| Glossary | Ch01 Ch02 Ch03 Ch04 Ch05 Ch06 Ch07 Ch08 Ch09 Ch10 Ch11 Ch12 Ch13 Ch14 |
| Chapter 13 | |
| DDT | Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a chlorinated hydrocarbon that has been widely used as a pesticide but is now banned in some countries. |
| dioxins | Family of 75 different chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds formed as unwanted by-products in chemical reactions involving chlorine and hydrocarbons, usually at high temperatures. |
| dredge spoils | Materials scraped from the bottoms of harbors and streams to maintain shipping channels. High levels of toxic substances that have settled out of the water often contaminate these materials. See dredging. |
| dredging | Type of surface mining in which chain buckets and draglines scrape up sand, gravel, and other surface deposits covered with water. It is also used to remove sediment from streams and harbors to maintain shipping channels. See dredge spoils. Compare area strip mining, contour strip mining, mountaintop removal, open-pit mining, subsurface. |
| hazardous waste | Any solid, liquid, or containerized gas that (1) can catch fire easily, (2) is corrosive to skin tissue or metals, (3) is unstable and can explode or release toxic fumes, or (4) has harmful concentrations of one or more toxic materials that can leach out. See also toxic waste. |
| landfill | See sanitary landfill. |
| meltdown | Melting of the core of a nuclear reactor. |
| municipal solid waste | Solid materials discarded by homes and businesses in or near urban areas. See solid waste. |
| ore | Part of a metal-yielding material that can be economically and legally extracted at a given time. An ore typically contains two parts: the ore mineral, which contains the desired metal, and waste mineral material (gangue). |
| PCBs | See polychlorinated biphenyls. |
| pollution prevention | Device or process that (1) prevents a potential pollutant from forming or entering the environment or (2) sharply reduces the amount entering the environment. Compare pollution cleanup. |
| polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) | Group of 209 different toxic, oily, synthetic chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds that can be biologically amplified in food chains and webs. |
| radioactive waste | Waste products of nuclear power plants, research, medicine, weapon production, or other processes involving nuclear reactions. See radioactivity. |
| radioactivity | Nuclear change in which unstable nuclei of atoms spontaneously shoot out "chunks" of mass, energy, or both at a fixed rate. The three principal types of radioactivity are gamma rays and fast-moving alpha particles and beta particles. |
| resource productivity | See material efficiency. |
| sanitary landfill | Waste disposal site on land in which waste is spread in thin layers, compacted, and covered with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam each day. |
| solid waste | Any unwanted or discarded material that is not a liquid or a gas. See municipal solid waste. |
| spoils | Unwanted rock and other waste materials produced when a material is removed from the earth's surface or subsurface by mining, dredging, quarrying, and excavation. |
| tailings | Rock and other waste materials removed as impurities when waste mineral material is separated from the metal in an ore. |
| throwaway society | See high-throughput economy. |