DEVELOPMENT OF ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Solid waste management has developed into a complicated system that must be addressed; it has emerged as a crucial environmental issue in metropolitan areas today. Unmanaged waste is left at the dump because a sizable amount of it is not recycled. As a society, we consume more products, and humans willingly add garbage to the environment. Humans are helpless as the urbanised population, which suffers serious problems because there is not enough space for waste disposal by constructing kiosks in city areas. Most cities do not have facilities for proper assessment and recycling of waste. The studies indicate how the moderate approach is missing in most strategy formulations. Major environmental problems are becoming a global threat, such as GHGs, micro-plastic floating in the ocean, the food chain distraction, & the cause of the sudden vanishing of indigenous species. Present municipal solid waste management in India has faced several problems. The 300 million out of 1.21 billion people of India (31%) live in urban cities (2011 Census, India). A high urban growth rate is significant for the increased substantial waste management problems. Urban areas are generating about 143449 Tonnes/Day of solid waste (S. Kumar et al., 2017). Most of the rubbish is piling up at landfill sites without scientific treatment. A practical, efficient, holistic & sustainable waste management system approach is still found missing or in the developing stage. Solid waste management is becoming a real challenge for developing countries like India. The typology of Indian solid waste is rapidly changing with population and economic growth. The changing lifestyle and urbanisation of the vast quantity with composition shift of the waste generated also evolves, the extent of garbage segmental change and technologies available for collection, segregation, transportation and treatment processes. Many solutions and strategies have been proposed to assess and quantify city waste but fail to deal with the situation efficiently. The decisions/supports are often made without considering the long-term social context and economic and environmental aspects. In this research, the waste assessment is a visual analysis of waste composition to understand problems and identify potential organisation opportunities. A waste assessment is ideal for satisfying specific user objectives within set budgets, and limited time frames may be undertaken. Why is an assessment of waste critical? A waste assessment is a valuable tool for understanding the waste stream. The information should provide the basis for planning waste reduction, improving the facility's waste management practices, and managing waste disposal contracts. The presented research focuses on helping Indian towns collect, transport, and treat waste by developing an assessment tool for an early level of decision support. That would assess and evaluate the cost-effectiveness and feasibility of various processes such as collection, segregation, transportation and treatment process (organic & inorganic) waste to final disposal strategies, suggested the new technologies. Systematic understating of towns' overall solid waste management architecture is a vital process in designing a system that adapts to meet the requirement of the changing population with growing consumer behaviour and aspirations. The tool required considering the elements that may vary with the geographical location and conditions, such as demographical data, waste generation, composition, scale, infrastructure, collection/segregation patterns, and potential treatments system. There is a variation in available data on the generated volume of the waste and composition, making the task further challenging to evaluate. The help of this ELDSS (Early Level of Decision Support System Tool) may combine the available data with scenarios based on technological selection varying with scales. The tool would be able to quantify the expected strategical suggestions associated with different decision architectures. A comprehensive report for the cities with suggestive solutions for the future can be assessed and evaluated with advanced approaches before actual implications. The feasibility of improving the collection (primary & secondary), segregation (primary and secondary), storage (primary and secondary), and transportation. Treatment of the waste (organic and inorganic) and final disposal. The input data in the tool have been taken from various sources to validate the ELDSS tool. According to the Early Level of Decision support system (ELDSS) tool, conceptual models or formations are crucial to understating as it is a new and complex system. Decision support system boundary should be interactive and change with an existing condition, helping to decide with various scenarios. Which further should guide solving the SWM problems with the current scenarios and automatically simulate results on the computer system. This research has been developed in 4 stages; 1. Review of all possible Strategies for the MSWM System; a) An extensive review of all possible strategies has been done for the parameters such as; collection, segregation, storage, transportation and treatment with the various scales. b) MSWM system; Social, economic and environment (workforce, capital cost, and carbon emission). c) Standard parameters include total population, compositions (organic and inorganic friction), and properties of waste in terms of physical & chemical properties (calorific value, moisture contents, C: N ratio etc.). d) Various assessment formulas and equations have been investigated in the tentative assessment of the SWM for the cities. 2. Development and integration of ELDSS tool: a) Integration of the formulas for the SWM system as a one model b) Hyperlink the formulas with the parameters and connect them to the ELDSS tool wireframe in a loop. c) The ELDSS tool is designed and composed in excel software with dynamic macros commands and automation. d) The input values are connected to an autogenerated assessment report that gives the tentative document in Pdf format, which further helps to find the Appropriate strategies on the selected scale and city case. 3. Validation of the tool with the selected cases: It is a newly developed tool that requires testing on various cases. The author has decided to validate the ELDSS tool for Indian city cases. The input value on the selected parameters was fixed and filled by the user. a) The tool's validation must be done with the current case studies in the Indian context. The three cites from India taken to validate the ELDSS tool are Karnal, Pune and Mysuru. b) For the selected cases, capital cost/Tonne/Day, carbon emission/year and total waste reaching the landfill site daily. c) The ELDSS tool also has been validating the data of the Roorkee city. (Case study Roorkee is a tier-II city, India) The output data received from the ELDSS tool as outcome values efficiently validate the deals with the minor variation of 5% to 10%. That implies that the ELDSS tool works effectively and gives validated results on the tested parameters to suggest appropriate strategies. 4. Development of the scenarios for the selected case: Roorkee as a (Tier-II city, India) study case has been chosen to develop the scenarios and compare them with the best case for appropriate strategy/strategies selections. The process of SWM, such as collection, segregation, storage, transportation, treatment and final disposal for the total cost/tonnes/day, manpower and carbon emission to the environment, have been studied. The following four types of scenarios have been assessed through the ELDSS tool for the case of Roorkee city: a) Scenario 01: Centralised Treatment strategies (Higher capital investment, low manpower, higher carbon emission) b) Scenario 02: Decentralised Treatment strategies (Lower capital investment, higher manpower, low carbon emissions) c) Scenario 03: Low-Carbon emission/environment-friendly strategies (Higher capital investment, low manpower, low carbon emissions) d) Scenario 04: Existing strategies (Low capital investment, low manpower, adding a tremendous amount of waste on landfill sites and higher carbon emission) In conclusion, the research and validation, the decisions from the present case of Roorkee city have been studied and validated city-data. The study is much needed before plausible recommendation to convert the Roorkee city into smart in terms of its waste management system and its citizens' help, authorises, and stockholders. The importance of the early level of decision support system/assessment of the issues related to the city scale has been studied. It is a complex system, and comprehensive research on waste assessment needs to be carried out. Further, possible and plausible recommendations have evolved based on the earlier findings to develop the system. As a result, Roorkee city needs a de-centralised management system for treating its solid waste. In India, almost 8000 small and medium towns are prominently struggling to develop SWM strategies. This ELDSS tool can quickly assess and suggest the strategy/strategies with the flexibility to change and choose different feasible plans. Based on the above conclusions, a few recommendations and guidelines are listed below:  On the scale of Roorkee (Tier-II, and Tier-III cities, India), most of the town is struggling to prepare a comprehensive plan. This application-based research could be a comprehensive guiding tool and document for making an early level of decision making & a support system for municipal solid waste management in India and other similar developing countries.  Due to lack of the proper documentation and assessment of the data most of the smaller scale town are shrugging to find the appropriate strategies to develop the efficient SWM plan.  Developing an accurate tool which could fill the gap to achieve Early Level of Decision making at the various scale for the quick cost and carbon emission assessment. Future Prospects of Early Level of Decision Support Tool: The tool further can be intergraded with the additional stream of waste such as C&D waste, E waste, industrial and other hazardous waste and their quick assessment with strategies. The ELDSS tool also shows the commercial prospective to the respective agencies and stockholders on the registration basses. In future the ELDSS tool could also be updated and launched in the form of web page and mobile application.