Solid

Environment
Quine Deluta
Lenard Leviste
Matthew Mendoza
 Solid Waste
It includes paper and plastic generated at
home, ash produced by industry, cafeteria
food wastes, leaves and cut grass from
parks, hospital medical wastes, and
demolition debris from a construction site.
These materials are considered a waste
when owners and society believe they no
longer have value.
 Sources of Solid Waste

Source Examples

Residential Detached homes, apartments

Stores, restaurants, office buildings, motels,

Commercial auto repair shops, small businesses

Schools, hospitals, prisons, military, bases,

Institutional nursing homes

Building construction or demolition sites,

Construction and Demolition road construction sites
 Sources of Solid Waste

Source Examples

Cleaning of streets, parks, and beaches; leaf

Municipal Services collection; disposal of abandoned cars and
dead animals
Light and heavy manufacturing, large food-
Industrial processing plants, power plants, chemical
plants

Agricultural Cropping farms, dairies, feedlots, orchards

Coal mining, uranium mining, metal mining,

Mining oil/gas exploration
Methods to Classify a Solid Waste as Hazardous

Question Related to
Characteristic of Waste
Characteristic

Can the waste create a fire (e.g., waste

Ignitable solvents)?

Is the waste very acidic or basic and so able

Corrosive to corrode storage containers (e.g., battery
acids)?
Can the waste participate in rapid chemical
reactions leading to explosions, toxic fumes,
Reactive or excessive heat (e.g., lithium that can react
with water explosively, explosives, cyanide
sludge, strong oxidizing agents)?
Methods to Classify a Solid Waste as Hazardous

Question Related to
Characteristic of Waste
Characteristic
Can the waste cause internal damage to a
Toxic person or organism (e.g., poisons causing
death or blindness, carcinogens)?
Can the waste release subatomic particles
that can cause toxic effects (e.g., some
Radioactive medical and laboratory wastes, wastes
associated with nuclear energy production)?
Can the waste lead to the transmission of
Infectious disease (e.g., used syringe, hospital medical
wastes)?
SOIL POLLUTION
Dumping of solid wastes on land is quite harmful since heavy metals
and toxic elements present in the wastes contaminate the soil and
ultimately seep into underground water after rainfall. It is estimated
that about 15 million tons of solid wastes are generated every year by
more than 110 million urban citizens in India.

As of August 2023, Philippines generates at least 61,000 million metric

tons of waste daily, 24 percent of which is plastic waste, according to
Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga.
Solid waste disposal methods are actually the methods
for control of soil pollution.

Solid-Waste Management
It varies greatly between cultures and countries and has
evolved over time. Solid-waste management requires an
understanding of waste generation, storage, collection,
transport, processing, and disposal. Remember that
waste is a human-derived word; thus society needs to
identify ways to minimize the amount of waste that is
generated, transported, processed, and disposed.
Detoxification of Toxic Wastes

The toxic wastes are converted into less hazardous

products by treatment with acids; cyanide containing
wastes are decomposed by interaction with oxygen to form
carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The decomposition can also be
carried out biologically by means of suitable micro-
organisms (bacteria). Sludge from petroleum refineries may
be spread on the soil and left to decay into harmless
products.

Incineration of toxic wastes is another method for their

disposal. However, incinerators need pollution control devices
and careful monitoring to make sure that they do not release
toxic by-products into the environment.
Land and Ocean Disposals

Radioactive wastes from nuclear power stations are generally fused in

glass containers and lowered to the ocean floor. In USA such wastes
are sealed in metal drums and buried underground at great depths.
But they may leak or be damaged by earthquake and release the
wastes into ground water.
Hazardous wastes dumped into soil/ditch have chances of leaking to
the ground. A typical case history is that of the Love Canal in Niagara
Falls, New York, USA. In 1930–53 the canal ditch was the dumpsite for
hazardous chemical wastes and municipal wastes.
 Sanitary Landfill

Sanitary landfills are sites where waste is isolated

from the environment until it is safe. It is
considered when it has completely degraded
biologically, chemically and physically. In high-
income countries, the level of isolation achieved
may be high.
For sanitary landfill, the following principles should
be followed:

● solid wastes should be deposited in a regulated

manner, preferably in gravel pit;
● solid wastes should be spread in thin layers
with ground cover of at least 15 cm;
● all factors likely to contribute to water pollution
should be eliminated;
● the wastes should not be burnt openly.
Composting and Municipal Waste
Composting Projects

This is biological process where fresh organic wastes are allowed to be

decomposed into humus-like substances. The process is conducted by a
complete automatic system which consists of several steps:

1) The crude refuse is dumped into container or to a belt conveyor.

2) Iron or metallic particles are removed by a magnetic separator.

3) The material is then transferred in a wet condition to a rotatory

cylinder, analogous to a rotatory drier. The cylinder rotates slowly on
large tyres and the wastes move from one end to the other. They are
thoroughly mixed and pulverised by abrasion. Air is introduced at low
pressure throughout the length of the cylinder. Here aerobic micro-
organisms ensure rapid decomposition of the wastes under aerobic
conditions.
Incineration
Incineration offers environment friendly technique free from corrosion,
emission of offensive odours and also free from bacteria and wet organic
matter which gives off foul odours and gases. The waste heat from
incineration can be utilised for supplementing electricity generation for
domestic heating, etc. The only drawback is that the technique is costly
at present requiring expensive equipment.
OCEAN DUMPING

In the developed countries such as USA about 50–75 million tons of waste are dumped every
year within 200–300 km of ocean shore. In earlier years waste dumped into the ocean 100 km
from the shore did little damage. But over the years industrial wastes and domestic wastes
have become more toxic.
Utility Bidder, an independent United Kingdom-based organization dedicated to identifying gaps
in the market and providing efficient, transparent services to help businesses find the best utility
tariffs, commissioned the Plastic Polluters study, and released it in September 2023.

The study’s findings indicated that the Philippines ranked first as the country with the
highest plastic waste emissions into the ocean per person each year, at 3.30 kg.
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT BY BIOTECHNOLOGY

According to biologists, bacteria and fungi are capable of decomposing organic waste and it may
be possible to recover resources by this process. Natural micro-organisms can do this job, it is
also possible to produce such micro-organisms by genetic engineering. The promising
development is the isolation of bacteria which can break down polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

New biodegradable plastics are important step towards solving our solid waste problems in
respect of plastic wastes. On exposure to micro-organisms which metabolise glucose,
biodegradable polymers break down into short carbon chains that decomposers can metabolise.
Photodegradable plastics have been developed, which break down on exposure to sunlight.
Thank you
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