Solid Waste Management

WASTE MANAGEMENT:-

‘Waste’ is any unwanted or useless material. These are objects that have been discarded since these materials aren’t functioning anymore. Waste can be in any form (liquid, solid or gas), although generally, waste is solid. There are various types of wastes like unwanted food, torn clothes, kitchen waste, etc.

TYPES OF WASTE:-

1.Municipal Waste

commonly consists of items we use on an everyday basis then dump it. Cloths, paints, wires, glasses, unwanted food, etc come under municipal waste. These waste come from schools, factories, but primarily come from our homes.

2.Household waste:

Materials like unused food, clothes, unwanted paper, damaged batteries, etc come under household wastes. Agricultural wastes also come under household waste.

3.Commercial waste:

Wastes coming from any kinds of businesses, trading factories, schools, etc come under commercial waste.

4.Industrial Waste:

Waste produced by industries includes any material that isn’t useful for the industrial manufacturing process. Wastes such are chemicals, pigments, ashes, metals, etc come under industrial waste.

5.Biomedical Waste:

Any waste coming from medical facilities such as hospitals, medical colleges, research centers, etc come under biomedical waste.

CATEGORIES OF WASTE:

Solid Waste:

Any kind of garbage coming households, factories or hospitals come under waste. Except solid wastes are only solids or semi-solids. These solids/semi-solids can be dry or wet.

Wet Waste:

Any dissolved liquid based waste or sludge coming from wastewater plants, households, etc come under wet waste.
Examples such as leftover curries, juices, rotten vegetables will come under wet waste

Dry Waste:

Waste which isn’t dissolved in any form or in liquid form come under dry wastes. Examples such as plastics, bottles, etc will come under dry waste.

Biodegradable Waste:

Any organic material that can be synthesized into carbon dioxide, water, methane or organic molecules by organisms in the soil come under biodegradable waste.

Nonbiodegradable Waste:

Any material that cannot be synthesized into CO2, water or CH4 come under non-biodegradable waste.

DISPOSAL TECHNIQUES:-

a. Burial Pits/Landfills :

Throwing daily wastes in burial pits or what are also known as landfills is an alternative for dustbins and is the popular waste disposal method.It looks after burying waste in the ground and eliminating foul smell coming from the wastes.

b. Incineration:

Burning of waste at high temperatures and converting them into residue or gaseous products is known as ‘Incineration’. It’s a better alternative to dustbins since the volume of waste here decreases by 20-30%.

c. Recycling:

The process of reusing the discarded materials and converting them into something new is known as ‘Recycling’. It’s the third main element in the process of ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. Recycling

reduces the harmful effect of greenhouse gases and helps in conservation of resources for future.

d. Composting:

When organic wastes are kept in a pit for a long period of time the microbes start decomposing the waste. If the compost is nutrient rich then it becomes a better manure for plants.