Municipal Solid Waste Management in Today’s Scenario

Posted by Nikita on August 20th, 2019

With the increasing level of progress being marked by the human, is also creating the equivalent side effects on the human life as well as on environment. Solid waste being generated through various human activities is one of those side effects. Most of such waste at the end is managed by the municipalities. Today, we are going to discuss about the solid waste management by these municipalities in today’s modern scenario.

Municipal solid waste

Municipal solid waste usually includes the domestic and commercial wastes generated in the areas coming under the municipalities or other such notified areas whether in solid or semi-solid form. These wastes do not include hazardous industrial wastes but it does include the used bio medical waste.

Collection, storage and disposal of such waste

Collection of the solid wastefrom the households or other waste generating units is a monstrous task especially in cities. Municipalities have to establish a well-planned system in order to collect waste material in the most responsible and appropriate way. Collection from the households is done whether through central collection bin or through house to house collection using a waste collecting vehicle on predetermined timings. Wastes from the slaughter houses, slums and squatter areas are also collected by them. While collecting such waste, it is ensured that this waste does not get mixed with dangerous industrial waste or bio medical waste or construction waste as there are different ways devised for their proper management and disposal.

Storing the collected solid waste material  and Industrial waste Incinerator becomes another challenge for the municipalities. There areas a lot of things which needs to be taken care of while establishing the storage facilities in different areas. Municipalities have to take into account the amount of waste being generated by a particular area and their accessibility to such facilities. These facilities need to be designed in such a way that the waste material keeps away from the reach of stray animals because if they by any way consume it, it will have a serious influence on the whole of the society.

After collection ad storage, the most important task of the municipalities in relation to solid waste management is the appropriate disposal of such waste. There are a lot of various methods for the disposal of solid waste. Some of the major methods used are Dumping on land, ploughing into the soil, dumping in water and incineration. Except incineration, all the other three are self-explanatory and you must have read about them also, while incineration is a waste disposal method which is not known to many people. Incineration is a type of thermal treatment, under which the waste material is converted into ash through a specified combustion technology and the same technology is used in municipal solid waste incinerator. This method of waste treatment reduces the waste’s solid mass by many times which helps in minimizing the overall impact of it on the environment. That’s the reason why the incineration technology is being adopted by a large number of organizations and municipalities of the country.

But it cannot be said that the incineration is a purely harmless process as it produces some flue gases as a by-product. There is a special type of incinerators which used by the municipalities, which usually have two chambers fitted in them. One is called primary chamber while other is known as secondary chamber. The primary chamber usually consists of a refractory lined cylindrical tube which is inclined. This refractory lining acts as a protective layer for kiln structure and this refractory layer is replaced from time to time. The solid fraction is converted into gases in the primary chamber. Such incinerators are specially designed incinerators which are termed as rotary kiln incinerator.