STUDIES ON CHARACTERISTICS OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE IN UNIVERSITY OF ROORKEE CAMPUS

Abstract

Solid waste management is a discipline associated with the control of generation, storage, collection, transfer and transport, processing, and disposal of solid waste in a manner that is in accord with the best principles of public health, economics, engineering, conservation, aesthetics, and other environmental considerations, and to achieve this goal; physical and chemical composition of refuse must be known to local authorities to select the most economical collection technique, and to design and operate an efficient method of disposal/treatment. University of Roorkee (U.O.R.) is situated in Roorkee, a moderate size town in the district of Hardwar (Uttar Pradesh). The University has an extensive infrastructure, one of which is a solid waste management system as part of sanitation service with its own organizational set up. In order to propose an appropriate disposal method, and to give an over view of the nature of solid wastes from similar institutions, it was planned to study the characteristics of the municipal solid waste (MSW) generated from U.O.R. campus. The characterization of MSW from 8 sites belonging to the three categories-domestic residential area; student hostels; and offices- have shown that the quantum and physical characteristics from U.O.R. campus show trends towards developed countries and major metropolitan cities in India, depicting a higher standard of living. In chemical analysis a new equation, based on percentages of compostable fractions, paper, and plastic with rags, has been suggested for estimation of energy content of the solid waste. Based on characterization, draft proposal for solid waste disposal of U.O.R. has been suggested.