SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Instructor: SUDHA GOEL

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND

ENGINEERING [CE10001]

Goel, 2024. Advances in solid and hazardous waste management, 2nd edition, Springer Nature
and Capital Publishing, Delhi, India
Worrell and Vesilind (2012) Solid Waste Engineering, Cengage Learning, USA
Masters and Ela (2012) Solid waste Management, Prentice Hall, USA. 1
Contents
 Importance
 Integrated MSW Management
 SW generation and MSW generation
 Municipal solid waste management -
activities
 Sources of MSW
 Generation rates, composition and
factors affecting them

2
Importance of SWM: Hazards of open dumping

 Air pollution:
 Released into air due to scattering by wind, volatilization
 Potential for explosions due to methane buildup
 Water pollution: surface water (SW) and ground water (GW)
 Clogging of natural and engineered drainage systems
 Short-term and long-term contamination of non-renewable
resources
 Soil pollution:
 Sequestering of contaminants in soil leads to soil toxicity and
decreased soil productivity
 Health hazard:
 Release of pathogens in any environmental media
 Attracts growth of flies, rodents, and other pest species
Contributed to spread of plague in Surat
 Attracts stray animals and contributes to bad traffic conditions
and higher accident potential
 Aesthetic nuisance, loss of civic health and pride, low property
values 3
Yersinia pestis and the plague in Surat
 Yersinia pestis is the causative agent of the bubonic
plague and is a parasite for the rat flea.
 The rat flea in turn is a parasite for rats which are
generally attracted to food and other waste lying in the
open.
 When a rat flea bites rats, humans or other mammals, it
injects the bacteria into the organism leading to infection
and death.

4
Lifecycle of Yersinia pestis

5
 1994 Plague in Surat
Timeline of the plague in Surat (Titball and Leary, 1998)

Timeline Description
October 1993 Residents of Mamla village in Beed, Maharashtra left their homes
due to fear of a Latur-type earthquake leaving piles of grain
unattended. This may have attracted wild rats/rodents.
August 1994 Flea nuisance and rat deaths were reported in Beed; soon after the
first case of bubonic plague was reported in Beed. Similarly, an
unusual number of rat deaths in Surat and soon after the first human
death by pneumonic plague was reported.
September Water logging due to poor SWM and possibly a person from Beed
1994 spread infection and Pneumonic plague in Surat city.
October 1994 876 presumptive cases (596 in Maharashtra and 151 in Gujarat); no
fatalities. 54 fatalities of which 52 in Gujarat, 1 in Delhi and 1 in
Karnataka.

6
 What is solid waste?

Solid Waste
Municipal solid Ash from thermal
waste (MSW) power plants

Agricultural Industrial and

waste mining waste
Hazardous waste
reactive, ignitable,
corrosive, toxic,
radioactive, infective
Examples: nuclear,
biomedical, e-
wastes…..

7
 Generation of Solid waste

TTV 8
 Amount of waste generated
70.0
% of total solid waste

60.0
India USA
50.0
40.0
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0

9
 ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS
Regulations Year of Year of
notific- last
ation amend-
ment
Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 2003
Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 1987
Environment Protection Act 1986 1991
Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 1989 2009
Biomedical Waste Handling Rules 1998 2016
Flyash Rules 1999 2007
Recycled Plastics Usage Rules 1999 2003
Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 2016
Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules 2001
Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2009
E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011 2016
Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules 2016
Refer to Week 12, Lecture 2, Environmental Rules and Regulations in India. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109105203
10
Integrated Solid Waste Management

Integrated
Solid Waste
Management

11
 Principles of ISWM

 Waste Management Hierarchy

 The four Rs
 Green design
◦ Life cycle assessment
◦ Extended Product life
◦ Material selection and durability
◦ Process management
◦ Distribution
 Policy and standardization

12
Waste Management Hierarchy

13
The 4 Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover
 Reduce
◦ Reduce amount of material required to deliver one unit product without
sacrificing utility or quality
 Examples: refills vs. new containers (food packaging); spray painting
vs. brush or roller painting of surfaces; rechargeable batteries vs.
disposable batteries; paper cartons vs. plastic tubes (for toiletries)
◦ Increasing lifetime of product
 Plastic vs. cheap wood furniture; synthetic fabrics vs. natural fabrics
◦ Eliminate or reduce need for product
 Electronic vs. print media; gas pipelines vs. cylinders
Use of disposables is often necessary for quality and convenience, but
results in enormous increase in resource consumption and waste
generation
 Reuse
◦ Use of plastic, metal, glass containers for storage in homes
◦ Use of paper in India for serving food (not healthy, but its reuse!
Traditional leaf dishes are better and healthy disposables)

14
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover
 Recycle
◦ Components are separated and reprocessed into new
products
◦ Plastics, paper, steel and aluminum cans, glass bottles, yard
waste (composting)
 Recover
◦ Where refuse is unsegregated and desired materials are
separated at a central facility

15
Source Reduction – Green design
 Extended product life
◦ As development increases, durability or lifetime of product
decreases
◦ Consumer goods are the best examples: computers, clothing,
electrical and electronic appliances, motor vehicles, ………
◦ Few disincentives for extending product life
 Resource and energy consumption is reduced
 Overall env’ impacts are reduced
 Short-term company profits may be reduced as volumes of sales
drop……and that’s where the problem is!
 Electrical and electronic goods are best examples of this
 Disposable pens, batteries, cartridges …..where refills can be made
and marketed but company profit margins are at stake!
 Material life extension
◦ Recyclable materials usage to be encouraged
◦ At the end of product life, materials can be extracted and recycled
◦ Best examples: paper and plastics; reuse of these materials in
product design

Masters and Ela, 2012

16
 Source Reduction – Green design
 Material selection
◦ Substitution of a material based not always on cost
criteria but environmental impacts
◦ Examples:
 use of alloys and plastics instead of metals
 lead in solder has been eliminated
 plastic pipes instead of CI, biodegradable plastics and
packaging material
 Communication: fiber-optic cables instead of copper
cables – wireless is next level of improvement
 Reduce/ replace use of toxic materials like Hg
(thermometers, tubelights), lead (solder, batteries) that
are likely to enter waste streams

Masters and Ela, 2012

17
 Source Reduction
Reduce material usage
◦ Improved car batteries contain less lead and are more efficient
◦ Household batteries contain less or no Hg
 Phased out in the USA in 1996
Process management
◦ Improved efficiency, heat recovery, make a process cost-effective
and environmentally less expensive
Efficient distribution
◦ Transportation and packaging options can be improved
 Pipelines better than shipping by road, rail or water
 Reduced packaging requirements

Masters and Ela, 2012 18

 Source Reduction

 Policy options
 Life cycle assessment to choose the best option
 If environmentally-friendly products are given tax discounts to make
them more attractive
 Manufacturer’s buy back policies are beneficial in terms of recycling
or remanufacturing of consumer items
 Printer cartridges, mobile phones, electronic appliances, car
batteries, ……..
 Labeling
 Consumers will often opt for more expensive but more
environmentally friendly options
 Labeling has to be standardized and consistent

Masters and Ela, 2012

19
 Labeling
 Consumers will often opt for more expensive but more
environmentally friendly options
 Labeling has to be standardized and consistent
 Bureau of Energy Efficiency gives a star-rating to all
electrical appliances based on energy consumption
 Recycling of plastics has to be based on the grades of
plastics

Recycling symbols for various plastics. The number is a resin

identification code that tells you what kind of plastic that
material is made of. 20
 Labeling – ECOMark
• ECO Mark Scheme was instituted by the Government of India for
labeling of environment friendly products.
• The Scheme is being administered by the Bureau of Indian Standards.
• The Scheme covers various product categories like Soaps and
Detergents, Paints, Food Items, Lubricating Oils, Packing/Packaging
Materials, Architectural Paints and Powder Coatings, Batteries, Electrical
and Electronic Goods, Food Additives, Wood Substitutes, Cosmetics,
Aerosols and Propellants, Plastic Products, Textiles, Fire-extinguisher,
Leather and Coir & Coir Products.
• The presence of ECO Logo along with ISI Mark on a product indicates
that the product meets certain Environmental criteria along with the
Quality requirements as specified in the relevant Indian Standard.

Ecomark of India is an earthen pot (BIS, Bureau

of Indian Standards, bis.gov.in)

21
 Labeling – ECOMark
 The criteria are based on the cradle-to-grave approach, i.e. from raw
material extraction to manufacturing and to disposal. The basic criteria
cover broad environmental levels and aspects, but are specific at the
product level.
 A product is examined in terms of the following environmental impacts :
 they have substantially less potential for pollution than other
comparable products in production, usage and disposal.
 they are recycled, recyclable, made from recycled products or bio-
degradable, where comparable products are not;
 they make significant contribution to saving non-renewable
resources including non-renewable energy sources and natural
resources compared with comparable products;
 the product must contribute to a reduction of the adverse primary
criteria which has the highest environmental impact associated with
the use of the product, and which will be specifically set for each of the
product categories.

https://cpcb.nic.in/ecomark-criteria/ 22
 Labeling – ECOMark

 Product General Requirements

 The product general requirements deal with the issues of compliance of
the pollution control acts; raising environmental awareness among
consumers etc., in addition to safety, quality and performance of the
products.

https://cpcb.nic.in/ecomark-criteria/ 23
 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

GM (1998) 24
 MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Separation (source or later)
Generation • Sorting Recycling
• Storage

Collection

Transfer and Transformation or Recycling

transport processing of waste

Disposal

Activities in red are the purview of a city municipality

Goel, 2008. MSWM in India – a critical review. 25

Industrial

World Bank – IBRD - 1999 26

Factors affecting MSW generation rates and
composition
 Extent of resource consumption (degree of development or
economic conditions)
 Extent of materials recovery and conservation measures (the
4 Rs)
◦ Economic incentives
◦ Legislation
◦ Education and public awareness
 Location
◦ Population size (total SW gen rate not per capita)
◦ Geographic conditions and infrastructure development
◦ Socio-political conditions
◦ Number of persons/dwelling
 Collection frequency: no major impact
 Seasonal variations
◦ Winter vs. summer (North) or monsoon vs. other (Kgp)
 Litter generation from trees, moisture content of waste
◦ Transient populations at certain locations:
 Tourist or pilgrimage locations: peak vs. low season
 Educational institutions (vacations vs. rest of the year)
27
 SW Generation and other rates
Compare developed (US) vs developing (India ) countries

MSW generation in India (CPCB data)

175000

170000

Total MSW generation, tons/d

165000

160000

155000

150000

145000

140000
2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22

USEPA, 2005
28
 Population Growth,
resource consumption and
pollution or waste generation

29
 Why is pollution increasing?

Population Growth

Resource Consumption
Increase in population Higher standard of living

Pollution
More resources consumed More waste generated

30
 Population growth
 World Population = 7.9 billion (as on 8 Dec 2021*)
 India’s population = 1.21 billion (Census, 2011)
 West Bengal’s population = 91.3 million (Census, 2011)
 Kharagpur’s population = 3.0 lakhs (Census, 2011)

If Census data for India from 1911 to 2011 are used, we can
assume exponential growth (good assumption since R2
>0.95)
 Average annual total population growth rate = 1.75%
 Average annual urban population growth rate = 2.85%

Worldometers.info/world-population
http://www.census.gov/popclock/ 31
32
 Curve-fitting exercise
1. Fit the data to any equation - can be linear, exponential,
polynomial, logistic growth or any other equations.
2. In Excel, use the trendline option and choose to get R2 and
equation. Do not force the curve to go through zero or origin.
3. Coefficient of determination, R2 is used to test goodness-of-fit.
4. Coefficient of determination, R2 = 1 – RSS/TSS where RSS =
sum of squared residuals (predicted – observed values) and TSS
= sum of squared residuals with respect to the mean of observed
values (observed value – mean value).
5. R2 values can range from 0 to 1; closer to 1 implies best-fit.
6. Thumbrule: if R2 >0.9, it is a reasonably good fit and >0.95 is a
very good fit. Values of R2 <0.5 show that there is no correlation
between the two independent variables.

33
Population growth – exponential growth

Goel, 2019

Disaggregated growth rates or the IPAT Model (Masters and Ela, 2012)

Environmental impact (I)= population (P) x Affluence (A) x Technology (T)

Where
Affluence is per capita energy demand or per capita MSW generation or
any other parameter that is related to the income of the individual, region or
country,
Technology is carbon emissions per unit energy consumed

Example for a country:

Energy demand (kWh/y) = population x (GDP/person) x (energy use/GDP)
34
 SW Generation rates
(based on limited data for India)

Parameter 1991 2001 2011

Total Population - India 1.03 x 109 1.21 x 109
Urban Population - India 0.286 x 0.377 x 109
109
Urban population as % of total 27.77 31.16
Urban annual exponential population 2.76 %
growth rate
Solid Waste Generation Rates 1999-2000 2004-2005 2010-2011
Total MSW generation -India, MT/d 52,125 1,00,000 1,41,064
(CPCB, 2000)
Per capita solid waste generation rate, 0.1822 0.374
kg/cap-d
Total MSW generation - 59 cities, 30,058 39,031 50,592
MT/d (CPCB)
Total solid waste generation growth 4.3 %
rate
Do all calculations shown in italics yourself, test and exam problems
based on that! 35
 Problems
IF……..
 The urban population is growing exponentially @ 2.85% per year, as against
the total population growth rate of 1.75% per year
 The economy is growing @ 7% per year and
 We assume that waste generation is directly proportional to resource
consumption which is directly related to economic growth.
THEN……
• The amount of waste generated per capita per year has been increasing and is
going to increase exponentially @ (7+2.85)% per year, where r = 9.85%
• Assuming current per capita waste generation rates of 0.5 kg/capita-day =
182.5 kg/capita-year = W0
• Therefore, 10 years from now – each person will generate W =
W0*exp(rt) where [exp(rt) = 2.68 for t = 10 y] or 2.68*182.5 = 489.1
kg/capita-year which is approximately 0.5 ton/capita-year or 1.34
kg/cap-d
While the above is an estimate, we need regular and accurate monitoring of
SW collection, treatment and disposal amounts – something that every ULB
should do!
36
 Waste generation rates and population in India and US
Population versus waste generation Per capita waste generation rates for different Indian cities

6,000 0.7

Per capita waste generation rate, kg/cap-

y = 439.46x + 49.184 0.6
5,000
total waste generated (tons/d)
2
R = 0.9498
0.5
4,000

0.4
3,000

d
0.3
2,000 y = 0.002x + 0.4443
0.2 2
R = 0.0032
1,000
0.1

0
0
0.000 2.000 4.000 6.000 8.000 10.000 12.000 14.000 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
population, m illions
Population, m illions

Data for 23 metros,

ERM India, 1995

Data for 100

counties, Worrell
and Vesilind, 2012
37
 14000000
12000000 y = 1872.6x + 240929
R² = 0.9504
10000000

Population
8000000
6000000
4000000
2000000
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
Total waste generated, tons/day

Waste Generation Rate (kg/c/day)

100000000
10000000
1000000
100000
Population

10000
1000
100
10 Average = 0.397 kg/cap-d
1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
CPCB-NEERI survey of 59 cities, 2004-2005 38
GNP/cap versus per capita urban SW generation rates for
different countries

GNP versus urban M SW g enerat ion

1.8
1.6
y = 0.1759x 0. 2042
1.4
R 2 = 0.7562
1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
100 1000 10000 100000

GNP per capi t a

Based on data from 15 Asian countries, IBRD-WB, 1999 39

Worrell and Vesilind, 2012 40
Economic levels and seasonal variation in waste
collection rates

41
 Generation rates
 Total MSW generation rates are dependent on
◦ Population size
 C&D and industrial waste contribution increases as
city size increases
◦ Recycling programs/activities – degree of waste
diversion
◦ Collection frequency: higher frequency leads to
reduced waste diversion
◦ Seasonal variations
 Per capita MSW generation rates are dependent on
◦ Income levels
◦ Population density: city-wise and dwelling-wise
(Worrell and Vesilind, 2012)

42
 Problems
 For a town of 1 lakh population and an average per capita
generation rate of 0.6 kg/cap-d, determine the total amount
of MSW generated on a per day and per year basis.
 A city generates 2500 tons/day and has a population of 5
million. Determine the average per capita waste generation
rate.
 A residential academic campus has a population of 25,000
people of which 10,000 are students. The students generate
waste at the rate of 0.3 kg/cap-d and the permanent
residents generate 0.5 kg/cap-d. Determine the total waste
generated per day during the academic session.
 During vacation time, half the students leave campus, what is
the total waste generation rate/day during the vacation
period.

43
END OF PART 1

44