go into a dump.
