Municipal Solid Waste and Landfills – Essay

Municipal Solid Waste and Landfills

Columbia Southern University

Abstract

This paper defines municipal solid waste (MSW) and explores the beneficial uses of MSW. Beneficial uses of MSW landfills will be addressed. People need to understand the difference between a dump and a landfill. Understanding the differences and ways that MSWs are disposed of will help a person know how MSW affects our environment. Municipalities that do not dispose of MSW correctly should look at ways to help the environment despite the costs that are incurred. Garbage, rubbish, and trash sound like they are the same, but are they? Incinerating and composting are ways to permanently dispose of MSW, but can also have negative effects on the environment. We must keep investing in MSW technological advances to keep the trash from taking over the world. What can we do to rid the world of large amounts of MSWs? MSWs and MSW landfills are much more than just large piles of trash!

Municipal Solid Waste and Landfills

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is defined as any nonliquid material that is thrown away or discarded as useless and unwanted that is generated by cities, towns, and villages (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). A large portion of MSW comes from residential homes. People throw away many different types of items each day. Some of the items that become MSW are paper, glass, cardboard, and plastic. The list of items that are thrown away daily is much larger and continues to grow. People typically purchase more items today than they did in the past and they also throw away more. Many things used to be repaired in the past, but now those things are just thrown away and new items are purchased instead.

Beneficial Uses of MSW

There are numerous beneficial uses of MSW, but biomass is a very beneficial use of MSW. Burning the biomass makes it actually go away and storage in dumps or landfills is no longer needed. “Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and it is a renewable source of energy” (Biomass explained, 2018, para. 1). Burning biomass creates heat energy which can be burned directly or converted to liquid biofuels (Biomass explained, 2018). Recycling some of the MSW is also beneficial to the environment and for human use. We can recycle items such as paper, plastic, and rubber. Recycling reduces the amounts of waste that is stored in landfills and the amounts that may be incinerated. Recycling allows our natural resources to be conserved. Recycling also allows less to be burned, therefore there is less air pollution.

Garbage, Rubbish, and Trash

There are two types of MSW, refuse and trash. Garbage and rubbish are considered refuse. Garbage contains decomposable food such as vegetable and meat scraps (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). Rubbish is mostly dry items such as glass, rubber, metal cans, paper, textiles, or wood products (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). These items are collected on a routine basis. Trash are items that are not collected on a routine basis and require special handling such as old couches, mattresses, and televisions (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). Most people refer to the items they throw away as trash or garbage, but are specific things.

Optimum Routing of MSW Collection Trucks

Optimizing the collection route for collection trucks minimizes waste collection costs. There are four characteristics of an optimum collection route. Collection vehicles should not travel down the same street twice, refuse collection on crowded streets and roads should not occur during morning or afternoon rush hours, collection should occur in the downhill direction to conserve fuel, the starting point should be close to the collection vehicle garage, and the last collection point should be as close as possible to the destination (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015).

Transfer Stations

Transfer stations are facilities that allow smaller collection trucks to transfer their load of MSW to a much larger vehicle such as a tractor-trailer. A transfer station allows MSW to be dropped off, which can free up the smaller collection trucks to start collecting MSW again and the MSW is repackaged to load on larger vehicles. The landfill where the MSW is supposed to go may be too far and not economically feasible for the smaller collection truck to take the load.

Incinerators

Incineration is a chemical process in which the combustible portion of a waste is combined with oxygen, forming mostly carbon dioxide and water (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). The energy that is created is called thermal energy. Many countries including France use incineration as a method of removal of MSW. In France in 2012, 14.5 million tons fo MSW was incinerated in 126 different MSW incineration plants (Beylot, Hochnar, Michel, Descat, Menard, Villeneuve, 2018) Incineration greatly reduces the amount of MSW that has to be stored in landfills. Most of the time the heat is turned into electricity or steam. The incineration process is very costly and requires high-level technical supervision (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015).

Composting

Composting is a biological process where organic MSW is allowed to decompose under carefully controlled conditions (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). The end result is compost that can be used as soil conditioner or mulch. A major reason that this is done is to reduce MSW that is stored in landfills and create a use for our waste. There is potential for water pollution if the moisture content of the compost is too high (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). As with all ways of recycling and reusing MSW, there are always hazards and risks that are incurred with the process.

Dumps and Landfills

Dumps are just that, dumps. Dumps were areas of land where people were allowed to bring and dispose of their MSW. Dumps have no protection, which allows the ground and water below the waste to be contaminated. The MSW were normally just piles of MSW sitting on top of the ground or in a large hole. Due to the MSW sitting on top of the ground, dumps generally attracted pests such as rats and flies. The odors of dumps could be hazardous to human health and the environment. Dumps are no longer accepted as a disposal method of MSW in the United States (Nathanson & Schneider, 2015). Some countries such as India still use dumps today. Precipitation combined with the solid wastes in the dumps mixes with the liquids trapped in the crevices of the waste and leach compounds from solid waste. Discharge of potentially toxic heavy metals from the leachate into aquatic ecosystems poses serious threat because of the toxicity, persistence, bioaccumulation and bio-magnification in the food chain (Ray, D., Shukla, A., & Ray, J., 2017). There are three key characteristics of a municipal landfill that is different from an open dump. Solid waste is placed in a suitably selected and prepared landfill site in a carefully prescribed manner. The waste material is spread out and compacted with heavy machinery and the waste is covered each day with a layer of compacted soil.

We accumulate a lot of MSW each day at our homes and once we bag it up and place it on the curb for pickup, we think the process is done, but actually it is just the beginning. If a city of 20,000 people generated 5 pounds per day of MSW, they will create 36.5 million pounds of MSW for the year. Another city that has a landfill volume of 300,000m3 required per year and the average fill depth is 15mm the required landfill area will be 20,000m2 per year.

References

Biomass Explained (2018). Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biomass/

(Beylot, Hochnar, Michel, Descat, Menard, Villeneuve, 2018) Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=b0227dbb-4dce-4c69-a1d0-8d17d959a383%40pdc-v-sessmgr04

Nathanson, J.A., & Schneider, R. A. (2015). Basic environmental technology: Water supply, waste management, and pollution control (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

(Ray, D., Shukla, A., & Ray, J., 2017). Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=b0227dbb-4dce-4c69-a1d0-8d17d959a383%40pdc-v-sessmgr04