Solid Waste Management by Esther Kiruba

Assignment 1 Sustainable Waste Management City Case Study Mysore, India & Massachusetts, USA Introduction: Growth in population and change in lifestyles has led to increase in waste generation. Municipal solid waste includes residential and commercial wastes generated in city areas in either solid or semi-solid form including bio-medical wastes. Safe and cost-e ective management of municipal solid waste is a signi cant social, environmental and health challenge for modern society. Indian cities alone generate more than 100 million tonnes of solid waste a year. It is estimated that up to 40% of municipal waste in India remains uncollected1. A large number of cities do not have any processing facilities which mean that the municipalities tend to haphazardly dump wastes all over the land lls. Lack of storage and collection facilities, segregation of waste of waste, pollution and contamination due to dumping of garbage on roads, open transportation in trucks, space constraints with land lls, social and environmental issues associated with land lls and lack of reusable and recyclables

are the key issues in solid waste management.

Mysore, India: Mysore is the second-largest city in Karnataka after Bangalore. Mysore is spreading over an area of about 128 sq. km with the growing population at a faster rate due to in ux of many service industry activities, the generation of municipal waste both garbage and sewage has been on the rise. Anthropogenic activities in society generate large quantities of wastes posing a problem for their disposal. Improper disposal leads to the spreading of diseases and unhygienic condition besides spoiling the aesthetics. The city has several major and small industries present in Nanjangud 20 Km away from the Mysore city together with many educational and commercial establishments.

Methodology: The City Corporation has begun distributing bins to the households to segregate dry waste (plastics, paper, glass, metals, tetra packs, aluminium foils, etc) and wet waste

(vegetables, fruits, owers, leaves, wood, kitchen waste, etc) at homes. The green bins

are assigned for wet waste and the red bins for the dry waste. The MCC plans to collect the plastic wastes separately once in a week from every household which would reduce their burden of segregation.

Collection of waste: Two plastic bins per house are given for separation of wet and dry waste at the initial stage. About 75% of waste is being segregated at the initial stage.

Transportation of waste: Transportation of bio degradable and non-bio degradable waste is done in single vehicles but with di erent compartments for each type of waste. Each vehicle is of the average capacity of 400 kg. with 60% lling ratio. Three vehicles are available for transportation of waste. Daily 3 rounds of each vehicle are required to cover all area and collect all waste. The collected waste is transported to

the segregation plant. And bio degradable waste is directly supplied to composting bins.

Segregation of waste: About 75% of segregation is done at the initial stage the remaining waste is required to segregate at segregation plant. Here segregation is done in two stages. In the rst stage segregation of plastic, glass, soft plastic and bio degradable waste are done. In the second stage, segregation is done in sub parts of each material for marketing i.e. plastic with di erent colors and thickness. Segregation is done on daily basis and starts with the arrival of the vehicle on the grave yard. From segregation process dry waste is stored in bind and packed for monthly storage whereas biodegradable waste is sent to composting bins.

Composting: Segregated bio degradable waste is directly dumped in composting bins. The bin is of size 10’ x 10’ x 6’. Generally two months are required to

ll one composting bin

completely. After two months compost is selling to the farmers as fertilizer. The average

price of one bin compost is around 2500 rupees.

Proposed action plan of SWM: Proposed to set up 2 new compost plant of 150 & 200tpd capacity Action is being taken up to setup 6 Biogas plant of capacity 1tpd each in ZWM Plants under SFC grants. Action is being taken to procure Shredders of capacity 10 tpd under SFC grants to increase the capacity of ZWM units.

Features of the ZWM model: Decentralized: Reduce load on centralized compost plant located at the outskirt of the Mysuru city. Cost-e ective: Saves money for the city by reducing waste transport costs. Energy-e cient and environmentally sound: will avoid mixing of segregated waste at secondary collection and transportation level and reduces waste sent to land lls.

High resource recovery: Enhances the recycling of dry and wet wastes. Labour friendly: Makes use of available workers and improves their earnings and quality

ffi

of workday.

Sustainable enterprise: Cost and environmental bene ts and availability of the workforce make decentralized system administratively feasible.

Bene ts of ZWM: Decentralized Collection of Wastes. Recovery of resources at the source level and ensuring e ective management of solid waste.

Provide employment opportunities to people by reducing the use of machinery in operating waste treatment. Encouraging community participation.

Requirement of secondary storage containers reduced.

All the collected waste was transported to a single processing plant (CompostPlant) at sewage farm. With this strategy, the transportation of waste is decentralised and savings on time of transportation & on the cost of transportation. Life of Sanitary land ll is enhanced. High positive environmental impact due to the fact that the restless emission and less use of fuel since this is a decentralized waste management This system promotes local community to participate in solid waste management. After segregation quantity of waste is reduced as a large amount of waste is used as compost and used for recycling of waste. Reuse of non-biodegradable waste and minimization in the quantity of waste generation makes this system environmentally friendly. 95% of waste is being recycled in this system. The civic authority is trying hard to maintain its cleanliness but lacks proper government support and infrastructure. It was further observed that, despite weighing the waste every day at the weigh bridge at the dumpsite, the corporation fails to quantify the waste generated. The quanti cation is presently based on the estimation of per capita waste generated per day considering an average for the households, commercial establishments, hotels, restaurants, marriage and community halls. The City Corporation is not segregating the e-waste from the MSW and is being disposed of without proper care. Despite the use of GPS, the authority is unable to provide an optimum route for the transportation of the MSW. The use of GIS techniques can help improve the eet management and select the optimum routes for the transportation of

waste

Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Boston’s residents and businesses produced about 1,156,000 short tons of solid waste in 2017 with nearly 80% generated by the commercial sector and the remaining 20 percent by households (Table 1). Discarded materials follow one of two routes: diversion (reuse, recycling, or biological treatment of organics), and disposal (land ll or combustion). Boston currently diverts about 25% of its waste, which has increased from approximately 10% since Boston’s adoption of singlestream recycling in 2009.

ZERO WASTE Zero waste means reducing, repairing, and reusing the materials in our lives. The Zero Waste Boston initiative strives to move Boston toward zero waste through planning, policy, and community engagement. The Boston Zero Waste plan has developed guidelines to make Boston a zero-waste city. This means Boston will reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost at least 80 to 90% of its solid waste. We’ll also cut disposal in land lls and incinerators.

RECYCLING All recyclable material must be in one of the following options: Large wheeled carts If your residence is six units or less, the City can provide you with a large wheeled cart. These carts are large and must be wheeled to the recycling truck instead of carried. Please keep these tips in mind: • For easy access, place your cart in front of your home on the curb, away from parked cars and not on private property. • During the winter, place

your cart next to or in front of snowbanks. Do not place carts behind snowbanks.

Converted trash cans You can convert a trash can into a recycling container by placing a recycle sticker on the outside. Recycling cans should not be larger than 32 gallons. If they are larger, they must be able to attach to a lifting mechanism on a recycle truck. Smart Bins

These compacting trash receptacles are self-powered, harnessing the sun’s rays for 100% of their energy needs. The units take up about the same space as traditional trash bins, but have ve times the capacity for trash. Through a wireless connection, collection

vehicles are alerted when Bigbelly receptacles are full.

Bigbelly trash compactors have reduced on-campus trash collection from 14 times/week to an average of 1.6 times/week. Solar compaction has reduced fuel use and associated greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. There are also cardboard balers, machines that are used to create “bales” of cardboard that, when fully packed, can weigh between 600 and 800 pounds. Annually, these balers capture and recycle around 150 tons of cardboard on the Charles River and Medical Campuses. The balers are located at the dining facilities and a few other locations where large volumes of cardboard are produced.

The Impacts Of Zero Waste Boston Of Waste Flows In 2017, approximately 75% of Boston’s MSW stream was sent to combustion facilities for nal treatment, with the remaining 25% entering diversion pathways. For instance, food waste accounts for 23% (263,000 short tons) of the total waste stream (i.e., total MSW generated), but only 8% (22,000 short tons) of that is diverted from the disposal stream. Similar potentials exist for the paper, plastic, metal, and glass fractions of the waste stream that, for the most part, are recyclable or potentially recyclable. The ow between other materials and recycling represents the portion of the recycling stream that is recycling contamination, which amounts to 20%. A zero-waste Boston would divert 90% of its waste stream from disposal and only send 10% of its waste to disposal (Figure 5 bottom). Less than 4 percent (39,000 short tons) of paper, plastic, metal, glass, food waste, and other organic materials would remain in the

disposal stream, which is mainly due to composite materials that cannot easily be

recycled or biologically treated. Recycling contamination, in this case, is based o of a “ xed mass” contamination rate, which re ects improved education on recycling practices over time. Note that Zero Waste Boston’s strategies would shift disposal from

the largest current waste pathway to the smallest by 2050