How much waste is produced per person per year and where would it go?
All arsenic removal technologies produce arsenic-laden waste. ECAR lab tests routinely produce about 80mg waste/liter to reduce 600ppb of AsIII and AsV to below 10 ppb in synthetic groundwater (containing, among other ions, relevant levels of phosphate and silicate). Assuming 10 liters/person/day, this amounts to about 300 grams/person/year. EPA-approved TCLP leachate testing has confirmed that ECAR waste is safe for disposal in a non-hazardous US landfill. Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy (EXAFS) on ECAR waste suggests that arsenic is bound to iron by a strong inner-sphere complex, making extensive leaching unlikely. Alternative disposal routes also exist. Recent studies have shown that 10% of concrete can be replaced with arsenic-laden waste without affecting the compressive strength or leaching arsenic in the environment (Banerjee and Chakraborty, 2005). This method of disposal is currently used in China. The TCLP leachate test was performed on powdered concrete
