NKB 30303

Environmental Issues
and Waste Management

Chapter 4:
Solid Waste Management

Types of Solid Waste

 Solid wastes (or called as refuse) are wastes that are
neither liquid nor gaseous
 Common ordinary household and commercial waste
is called municipal solid waste which is made up of
garbage (food waste) and rubbish (almost everything
else of the garbage)
 Rubbish (e.g. tin cans, newspaper, tires, packaging
materials, bottles, plastics, etc.) can be further
divided into combustible or noncombustible portions
 Trash is the combustible portion of rubbish

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 Generation of Refuse
 Waste generation refers to the amount of materials
and products that enter the waste stream

 Materials recovery is the term used to cover the

removal of materials from the waste stream for
purposes of recycling or composting

 Discards are the solid waste remaining after

materials are removed for recycling or composting.
These are the materials that are burned or buried

Waste Generation = Materials Recovered + Discards

Collection of Refuse
 Household collection of mixed refuse is usually by
a packer truck that uses hydraulic rams to compact
the refuse to reduce its volume and make it
possible for the truck to carry larger loads to the
disposal area

Collection of Refuse
 For a single day of collection, the total time spent
for refuse collection can be estimated by:
Tt  t 1  t R  t 2  t d  n  12t 2  t d   t 3  t b
 Tt  t 1  2n  1t 2  t 3  t b  t R  nt d
where
t1 = time to drive from garage to beginning of collection route
t2 = time to drive between collection route and disposal site
t3 = time to drive from disposal site back to garage at end of day
tR = total time on route collecting refuse
td = time spent at the disposal site dropping one truck load
tb = time spent on breaks, and so on
Tt = total time for one day of refuse collection
n = number of runs from the collection route to the disposal site

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 Collection of Refuse
 The time needed to collect refuse from each stop
or pickup location and drive from one stop to
another can be calculated by:
d
ts   nc t c
v
where
ts = average time for one stop
v = average truck speed between stops
d = average distance between stops
nc = number of containers to empty per stop
tc = time to empty one container

Collection of Refuse
 The number of stops or pickup locations per load
of a truck, N can be calculated by:

tR
N
nt s
where
tR = total time on route collecting refuse
ts = average time for one stop
n = number of runs from the collection route to the disposal
site per day

Collection of Refuse
 To estimate the volume of a collection vehicle:
v sN
V 
r
where
V = volume of the collection vehicle
vs = average volume of refuse per stop
r = compaction ratio
N = number of stops per truckload

 It is standard practice to allow two 15-min breaks

during a day (tb = 2 x 15 min = 30 min)

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 Example 1:
Suppose it takes 0.4 hours to drive from the garage
to the beginning of the route, 0.4 hours to drive
between the route and disposal site, and 0.25 hours
to return from the disposal site to the garage. It
takes 0.2 hours to offload a truck at the disposal
site. The crew is given two 15-minute breaks per
day and another 30 minutes is allowed for
unexpected delays (total 1 hour). If two runs are
made to the disposal site each day, calculate the
time spent for actual refuse collection in an 8-hour
shift per day.

Example 2:
Continuing with Example 1, suppose the pickup
vehicle averages 5 mph (mile/hr) between stops
that are on the average separated by 150 feet.
Each stop collects from two households that each
put out two full 30-gallon (4 cubic feet) containers.
It takes an average of 20 seconds to empty one
container. Determine
(a) the number of households that can be serviced
per day
(b) the size of the truck if it has a compaction ratio
of 3.5

Example 3:
The compactor trucks are rated to achieve a density of 400
kg/m3 and a dump time of 6 min. It travels to the disposal site
which is 16.4 km away from the collection route at a speed of
60 km/h. Time spent to depart and back to garage is around
45 min. A delay time of 15 min per trip can be expected. Each
stop has 3 cans containing 4 kg each. Estimate the size and
the number of trucks needed.
Population of the city = 50,504
Average residential occupancy = 4/residence
Number of pickups = 1/week
Average uncompacted density of waste = 106 kg/m3
Number of trips to disposal site = 2/day
Time between pickup stops = 0.72 min
Time to empty one container = 0.5 min
Workday = 8 hours/day, 5 days/week

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Integrated Solid Waste Management
 Integrated solid waste management (ISWM)
suggests that the sequence of the most-to-least-
desirable solid waste management strategies is:
1. Source reduction (e.g. purchase product with longer life)
2. Recycling (e.g. remanufacturing of glass bottles)
3. Combustion
4. Landfilling

 That is, when an ISWM plan is implemented for a

community, the first means of attacking the problem
should be started by source/waste reduction

Source Reduction
 Human plays an important role in affecting the
quantity and composition of solid waste stream
 Source reduction is given the highest priority in
ISWM to reduce the amount of solid waste
generation as well as to reduce pollution
 Examples of source reduction:
 Less packaging
 More durable products
 Reduce toxicity
 Product reuse

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 Source Reduction
 Life cycle analysis/assessment is an approach for
pollution prevention by analyzing the entire life
cycle of a product using material and energy
balance at every stage in the life cycle of a product
 Inputs include energy and raw materials utilized in
each stage, whereas outputs are the air, water and
solid waste effluents associated with each stage
 LCA should give a complete picture of the
environmental impact of a product and help in the
comparison of products for purchasing and the
comparison of products by industry

Reuse and Recycling of Refuse

 The public should exercise reuse and recycling to
reduce the generation of waste

 In reuse, an individual either uses products again

for the same purpose or put products to
secondary use (e.g. use of plastic shopping bags
for the disposal of refuse) to extend the life of
original product

 Recycling (material recovery) involves the

collection of waste and processing into new
product

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 Reuse and Recycling of Refuse
 Reuse and recycling require public awareness to
separate their waste (source separation)

 Using source separation, a person must first identify

the waste by some characteristics and then
manually separate the various items into separate
containers

 Material Recovery Facility (MRF) is a central

processing facility to separate and recover materials
from mixed or source-separated domestic waste
and reintroduce them to industries

Material Recovery
Facility

Reuse and Recycling of Refuse

 The separation relies on some readily
identifiable characteristics (known as a code) of
the specific material that distinguish it from the
mixed refuse

 The most difficult operation in recycling is the

identification and separation of plastics

 The plastics industry has responded by marking

most consumer products with a code that
identifies the type of plastic

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 Marking Codes on Plastics

Combustion of Refuse
 Because refuse is about 80% combustible material,
it can be burned as a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) in a
waste-to-energy (WTE) facility
 The hot gases produced from the burning refuse
are cooled with water – the water is heated and
turned into steam
 The steam can be used for heating or to produce
electricity in a turbine
 The cooled gases are then cleaned by electrostatic
precipitator and discharged through a stack

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 Combustion of Refuse
 The American Society for Testing and Materials
(ASTM) has developed a scheme for classifying
solid waste destined for combustion:

RDF-1 Unprocessed MSW

RDF-2 Shredded MSW (but no separation of materials)
Organic fraction of shredded MSW (usually
RDF-3 produced in a MRF or from source-separated
organics, such as newsprint)

Combustion of Refuse

Organic waste produced by a MRF that has been

RDF-4 further shredded into a fine, almost powder form,
sometimes called “fluff”
Organic waste produced by a MRF that has been
densified by a pelletizer or a similar device and
RDF-5
that can often be fired with coal in existing
furnaces
Organic fraction of the waste that has been further
RDF-6
processed into a liquid fuel, such as oil
RDF-7 Organic waste processed into a gaseous fuel

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 Combustion of Refuse
 WTE facilities do not receive good attention due to
the concern of air emissions – production of dioxin
during waste combustion
 Dioxins have been found to be extremely toxic to
animals. They are able to disrupt normal metabolic
processes at very low concentrations, and this has
caused EPA to place severe limitations on the
emission of dioxins from incinerators

Dioxin

Ultimate Disposal of Refuse

 Although the volume of refuse is reduced by
90% in WTE facilities, the remaining 10% still
has to be disposed along with materials that
cannot be incinerated (e.g. old refrigerators)

 Therefore, WTE plant is not an ultimate

disposal facility, and a landfill is necessary

 Sanitary landfill is engineered operation,

designed and operated according to accepted
standards

Ultimate Disposal of Refuse

 The basic principle of a landfill operation is to
prepare a site with liners to deter pollution of
groundwater, deposit the refuse in the pit,
compact it with heavy machinery, and cover the
material at the end of each day’s operation

 Landfill capacity is measured in terms of volume,

not weight. Engineers designing the landfills first
estimate the total volume available and then
estimate the density of refuse to be deposited in
the landfill

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 Ultimate Disposal of Refuse
 The buried organic material decomposes, first
aerobically and then anaerobically
 The anaerobic degradation produces various gases
(e.g. CH4 & CO2) and liquids (known as leachate)
that have extremely high pollutional capacity when
they enter the groundwater
 Synthetic landfill liners are useful in capturing most
of the leachate, but they cannot be perfect
 Wells have to be drilled around the landfill to check
for groundwater contamination from leaking liners,
and remedial action is necessary

Ultimate Disposal of Refuse

 Modern landfills also require the gases (about 50%
CO2 and 50% CH4) to be collected and either burned
or vented to atmosphere
 Larger landfills use the gases for running turbine to
produce electricity; smaller landfills simply burn the
gases at flares
 Sanitary landfills are at best an interim solution to
solid waste problem. We must attack the problem
from both ends – reducing the total quantity of waste
and developing more environmentally acceptable
disposal methods

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