1. WASTE MANAGEMENT

2. INTRODUCTION
• Generation of solid waste increases every year
• Decrease of number of available landfills
• Concerns about risks associated with disposal
• Opposition to siting new waste management
facilities
• Increased awareness of environmental
problems
• Increase in costs associated with waste
management

3. Who is responsible?
• Local, state and federal governments have
underestimated the issue.
• Industry has produced goods with little regard to
eventual disposal.
• Individuals consume products and generate
waste with little regard to disposal.
• Disposal facility owners regard environmental
issues as secondary.

4. Definitions of waste
• Household waste
– Waste from residences – organic, recyclables,
gardenwaste, etc
– Source separated or mixed
– Not hazardous waste – oil, paint, pesticides, cleaners
• Industrial and commercial waste
– all sources of waste that are not collected at the
kerbside – restaurants, shops, offices, workshops, etc
– largest component is wastewater sludge

5. Definitions of waste (cont.)
• Construction waste
– building and demolition sites
– Variable composition with inerts (soils, cement, bricks),
biodegradables (vegetation from land clearing) and
hazardous waste (paints, solvents, glues etc)
• Agricultural wastes
– Plant and animal residues

6. Definitions of waste (cont.)
• Regulated wastes
– overtly dangerous materials
– organic solvents, grease trap waste, oils, heavy
metal solutions, medical waste, caustic or acidic
chemicals and explosives, tyres, pathogenic (hospital)

7. Waste is a resource
• Recyclables
– Paper
– Glass
– Plastic
– Aluminium and Ferrous metal
– Building materials
– Industrial recyclables
– fly ash, water
– Compost, soil conditioner
• Energy
– Conversion to methane
– Direct incineration

8. Waste Management Hierarchy
• Reducing the quantity and toxicity of
waste.
• Reusing the materials.
• Recycling and recovering materials.
• Combusting with energy recovery.
• Landfilling
• Combusting without energy recovery.

9. Waste Management Hierarchy
Reduce
cleaner production
Reuse
no reprocessing
Transform
waste to energy and treatment
Recycle
reprocess to new goods
Dispose
landfill

10. Reduce
• reduction of the amount and the toxicity of waste throughout
“the design, manufacture, and packaging of products with
minimum toxic content, minimum volume of material, or a
longer useful life.” (Tchobanoglous, et al, 1993)
• concerns on many aspects such as the development of low-
waste technologies, product recovery and reuse, the
creation of product design for recycling, and the increase of
the overall product life (Bilitewski, et al,1996).

11. Reduce (cont.)
• should be applied by both industries (e.g. by using
recyclable material for packaging) and consumers (e.g.
by buying reusable products)  minimise the raw
material consumption in production and waste
generation in the end of product life (Rhyner, et al, 1995)
• How to reduce:
– Implement cleaner production (next lecture)

12. Reuse
• “…findings another or similar use for product rather
than discarding it (McBean, et al, 1995, p. 20)
• some applications of waste reuse (Tchobanoglous, et
al. (1993):
1. direct reuse (e.g. wooden pallets, furniture),
2. raw materials for remanufacturing and reprocessing (e.g.
aluminium, plastics, glass, paper and cardboard),
3. feedstock for production of biological and conversion products
(e.g. yard wastes, organic fraction of MSW),
4. fuel source (e.g. waste oil, yard waste) and
5. land reclamation (e.g. construction and demolition waste)

13. Recycle
• “the separation and collection of waste materials; the
preparation of these materials for reuse, reprocessing, and
remanufacture; and the reuse, reprocessing, and
remanufacture of these materials, such as recovery plastic
containers for the secondary material market.”
(Tchobanoglous, et al, 1993, p.16)
• Some environmental and economic benefits for industries
(Rhyner, et al, 1995) :
– energy and water saving,
– material conservation, and
– energy and pollution control cost saving.

14. Transform (waste to energy and treatment)
• involves the physical, chemical, or biological alterations of
wastes which can be used “…to improve the efficiency of
waste management; to recover reusable and recycle
materials; and, more importantly, to recover conversion
products (e.g. compost) and energy from the heat and
combustible biogas.” (Tchobanoglous, et al, 1993, p. 16)
• Disadvantages (BCSE, 2005):
– no further practical values for reusing, recycling or
reprocessing of the waste stream,
– consumes much money and needs high technology.

15. Dispose (landfill)
• Is accepted as a common way to handling the
waste problems in a community (Rhyner, et al,
1995).
• It is used if the wastes cannot be recycled or no
further use (Tchobanoglous, et al. 1993).

16. Dispose (landfill) cont.
• Disadvantages for the environment (Bilitewski, et
al, 1996 and Mendes, et al, 2003):
– high emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas;
– risk of leachate leakage and consequent
contamination of water streams;
– lack of landfill sites.”
– cannot be used for the long term period
– needs high cost to maintain.

17. Integrated Waste Management
• Involves using a combination of
techniques and programs to manage the
waste stream.
• Based on the fact that solid waste is made
up of distinct components – recyclables
and combustibles

18. Integrated Waste Management
Integrated waste management has been
defined as the integration of waste streams,
collection and treatment methods,
environmental benefit, economic
optimization and social acceptability into a
practical system for any region (Warmer
Bulletin 49, 1996).

19. Elements of an
integrated
waste
management
system?
Source: Waste Treatment & Disposal

20. The 6
components of
an integrated
waste
management
system
Source: Waste Treatment & Disposal

21. Implementation
• should recognize the rapid changes occurred in
facilities, recovery of materials, and disposal
options.
• should be based on their characteristics,
environmental impacts, economics, and societal
acceptability.
• varies among countries, societies or
organizations.

22. Example
Figure 1 Waste Management in OEDC Countries (Zacarias-Farah and Geyer-Alle´ly, 2003)

23. References
Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE). 2005. Waste to energy a
guide for local authorities. Victoria.
Bilitewski, B., G. Hardtle, K. Marek, A. Weissbach, and H. Boeddicker. (1996), Waste
Management, Springer, Berlin.
McBean, E. A., F. A. Rovers, and G. J. Farquhar. (1995), Solid Waste Landfill
Engineering and Design, Prentice Hall HTR, New Jersey.
Mendes, M. R., T. Aramaki, and Keisuke Hanaki. (2003). Assessment of the
environmental impact of management measures for the biodegradable fraction of
municipal solid waste in Sa˜ o Paulo City. Journal of Waste Management 23,403–
409. Retrieved September 18, 2006, from
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman/html
Rhyner, C. R., L. J. Schwartz, R. B. Wenger, and M. G. Kohrell. (1995), Waste
Management and Resource Recovery, Lewis Publishers, New York.
Tchobanoglous, G., H. Theisen, and S. Vigil. (1993), Integrated Solid Waste
Management: Engineering Principles and Management Issues, McGraw-Hill, Inc,
New York.