Characterization and Settlement Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste

Abstract

The disposal of municipal solid waste in unscientific and haphazard manner causes harmful impact on environment. The open dumping is most common method adopted for waste disposal in most of the developing countries including India which require immediate attention for minimizing its impacts on environment and human health. Therefore, disposal of waste in engineered landfill helps in reducing the impact of waste. In this regard, the present study focused on evaluation of current waste management practices adopted in the study region, waste characterization and effect of degradation on properties of waste. The study of geotechnical parameters of waste provides a base line for assessing the stability of landfill. The degradation of waste changes the waste properties with time and affecting the stability of slopes of landfill. Thus, analysis of shear behavior of waste was done for determining the shear strength of waste with degradation and age of waste. Further, the stability of landfill depends upon the factors like biodegradation, moisture, temperature, compression, density of waste. Thus, the analysis of settlement of waste in the landfill was determined for analyzing the stability and structural integrity of different components of landfill. newlineThe waste management practices adopted in the study area were evaluated using wasteaware benchmark indicator and quantification of results obtained was done using the matrix method. The wasteaware benchmark indicator showed that despite of good collection efficiency of waste, the performance of the environmentally controlled treatment and disposal methods, 3R s methodologies in the study area were poor. The matrix method indicated the overall weightage of 38% for efficiency of waste management practices adopted in area which lies in low/medium index. The characterization of waste for the study area showed the presence higher fraction of organic waste (56%) followed by paper (12.2%) and plastic (10.2%). The chemical characterization of waste revealed that higher C/N ratio