Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Methods Research Articles

Selection of municipal solid waste disposal technology using the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Genetic Algorithm for Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management represents a significant challenge in rapidly urbanizing regions, notably within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This study focuses on Kuwait, exemplifying the GCC context, to identify the most suitable MSW disposal methods. We integrate the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with Genetic Algorithms (GA) for a comprehensive evaluation and optimization of disposal options, considering 13 criteria across economic, environmental, technical, and safety dimensions. Five disposal methods (landfilling, controlled dumpsites, composting, incineration, and refuse-derived fuel [RDF] combustion) are analyzed for their fit to Kuwait's unique environmental and socio-economic conditions. The AHP analysis highlights the paramount importance of "Health & Safety of Employees" (19.8%), "Water Pollution" (16.2%), and "Air Pollution Control" (15.4%) as criteria, underscoring a regional prioritization of health and environmental considerations over cost. Composting and RDF combustion emerge as the preferred disposal methods, with AHP-derived priority percentages of 22.7% and 22.3%, respectively. GA optimization further validates these methods as optimally aligned with the regional waste management framework. Conclusively, composting and RDF combustion are identified as the most feasible MSW disposal options for Kuwait, with potential applicability across the GCC, contingent on alignment with local economic and environmental policies. This research provides a critical foundation for policymakers and stakeholders in crafting sustainable, region-specific waste management strategies.

Comparison and selection of municipal solid waste treatment technologies in Tibet plateau area

The treatment of municipal solid waste has different impacts on the society, economy and environment of a region. It is extremely important to select a municipal solid waste disposal method suitable for the Tibetan Plateau. In the study, social, technical, economic, environmental and municipal solid waste characteristics are selected as comprehensive analysis indicators, and then combined with analytical hierarchy process and technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution methods for comprehensive analysis. The results show that the population size, population growth, population density and other indicators account for a large weight, and have a greater impact on the selection of municipal solid waste treatment methods. Through the final analysis, it is believed that the incineration treatment method is better than the landfill treatment method in the Tibetan plateau area.

Inhalation health risk assessment of incineration and landfill in the Bohai Rim, China

An inhalation health risks assessment of 96 waste to energy (WtE) plants and 178 landfills in the Bohai Rim, located in northeast China, has been conducted. Based on the latest emission inventories in 2020, WRF/CALPUFF was used to simulate the diffusion of pollutants. Population-weighted hazard index (HI) and carcinogenic risk (CR) of incineration and landfill for each pollutant and each target organ impacted were calculated. The health risks of incineration and landfill were correlated with per capita municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal quantity, emission factors, pollutant toxic effects and local migration and diffusion conditions. The HI of incineration and landfill in the Bohai Rim were 4.07 × 10−3 and 4.79 × 10−3, respectively, which was lower than the acceptable level (HI < 1), while the CR of incineration and landfill were 4.72 × 10−7 and 2.58 × 10−7, respectively, which was also lower than the acceptable level (CR < 1 × 10−6). The non-carcinogenic risks of incineration mainly targeted respiratory system and development system, while the non-carcinogenic risks of landfill mainly targeted nervous system and respiratory system. The carcinogenic risks of incineration mainly targeted respiratory system and digestive system, while the carcinogenic risks of landfill mainly targeted hepatic system and respiratory system.With the trend that incineration phase in, while landfill phase out, the number of patients for 15 target organ diseases caused by the disposal of unit mass MSW would decrease in the Bohai Rim, ranging from 1.8 × 10−8 – 1.8 × 10−2 (pop/t)，especially in developed provinces, such as Beijing and Tianjin. However, the number of patients for 4 target organ diseases caused by the disposal of unit mass MSW would increase, ranging from 1.18 × 10−6 - 5.28 × 10−3 (pop/t). Based on pollutants' pathogenic mechanisms, this study innovatively accessed and compared incineration and landfill's health risks of target organs, and provide technical and policy suggestions based on the changing trend of MSW disposal methods in the future.

Heavy metals decreased by water elution method on bottom ash from municipal solid waste incineration plant

By incineration treatment became the most important g municipal solid waste disposal method. The bottom ash, which accounting for 20% to 30% of the original municipal solid waste has been a large content source of municipal solid waste in China. The heavy metal will be released to the environment by the eluent produced from the bottom ash. It has a negative influence on bottom ash treatment and reuse. This study analyzed the changing of heavy metals of Cu, Ni and Zn during the elution process by the column simulation experiment. The study revealed the regulation of heavy metals migration under the condition of slow speed elution. These results can help environmental release risk assessment of heavy metal in bottom ash from municipal solid waste incineration plant.

Groundwater Quality Mapping of an Open Municipal Solid waste Landfill Site

The common practice of Municipal solid waste disposal method in developing countries is an unlined landfill dumping site. Due to this the natural resources land, water and air get polluted and also severely affected by the public living around the dumping yard. In this study, Srinivasapuram dumpsite in Thanjavur City Municipal Corporation area, India has been selected to investigate the quality of groundwater. Groundwater samples collected from 25 locations were tested as per standards for physical, chemical characteristics. The classical contour mapping method has been used to detect information from the recorded ground water quality data. Surfer 6.0 software has been used to convert the spatial data into equivalent contour map. Graphical method has been used to decide the area enclosed by each contour line. The water quality standards recommended by BIS and WHO were used to classify the critical regions based on the ground water contamination level. The water quality parameters such as pH value, Electrical conductivity, Total dissolved solids (TDS), Total Hardness (TH), Iron and Fluoride were considered for this analysis and other parameters were not included. All the collected groundwater samples the pH values are within the permissible limit of 6.5-8.5. The Electrical Conductivity vales range between 0.5mho/cm and 5.7mho/cm. The TDS values ranges between 200 and 3024 mg/l. The concentration of TDS is higher than the permissible level of the samples which are nearby the dumping yard as the contour lines are assembling around the dumpsite. The concentration of chlorides in all the samples under investigation is 12.4 to 1316 mg/l. It has been observed that concentration of total hardness (TH) of water samples varies from 118 mg/l to 2070mg/l. The presence of high concentration of iron and fluoride in the water samples adjacent to dumping yard indicate that it would have contaminated by leachate movement from MSW. The contour plots also reveal that the groundwater was contaminated as per the tests conducted for physical and chemical parameters.

Implications of municipal solid waste disposal methods in China on greenhouse gas emissions

AbstractWaste disposal sector is an important anthropogenic source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; therefore, it is important to accurately estimate GHG budget of waste disposal activities and evaluate its contribution to global GHG emissions. Based on the GHG inventory guidelines provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this study calculated GHGs from the municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal sector (including landfill, incineration, and compost) in China during the period 2002–2017. Overall GHG emission from the MSW disposal sector increased from 30,392.0 Gg CO2 in 2002 to 76,623.0 Gg in 2017. MSW landfill contributed most to GHG emissions as indicated by the emission share of landfill decreasing from a peak value of 93.5% in 2002 to 65.8% in 2017. GHG emissions from MSW incineration increased rapidly from less than 3.0% in 2002 to 32.8% in 2017. In 2017, East China contributed the most among the seven regions of China, while the Northwest contributed the least. Methane mitigation technologies such as landfill gas to energy projects and functional solid cover utilization are the primary measures for reducing GHG emissions from landfill; conversion of the treatment method from landfill to incineration is another effective measure; MSW sorting and source reduction of waste amounts prior to incineration were also found to be promising strategies.

Municipal Solid Waste Disposal and Its Environmental Implications in Wuse Zone 5, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

Fast growing cities like Abuja are faced with challenges of municipal solid waste management. The paper examined municipal solid waste disposal methods and its environmental implications in Wuse Zone 5A, FCT, Abuja Nigeria. The study generated data from oral interviews and field observation. The findings reveal that attitudinal irresponsibility, ineptitude and graft have collectively resulted in the ugly system of solid waste disposal in Wuse Zone 5A. The study shows that the dumping of municipal solid wastes on the streets has impacted the environment negatively, some of these impacts are physical nuisance of the solid wastes to the environment, the waste collection centres serve as hideouts to rodents and other dangerous insects, the waste collection centers also emit offensive odour. The solid waste may decompose to emit methane gas, which contributes to climate change. The paper recommends that the AEPB should have adequate financial provision, public orientation and new environmental laws should be put in place, community full participation in waste management be encouraged, and a better method of waste collection be provided.

Waste disposal, introduction of waste reform and environmental tax in Russia

Due to the fact that the country’s population is growing, the demand for consumer resources is also increasing. As a result of an increase in resource consumption, the amount of municipal waste is also increasing. It is a logical fact that without the timely introduction of innovative technologies for waste recycling, the planet will soon turn into a huge dump and become unsuitable for the existence of not only people but all living creatures. In order to avoid such a result, scientists from many countries have long been looking for optimal ways to deal with waste, thanks to which it would be possible to eliminate or recycle municipal solid waste (MSW) without harming the environment, as well as rid the territorial space of huge amounts of garbage. The subject of the study is the methods of MSW disposal. The purpose of the study is to regulate the management of waste, which occupies an increasingly large area. Water bodies are polluted due to wastewater and carry many infections and elements dangerous to nature. Methodology. To study the topic, the main indicators are systematized: the volume of waste generation by type of activity and hazard class over 20 years. Comparative, economic and statistical methods of analysis were used for substantiating the findings. Results. Disposal of municipal waste should be developed no less than manufacturing industry, so that the generated municipal solid waste could not accumulate and pollute the soil, atmosphere and water.

High-temperature processing of municipal solid waste

At present, processing and recycling of municipal solid waste (MSW) has become more relevant in our country and the world at large. This problem concerns large towns and cities, where every year millions of tons of all kinds of fractions of household waste are produced. Disposal or recycling of solid waste is an environmental issue, but it is associated with the solution of complex technical, energy and economic challenges. The purpose of this study is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of modern methods of processing and disposal of MSW with the prospect of developing and creating a device for recycling MSW taking into account modern approaches to energy saving and environmental protection. The main results of the study are to create a simple, reliable and technically sound method of MSW disposal to obtain additional energy. The significance of the results obtained for the construction industry is the design of a device for the disposal of solid waste with the production of solid combustion products and further their use as building materials and products for various purposes. Because of the technological process of MSW processing, it becomes possible to generate some returns through use of resulting thermal energy for electricity production.

SIZINTI SUYU ARITIMINDA STRÜVİT ÇÖKTÜRME OPTİMİZASYONU

Sanitary landfill is the most preferred municipal solid waste disposal method. The production of highly polluted leachate is a major disadvantage of sanitary landfills. In this study, optimization of struvite precipitation to remove ammonium from landfill leachate was conducted by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Central Composite Design (CCD). Optimum struvite precipitation conditions were determined based upon 11 runs performed in CCD. A second-order polynomial functional model was fitted well to the results. The statistical analysis showed that two independent variables which are molar rates of Mg/N and N/P had significant effects on the ammonium removal efficiency. Maximum ammonium removal efficiency was 99.8% at a molar rate of 1.20 for Mg/N and 1.27 for N/P for a constant 9.2 pH value. The obtained results revealed that struvite used as pretreatment in anaerobic process can be modelled by using RSM. And also, RSM can be used to optimize required ammonium removal efficiency for lower Mg/N and N/P molar ratio which affects the performance of pretreatment method that designed for an anaerobic process having 300:5:1 ratio for COD/N/P.

WASTE-TO-ENERGY POTENTIAL IN TRIPOLI CITY-LIBYA

Tripoli City, the Capital of the Libya, has experienced far-reaching changes in spatial and socio-economic patterns during the last few decades, supported by crude oil revenue. The changes have produced far-reaching increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation and electricity demand. Open landfilling is the dominant method of MSW disposal in the city. This research aims to assess the value of Waste-to-Energy (WTE) facility as a solution to MSW landfill problem and as a renewable source of electricity. two WTE scenarios were developed: complete incineration; incineration with recycling. The results show that Tripoli has the potential to produce about 57 MW of electricity based on incineration scenario; about 32 MW based on incineration with recycling scenario; in the year 2030. These values are based on theoretical ideals and help in identifying the optimal WTE techniques for each city.

Historical development of municipal solid waste land-based storage and disposal policies, programs and practices in the US: 1933-1997

The practice of ocean dumping of municipal solid wastes was banned in 1933 in the US. Thousands of landfills have been closed due to state and federal regulations and substandard conditions. These closings have resulted in building larger regional and/or privatized landfills in the US and pressures to find new sites or expand existing ones. Federal policymakers responded with new and stricter legislation to the severity of the solid waste issues. The most significant regulation was the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) and its amendments. Both closure of landfills and public opposition to landfilling create pressures to heavily utilize alternative waste disposal methods: incineration, composting, recycling, and source reduction. This study is a historical analysis of American states’ land-based municipal solid waste storage and disposal policies, programs and practices under the influence of related federal regulations from the period of 1933 to 1997. It is questioned in an historical manner why and to what extent do states use and restrict land-based municipal solid waste disposal methods and how it changed during most of the 20th Century? DOI: 10.15551/lsgdc.v45i0.06

Cost benefit analysis of composting and anaerobic digestion in a community: A review

Currently, population and urbanisation are rapidly growing which causes a tremendous amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) being generated. The MSW management in Malaysia can be considered relatively poor and disorganised. The most preferred MSW disposal method in Malaysia is through landfilling. To address this and to respond to increasing global environmental concerns, composting and anaerobic digestion have been hailed as an environmentally and economically friendly alternative besides landfilling. By capturing the organic materials from MSW and putting it to a more beneficial use as feedstock for composting and anaerobic digestion sounds very ideal. Focusing on the waste landfilling prevention for a small community, this paper discusses on whether composting or anaerobic digestion might be a feasible alternative to landfilling. Both solutions differ in various aspects. The purpose of this study is to know whether composting or anaerobic digestion is more beneficial by performing cost benefit analysis on both situations. In this study we estimated the cost benefit analysis of three different scenarios. First scenario is the baseline for the current practice of solid waste management where the wastes are dumped to landfill. Second scenario is the installation of composting plant and the third scenario will be estimated on the installation of anaerobic digester.

Municipal solid waste - waste to energy conversion in India: an overview

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is generated in enormous quantities, in India, causing environmental problems. It is collected primarily by sweeping in India and dumped on the outskirts of urban areas, which pollute the environment. Such MSWs also release methane and carbon dioxide, which are important greenhouse gases. MSW comprises biodegradable material. The MSW disposal methods in India mainly include land filling, separating waste and composting, biomethanation, incineration, and conversion to refuse derived fuel (RDF). MSW can be converted to non-conventional energy (WtE). Otherwise, the MSW disposal in India open dumping facilitates breeding of ensuing serious environmental health problems. The WtE conversion is going to become important in thickly populated cities. The biodegradable waste can be processed by aerobic composting including vermicomposting and by anaerobically, biomethanation. The non-biodegradable waste such as plastic can be processed for recovering energy. There are 16 such clean development mechanisms projects recovering energy from MSW in India, of which 11 are RDF-based and a few are biomethanation-based. However, landfill gas recovery projects were not successful in India. However, there are successful small projects in Tamil Nadu (India) deriving the CH4 gas from human-waste biomethanation units generating electricity lighting street lights.

Optimization for municipal solid waste treatment based on energy consumption and contaminant emission

This paper analyzes the characterization of energy consumption and contaminant emissions from a municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment system that comprises transfer station, landfill site, combustion plant, composting plant, dejecta treatment station, and an integrated MSW treatment plant. The consumed energy and energy medium materials were integrated under comprehensive energy consumption (CEC) for comparison. Among typical MSW disposal methods such as combustion, composting, and landfilling, landfilling has the minimum CEC value. Installing an integrated treatment plant is the recommended MSW management method because of its lower CEC. Furthermore, this method is used to ensure process centralization. In landfill sites, a positive linear correlation was observed between the CEC and contaminant removal ratios when emitted pollutants have a certain weight coefficient. The process should utilize the minimum CEC value of 5.3702kgce/t MSW and consider energy consumption, energy recovery, MSW components, and the equivalent of carbon dioxide emissions.

Municipal Solid Waste Management and community awareness and involvement in management practices: an overview and a case study from Gondar town of Ethiopia

An assessment was carried out on management practices for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated in Gondar town of Ethiopia. Efficiency and effectiveness of waste collection and disposal by municipality and different methods adopted for waste disposal by residents were studied to find a suitable, effective and feasible method of MSW disposal. The data about awareness, attitude and involvement of residents towards wastes was generated by using questionnaire. From the study, it was observed that 97% of the respondents surveyed had awareness about health and aesthetic aspects of improper waste disposal. About 70% of the respondents are willing to pay in case municipality will introduce house-to-house collection system.

Fuzzy multicriteria disposal method and site selection for municipal solid waste

The use of fuzzy multiple criteria analysis (MCA) in solid waste management has the advantage of rendering subjective and implicit decision making more objective and analytical, with its ability to accommodate both quantitative and qualitative data. In this paper a modified fuzzy TOPSIS methodology is proposed for the selection of appropriate disposal method and site for municipal solid waste (MSW). Our method is superior to existing methods since it has capability of representing vague qualitative data and presenting all possible results with different degrees of membership. In the first stage of the proposed methodology, a set of criteria of cost, reliability, feasibility, pollution and emission levels, waste and energy recovery is optimized to determine the best MSW disposal method. Landfilling, composting, conventional incineration, and refuse-derived fuel (RDF) combustion are the alternatives considered. The weights of the selection criteria are determined by fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It is found that RDF combustion is the best disposal method alternative for Istanbul. In the second stage, the same methodology is used to determine the optimum RDF combustion plant location using adjacent land use, climate, road access and cost as the criteria. The results of this study illustrate the importance of the weights on the various factors in deciding the optimized location, with the best site located in Çatalca. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to monitor how sensitive our model is to changes in the various criteria weights.

An analytic network process model for municipal solid waste disposal options

The aim of this paper is to present an evaluation method that can aid decision makers in a local civic body to prioritize and select appropriate municipal solid waste disposal methods. We introduce a hierarchical network (hiernet) decision structure and apply the analytic network process (ANP) super-matrix approach to measure the relative desirability of disposal alternatives using value judgments as the input of the various stakeholders. ANP is a flexible analytical program that enables decision makers to find the best possible solution to complex problems by breaking down a problem into a systematic network of inter-relationships among the various levels and attributes. This method therefore may not only aid in selecting the best alternative but also helps decision makers to understand why an alternative is preferred over the other options.