Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Facilities Research Articles

Urban aspects of selecting lands for municipal solid waste disposal facilities

The article discusses the main approaches to the selection of a land plot for municipal solid waste disposal facilities, taking into account urban planning features. According to the analysis and theoretical studies, the selection of a land plot for municipal solid waste disposal facilities implies an interdisciplinary study and design of the territory, planned for development. The main objectives of the study include environmental protection requirements, building codes and regulations, sanitary and hygienic, engineering-environmental and urban planning rules. The paper analyses the main aspects of organising a land plot for municipal waste disposal facilities. The greatest attention is paid to the study of the regulatory framework in the field of urban planning in terms of determining the legal status of territories for the location of municipal solid waste disposal facilities. The paper develops an interdisciplinary model for studying the criteria of selecting a land plot for municipal solid waste disposal facilities. The necessary industrial regulations, defining the composition of requirements for the selection of a land plot for municipal solid waste disposal facilities, which should be improved taking into account urban development, are highlighted.

Exploring the development of municipal solid waste disposal facilities in Chinese cities: patterns and drivers

Exploring the development of municipal solid waste disposal facilities in Chinese cities: patterns and drivers

Application of peanut shell ash in geosynthetic clay liners to reduce the Zinc contamination in leachate

Human health is seriously harmed by heavy metal contamination. Municipal solid waste disposal facilities are one of the most preferred options that contaminate the land and the groundwater. The liquid produced by the anaerobic oxidation of solid waste in landfills is known as leachate. The leachate contains organic, inorganic, and heavy metals depending upon the type of waste. The main issue in developing nations is the pollution of ground and surface water caused by the generation of leachate. Most heavy metals are carcinogenic in nature and Zinc (Zn) is one of the heavy metals present in the leachate. Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh, India) is a highly polluted city with 1500 Metric tons of waste generated per day. A leachate sample was collected for the study area and its Physico-chemical composition was analyzed. The concentration of Zn was found as 11.47 mg/l in the leachate sample which is more than two times the permissible limit of 5.0 mg/l. The objective of this study is to reduce the Zn concentration of leachate samples after passing through a modified Geosynthetic Clay Liner (GCL). The modified geosynthetic clay liner was developed by adding different proportions (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30%) of Peanut Shell Ash (PSA) with encapsulated Sodium Bentonite (Na-B) in commercial GCL. The efficiency of Zn removal from wastewater using peanut shells has been evaluated. In this study, it has attempted to find the best proportion of Na-B and PSA as encapsulated material of GCL to reduce the concentration of Zn.

Study of the morphological composition of municipal solid waste in the Perm region

The article describes the research of the morphological composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the Perm Territory during the period of self-isolation associated with SARS-CoV-2. It has been substantiated that the indicator of the morphological composition of MSW is decisive in the field of MSW management and determines the choice of the most acceptable method of waste disposal. Despite the growing interest in technologies for sorting and processing MSW, the most common method in Russia is waste disposal by soil methods - waste disposal at MSW landfills, which can pose a threat to the environment, since At many MSW disposal facilities, anti-seepage screens were not initially provided, there are no insulating backfills, many facilities are used beyond the design period. Experimental studies of the complex (morphological) composition of MSW were carried out in two settlements of the Perm Territory with a population of over 500,000 and a population of less than 300,000. The research methodology and tools are presented. The percentage of utilized components in the studied samples in the spring and summer seasons was calculated and the classification of the components according to the degree of biodegradation at MSW landfills, as well as the percentage of MSW components after the extraction of waste suitable for recyclable materials transported to the MSW landfills according to the research results. The percentage of the reduction in the penetration of hard-to-decompose and conditionally non-degradable fractions of MSW at the MSW landfills of the Perm Territory was calculated. Therefore, the purpose of the research was to study the morphological composition of MSW in the Perm Territory during a pandemic and to determine the percentage of components suitable for recyclability in the studied MSW samples by seasons (spring and summer seasons of 2020).

Assessment of heavy metals in RDF for thermochemical conversion

Thermal treatment applications towards production of energy from raw and pre-treated municipal solid waste (MSW) are continuously growing context in contemporary waste-to-energy technology. The quality of MSW needs an improved analysis to enhance her choice of energy exploitation and environmental assessment of fly and bottom ashes associated with thermochemical conversions. The MSW were collected from municipal solid waste disposal facilities (MSWDF) in Cape Town to investigate heavy metals distributions in MSW. The MSW were pre-treated to improve the quality of MSW. The 7700 Series quadrupole ICP-MS solution method was used to determine concentrations and distributions of some heavy metals from MSWDF in Cape Town. This study further predicted distributions of heavy metals in fly and bottom ashes by a model. The results showed that accumulation of high concentrations of heavy metals in bottom ash residue could be a good remedy for heavy metals control. The heavy metals (especially Pb, Zn and Hg) emissions could be technically monitored and controlled from escaping to urban air-sheds atmosphere and prevent from their consequential secondary environmental and health implication.

Assessment of the major odor contributors and health risks of volatile compounds in three disposal technologies for municipal solid waste

Gaseous emissions from municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal plants pose serious odor pollution and health risks. In this study, the emission of volatile organic compounds and carbon disulfide was compared in the main processing units of three disposal methods, i.e., landfilling, eco-mechanical biological treatment (EMBT) and anaerobic fermentation in a MSW disposal plant. Among the detected volatile compounds (VCs), the top ten odor compounds were methanethiol, dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, carbon disulfide, styrene, m-xylene, 4-ethyltoluene, ethylbenzene, 2-hexyl ketone and n-hexane in the MSW disposal plant. Sulfur compounds were the main source of odor at the majority of sampling sites, and aromatic compounds were the dominant odor substrates at the tipping unit and sorting system of EMBT, while 2-hexanone was the major odor substrate at the tipping unit (AT) and sorting system (AS) of anaerobic fermentation and the landfill working surface. At AS and AT, the lifetime cancer risk values for 1,2-dichloroethane and trichloroethylene exceeded the carcinogenic risk value (>1.0E-04), and the hazard index values of naphthalene, trichloroethylene and acrolein all exceeded the acceptable level (>1). Therefore, special attention should be paid to VC emissions from MSW disposal facilities, and protection measures should be adopted for on-site workers to minimize health risks.

The identification and health risk assessment of odor emissions from waste landfilling and composting

Odor nuisance is the main incentive for Not In My Back Yard campaigns around municipal solid waste (MSW) waste disposal facilities, and the odor identification is of significance for the understanding of the odor properties from MSW with different disposal methods. In this study, odor emissions from different stages at two large-scale working MSW disposal facilities, i.e., landfill (LF) and compost plant (CP), were distinguished with the same MSW feedstock in one city. It was found that CP suffered the heavier odor pollution and the characteristics of odorants changed significantly, especially the pile-turning workshop. Sulfides and aromatics were the main concentration contributors for LF, while that for CP were NH3 and oxygenated compounds. Significant correlations between odor concentration and halogenated compounds, sulfides (r2 = 0.945, 0.898, p<0.05, n = 12) were merely observed in CP. The priority odor pollutants of LF were H2S, benzene and NH3, while that of CP was NH3, ethyl acetate and benzene with a descending order. With regarding to their contributions for occupational exposure, the carcinogenic risk was negligible for these facilities, but H2S of LF might bring non-carcinogenic risk to on-site workers.

Siting a municipal solid waste disposal facility, Part one: An evaluation of different scenarios for a site selection procedure

This study includes an application of the first two phases of a new three-phased decision-making structure that was developed to overcome the problems related to ecological safety and social justice in site selection applications. It was conducted on a current site selection problem related to the municipal solid waste disposal facilities in Kocaeli, the most industrialized region of Turkey. In order to assess the deficiencies of the legal site selection procedures related to ecological safety, two different decision tree modes were applied separately. The first mode (“Legislation”) concerns the current buffer zone applications given in the regulations, while the second one (“Proposed”) includes the applications of the new decision-making structure proposed in this study. Since it was assumed that the subjective tendencies of the decision makers on the weightings would have a significant effect on the final decision, these two modes were assessed by employing two different weighting models. The results were obtained from all of the scenarios related to selection of suitable sites with three different area requirements (15, 250, and 500 acres) for the solid wastes generated in the Kocaeli region. The results showed that the possible changes in the decision structure could cause significant differences in the final decision related to selection of the most suitable sites. The most highest and lowest differences were at the “Legislation” mode for 15 acres and 500 acres, respectively. Furthermore, the results obtained in the study showed that the possible differentiations in the criteria weightings could also cause significant differences in the suitability ranking. Therefore, to get a reliable final decision, a statistical assessment of these differentiations should be made. Implications: The results showed that the possible changes in the decision structure could cause significant differences in the final decision related to selection of the most suitable sites. Furthermore, the results obtained in the study showed that the possible differentiations in the criteria weightings could also cause significant differences in the suitability ranking. Therefore, to get a reliable final decision, a statistical assessment of these differentiations should be made.

Estimation of Releases Outside Notification from Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Facilities

Estimation of Releases Outside Notification from Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Facilities

Robust Statistical Analysis for MSW Characterization Studies

Tennessee State University conducted a pilot municipal solid waste study for Tennessee Department of Environment at two Tennessee municipal solid waste disposal facilities. A major goal for the pilot study was to develop and demonstrate statistical analysis methodologies to be used in a future statewide municipal solid waste study. In municipal solid waste studies the costs of sorting and weighing a sufficient number of samples to obtain reasonably precise estimates is prohibitive for some waste constituents. This issue regarding the number of municipal solid waste samples was addressed using a real-time iterative analysis that involved simultaneous tracking of the mean, trimmed mean, and median of the sample populations. Sampling was terminated for a particular waste category based on observation of dimensioning incremental improvement in 90 percent confidence intervals for the mean and median. This approach was adopted to take advantage of the robustness of efficiency of the mean for waste categories with near normal distribution and the robustness of validity of the median for grossly non-normally distributed categories. The trimmed mean was included in the analysis as an intermediate estimator to the mean and median with regard to loss of sample information. The convergence of the three estimators for nearly normal data and the trimmed mean intermediate relationship to the mean and median provided excellent field guidance regarding the tradeoff between precision and sampling cost. This approach also provides the option of making statistical inference on the median for grossly non-normal waste subcategories when additional sampling to designate the mean is not an option.

A comparative analysis of the psychosocial impacts of waste disposal facilities

This paper reports the results of a comparative analysis of the psychosocial impacts of municipal solid waste disposal facilities (both landfills and incinerators) in six communities in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, Canada. Telephone surveys were administered to random samples of residents living around each facility between 1990 and 1995 (total n=1203). The results of logistic regression analyses show that type of facility was the strongest predictor of residents' awareness, concern, and actions taken in response to site concerns. Essentially, residents living in close proximity to a landfill had a higher probability of reporting awareness, concern or actions than residents living around an incinerator site. There was little evidence of differences in reactions between Ontario and British Columbia (BC) residents, despite variations in provincial policies on waste disposal. The effects of other predictors, with the exception of involvement in the local community, were not consistent, supporting previous findings that the determinants of facility impacts are outcome‐specific. It is essential that environmental managers take this constellation of factors into account in the operation of existing, or siting of new, facilities.