Introduction

• What is waste?
• When does waste become a problem?
• How can waste problems be solved?
• Concept of solid waste management

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 Introduction – Definition of waste
• What is waste?
– There is no universally accepted definition of waste.
– It may be defined as a left-over, a redundant product or material of no or
marginal value for the owner, and which the owner wants to discard.
– Waste is therefore not an intrinsic property of an item.
• According to the above definition, waste may depend on many factors; e.g.
– Time – during scarcity, owner may spend more time and effort to repair an
item rather than discard,
– Location – farmer may easily use food waste as animal feeds,
– State – the item may be repairable based on its state e.g. price, age, type
of damage,
– Income level – more items are discarded by rich, e.g. when they out of
fashion,
– Personal preferences – certain items may be collector’s items or possess
respect to some individuals.
– Political regulations - e.g. fees on disposable items: bag, packaging,
banning of plastic bags etc.
 Introduction – Definition of waste
• The definition of ‘solid waste’ would be anticipated to be
‘waste in a solid state’
• However, solid waste may be solid, or liquid as a sludge or
as a free chemical phase.
• Solid wastes are heterogeneous in nature, thus comprising
of countless different materials, e.g.
– food wastes,
– packaging in the form of paper, metals, plastics or glass,
– discarded clothing and furnishings,
– garden wastes,
– construction wastes,
– factory offcuts and process wastes,
– pathological wastes, as well as
– hazardous and radioactive wastes.
 Introduction
Everyone produces waste.
 It is something unwanted but
unavoidable.
Examples of wastes:
 leftover food,
 dirty water,
used plastic bag and other packaging
paper, rags, etc. that you might not use
anymore.
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 Introduction
 WASTE = is anything, which is no longer useful to
someone and one needs to get rid of. It is
something, which the first user does not want
anymore, and therefore throws it away.
 Other definitions
 Any matter prescribed to be waste, and any
radioactive matter, whether liquid, solid, gaseous or
radioactive which is discharged, emitted or
deposited into the environment in such volume,
composition or manner as to cause an alteration of
the environment (UG. Waste Management
regulations 1999)
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 Definition
• "Any substance or object the holder discards,
intends to discard or is required to discard" is
WASTE under the Waste Framework Directive
(European Directive (WFD) 2006/12/EC), as
amended by the new WFD (Directive
2008/98/EC)”.
 Once a substance or object has become waste,
it will remain waste until it has been fully
recovered and no longer poses a potential
threat to the environment or to human health
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 Waste categories
• Liquid wastes:
– Wastewater from kitchen, bathroom – (grey
water), floor washings, car washing, laundry,
laboratory, etc
– Chemicals – acids, bases, detergents, pesticides,
drugs, toxic/hazardous substances, radioactive
substances, oil and petroleum products, etc
– Sewage, storm runoff, etc
– Spoilt or expired drinks

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 Waste categories
• Solid wastes: They are many waste
types e.g. domestic, municipal
wastes, commercial, industrial, and
hazardous
• Gaseous: domestic, industrial,
commercial, transport.

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 Waste sources
• Industries: pollution release into the
environment (smoke, wastewater and solid
wastes)
• Mines: spoils and mine water heavily
contaminated with heavy metals
• Urbanization: solid wastes, wastewater (grey
and sewage) and smoke (houses and
transport)

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 Urban centres
Homes Industries Institutions

Wastewaters Industrial Wastewaters

(sewage, grey); effluents; solid (sewage, grey);
Solid wastes wastes; flue Solid wastes;
gases special wastes

2021-11-15 Waste management training BAIL 10

Wastes in the street

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Kitezi

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Waste collection truck

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Nakivubo channel

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Wastes from factories

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 TYPES OF WASTES
• Household (domestic):
1. Solid – food leftover, paper, metals,
plastics, glass, textiles, ceramics,
wood/timber, vegetable matter, ashes,
garden/compound waste, batteries,
construction wastes, etc
2. Liquid – wastewater, sewage, beverages,
chemicals and drugs, etc

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 TYPES OF WASTES
 Industrial:
1. Solid – organic decomposable (e.g. Foods),
metals, plastics, glass, paper, construction
wastes, ceramics, spent grains, bones, scales,
hair, innards, horns, hooves, vegetable matter,
ashes, hazardous materials, etc
2. Liquid – wastewater (pH, BOD, COD, TSS, TDS,
heavy metals, etc),sewage, beverages,
chemicals and drugs, acids, alkalis, hazardous
liquids, etc
3. Gaseous – smoke, gases, ODS, GHGs, steam,
aerosol, etc

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 TYPES OF WASTES
• Mine wastes:
1. Solid – rocks, slurry/mud, paper,
metals, glasses, etc
2. Liquid –drains, wastewater, etc
3. Gaseous – smoke, dust, etc

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 TYPES OF WASTES
• Institutional:
1. Solid – paper and
stationery, printer
cartridges, ashes, etc
2. Liquid – wastewater,
chemicals, etc
3. Gaseous – smoke,
gases, etc
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 TYPES OF WASTES
 Medical:
1. Pathological, clinical,
drugs, radioactive matter,
etc
2. Liquid – wastewater,
chemicals, drugs,
radioactive materials, etc
3. Pathogenic and
contaminated hazardous
materials
4. Gaseous - gases, smoke
(incinerators), etc

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 TYPES OF WASTES
• Commercial:
1. Solid: metals, foods, glasses, paper,
textiles, ceramics, etc
2. Liquid – wastewater, oils and grease,
surfactants, chemicals, etc
3. Gaseous – smoke, gases, aerosols,
GHGs, ODS, steam, etc
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 TYPES OF WASTES
• Agricultural
1. Solid – crop product wastes, animal
product wastes, manure, containers
(metal, plastic, glass), etc
2. Liquid – agrochemicals and fertiliser
wastes, wastewaters, etc
3. Gaseous – smoke, GHGs, ODS, etc
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 Hazardous Wastes
• Hazardous Wastes = are wastes that are too
dangerous to be picked - e.g. contaminated
medical wastes, radioactive materials, toxic
substances, etc.
• Hazardous wastes can cause harm to people
who come in contact with them and have to
be handled by trained skilled personnel
• Handling this category of waste requires the
personnel to wear protective gear and use
specialised equipment

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 Further definitions
• Hazardous waste - any discarded
material that posses a substantial or
potential threat to human health or the
environment.
• Toxic waste - those hazardous wastes
that cause death to animals, plants, or
humans by interacting with normal
cellular functions.

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Different Types of Solid Waste

Medical (Hospital) Infectious Waste

Heavy Metals

Industrial Waste Radioactive

Chemical
Hazardous
Sanitation Residues (Human Excreta)

Dead Animals

Presurised Containers

Pharmaceuticals

Solid Sharps
Waste

Domestic/Residential/Household
Waste

Commercial/Trade/Business Waste

Non- Institutional Waste

Hazardous
Industrial Waste

Street Sweepings

Construction Debris

Garden/Agricultural
Waste management training BAIL Waste 25
 Turning wastes into useful things
 Food wastes: animal feeds
 Organic wastes: compost
 Tin turned into = paraffin lamp (Tadooba),
charcoal stove (Sigiri), meter box, etc
 Cardboard box = new paper products, toys and
handicraft, etc
 Plastics = other plastic products, bags, storage,
nursery containers, etc
The process of turning waste into new useful
things is called recycling.
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Good practices in waste management
• Waste can be properly managed, in which
case it will hardly cause any harm to human
health or to the environment
• This is Good practice and it includes the
collection and proper disposal of wastes in a
systematic manner, regularly and in time.
• Proper disposal includes recycling, re-use,
composting, treatment, and regulated
dumping.

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 Definition of terms
• Re-use: putting the same item to similar use
by another , same agent or other
• Recycling: renewing the use of an item by
conversion or redirecting back for
consumption
• Recovery: take out what is still good out of
wastes for use
• Treatment: converting to make non-harmful,
directing into the natural cycle
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 Mismanagement of Waste
• Bad practice: mismanagement of wastes
are the cases when wastes are not
disposed off in a proper way, not
collected regularly at all, etc.
• Hence risk to human health and the
environment

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Lecture 2
 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
Definition

The discipline associated with the control of

generation, storage, collection, transfer and
transport, processing and disposal of solid waste
in manner that is accordance with the best
principles of public health, economic,
engineering, conservation, aesthetics and
environmental consideration.
 ELEMENT OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
➢ The activities associated with the
management of solid waste from the point
of generation to final disposal has been
group into elements.

➢Generation
➢Storage
➢Collection,
➢Transportation and Transfer
➢Treatment
➢Disposal
What are the sources of waste?
 Agriculture
 Mining

 Construction

 Industry

 Households

 Offices

 Other sources
 Waste Generation
 Is very closely related to consumption
 Americans are the world largest consumers
and world largest waste producers – they
comprise 6% of the world population and
produce half of all the waste.
 Americans (USA) produce on average over 2
kg of household waste per person per day
 Europeans (EU) produce on average 1.5 kg
of household waste per person per day.
 Careless behaviour
 Is the other reason for huge amounts of
waste:
 Inspiteof all recycling programmes in most
EU member states, waste generation
increases faster than the economy grows.
 Average American throws 65 kg food a
year.
 Americans throw in 3 months, enough
aluminium cans to build their entire civil
aircraft fleet again!
Amount of MSW generated by typical families (in one week)
around the world

Japan, $317.25
Italy, $260.11
Chad, $1.23
Kuwait, $221.45
USA, $341.98
Mexico, $189.09
Ecuador, $31.55
USA, $159.18
 Who deals with solid waste?
 Providers of waste collection services.
 Providers of waste collection for recycling
 Recycling entrepreneurs.
 Engineers – designers of waste incineration plants, waste
disposal facilities (landfills), composting plants etc.
 Lawyers who translate laws and regulations for
engineering practical use.
 Government advisory committees.
 Local governments, including towns/Municipalities and city
authorities
 Independent consultants.
 Educational institutions (Universities and other).
Solid Waste Management Hierachy

• Priority – Reduce waste (waste prevention and cleaner technology)

• Reuse, as is; or recycle and then use
• Transformation for resource recovery – and includes
such as incineration, composting or biogas production.
• LANDFILLING IS THE LAST RESORT
 In developing countries
• MSWM is one of the greatest concerns,
• Generation rates are 0.6 – 1.0 Kg/p/d,
• Collection rate is often less than 40% of MSW
generated,
• Recovery rates may be about 30%, with 0-70%
recyclables and 20-80% organics,
• …but most of the times, this material is just
landfilled!
• Landfilling is not organised…i.e., is not performed in
sanitary landfills, but rather, the material is just piled
up, often in low lying areas, in borrow pits etc
 In developing countries…

• Other treatment processes are

– Incineration,
– Anaerobic digestion for biodegradable household
waste,
– Composting (mostly open windrow composting)

• Composting is more environmentally friendly

compared to landfilling
 Challenges of MSWM in developing countries
• Population grows very fast
– Waste collection falls further and further behind,
– Piles of waste grow relentlessly, blocking drains and/or roads
– Smells of rotting garbage/smoke from burning wastes are
common,
– Flies, mosquitoes and rats are a public health problem,
– Scavenging with no protective materials,
• Lack of political will and thus no funds
– This is exacerbated by corruption tendencies,
• Enforcement of existing regulations is poor
– In some cases, laws and/or byelaws are lacking,
• Poverty
– thus competing needs for limited financial resources,
• Lack of education.
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