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Modern Waste Management Techniques - A Critical Review

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IOC-2020 INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH E-STEM - 14th & 15th OCTOBER, 2020

MODERN WASTE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES - A

CRITICAL REVIEW
M.VIJAYALAKSHMI
M.Sc., M.Phil. (Life Sciences), M.Ed., M.Phil. (Education), NET (Education), PGDBI
Assistant Professor of Education (Former)
Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Education (Autonomous)
Coimbatore - 641020

ABSTRACT

In the 21st century, rapid growth of the population, urbanization, industrialization,

modernization and digitalization results in the increase in wastes such as Domestic, Industrial,
Commercial, Mining, Radioactive, Agricultural, Hospital, Electronic wastes, etc. Managing
these wastes are becoming more biggest problem in the world. Waste management is the
process of collecting, transporting, segregating, discarding, destroying, processing, recycling,
controlling, monitoring and regulating the garbage, sewage and other waste products. Main
objective of the waste management is to save the environment from detrimental effects, free
from pollution and also to protect the people’s health from the hazardous effects. To manage
these wastes, many modern methods are adopted in the worldwide. They are biological
reprocessing, recover through recycling, dumping in sanitary landfill, composting, waste to
energy, bioremediation, incineration, pyrolysis, plasma gasification, disposal in ocean/sea, etc.
These waste management techniques make the environment a better place for the living
creatures to survive. This also paves the way for the future generation to live in the peaceful
and healthy environment. Finding and adopting the best waste management technique is the
need of the hour and also necessary for the welfare of the people in the world. By this, the waste
management process will become very effective and successful. This paper tries to portray the
different waste management techniques which has been adopted in the various parts of the
world. Further it also tries to suggest some best waste management technique by critically
reviewing the discussion and findings of the other researcher’s study.
Keywords: Recycle, Landfill, Composting, Bioremediation, Incineration, Disposal
Introduction
Humans depend on our environment for many things to satisfy our needs. Food, dress
materials, gadgets, buildings, vehicles, etc are getting from our environment and used by us in
our daily activities. In course of time, it becomes as unwanted or defective or worthless
materials. To live a sophisticated life, we developed a lot of things, used it and then threw it as
a waste in the earth. Unwanted and unused materials are considered as wastes. It can be in any
form, either in solid or liquid or gaseous. It may range from a small to large size. Increase in

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population growth increases waste products also. Wastes are accumulated in large size in the
environment and became a big risk for us. It polluted our soil, water and air. It became
threatened to our earth and humans by its hazardous effects.
Saving our earth planet from the contamination became a giant challenge for us. To
conserve our natural resources, wastes should be maintained properly. So that all living beings
on this earth can live safely and get benefits from it. The process of managing waste is called
as waste management.

Waste management consists of a series of steps such as collection of the waste,

segregating it on the basis of its nature, transporting carefully and labelling them, undergoing
various types of treatment in order to reduce the its hazardous effect and disposing it by
burning, burying and recycling methods, etc. These steps prevent the spread of pollution,
reduces the hazardous effects and keeps the environment clean. So, the environment became a
good habitat for all living creatures.
In modern days, waste management has become more technical and innovative. To find
out the best and effective method of waste management and to enhance the environmental
protection this study is done.
Need of the study
Rapid population growth in all over the world lead to the more deposit of the waste in
all places. Due to this, unwanted materials are increased and lead to the formation of different
types of pollution and spreads diseases. This makes the people suffer from various types of
diseases and remains unhealthy. Because of all these, now environment became unfit for living.
So, it is vital to adopt a proper waste management system to control different types of pollution,
to stop the spread of diseases, to restore environment with all its resources, etc. Waste
management includes several methods with numerous steps and procedures. In modern days
more advanced technologies are adopted in order to reduce the wastes. For aware of those waste
management methods and to implement those procedures in our daily life this article will
remain as helpful. So, this type of article is needed for this period of time. This paper tries to
find out the most accurate and best methods of waste management from the findings of other
researchers.
Objectives of the study
 To define the terms waste and waste management
 To classify the types of the wastes

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 To list out the sources of wastes

 To portray about the modern waste management techniques
 To discuss about the waste management techniques followed by others
 To recommend the best waste management technique for future generation

Definition of Waste and Waste management

According to Cambridge English Dictionary waste is “an unnecessary or wrong use of
money, substances, time, energy, abilities, etc”.
According to Ecolife dictionary waste management is defined as “The concept of waste
management involves the collection, removal, processing, and disposal of materials considered
waste. Waste materials can be solid, gaseous, liquid, or even hazardous and are generally
generated through human activity”.
Types of Waste
Wastes are classified into three types. They are basis of physical state, basis of bio-
degradability and basis of effects on human health. On the basis of physical state, it is further
classified into Solid (seen by naked eye), liquid (home and industrial effluents) and gaseous
(not seen by naked eye). On the basis of bio-degradability, it is further classified into bio-
degradable (organic) and non-biodegradable (metals, plastics, paper and glasses). On the basis
of effects on human health, it is classified into hazardous (dangerous) and non-hazardous (non-
dangerous).

Sources of wastes
Domestic wastes: Household waste, food wastes, garbage (kitchen waste), rubbish (paper,
polythene, plastics, glass pieces), old toys, old clothes, old mattresses, etc.
Community wastes: Educational institutions waste, government offices, markets, public
cleansing, bulky wastes, hospitals, construction works, etc.
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Commercial wastes: Bulky wastes from shops, offices, hotels, non-government markets,
stores, tyres, electronics, plastic bags, bottles, buckets, packaging materials, paper fibres,
thermocol, discarded electric waste, etc.
Industrial wastes: Paper and pulp wastes, oil refineries, tanneries, distilleries, thermal power
plants, chemical industries, metal smelters, coal, ash, acids, chemicals, textiles, plastics, nuclear
wastes, unused metal sheets, metal scraps, rubber, leather, toxic effluents, fibres (residues),
heavy metals, solvents, resins, sludge, abrasive, etc.
Agricultural wastes: Farm waste, livestock yards, crop residues, bagasse from sugarcane,
outdated pesticides and fertilizers, manure, weedicides, fungicides, slaughter waste, plastics
and containers, organics, etc
Mining wastes: Waste rock, tailings, mine water, chemicals and others, etc.

Radioactive wastes: Nuclear explosions, nuclear testing, use of radioactive substances in

medical and scientific research, products contaminated by radionuclides including radioactive
diagnostic material or radio therapeutic materials, etc.
Construction wastes: Demolition, excavation, renovation works, road works, site clearance,
wood, glass, metal, plastic, concrete, etc
Municipal wastes: House hold discharge, street sweeping, sewage treatment plant waste,
waste from schools and other institutions, public toilets, etc.
Biomedical wastes: Hospitals, clinics, laboratories, etc.
Health-care wastes: Infectious waste, pathological waste, sharps waste, chemical waste,
pharmaceutical waste, cytotoxic waste, general waste, etc.

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(Syringes, needles, disposal scalpels and blades, expired, unused and contaminated drugs and
vaccines, swabs, bandages, gloves, disposable medical devices, urine bags, sanitary napkins,
napkins, diapers, human tissues, organs or fluids, body parts, contaminated animal carcasses,
disinfectants, sterilant, heavy metals, broken thermometers, batteries, chemicals, etc.)
Electronic wastes (E-wastes): Discarded electronic devices like computer, TV, music
systems, transistors, tape recorders, mobile phones, computer cabinets, mother boards, CDs,
cassettes, moue, wires, cords, switches, chargers, batteries, circuits, etc.
Waste Management Techniques
According to the deposition and type of waste, different techniques are used for waste
management. They may vary from person to person, place to place, time to time and nation to
nation. They are:
Recycling
Collecting the wastes from different places and segregating them according to the
nature of products and used for recycling process. Robots are used in America for collecting
the wastes in Baltimore river. In Malaysia and Hong Kong, recycling process is practiced for
controlling the construction wastes (Wahi, et.al., 2016). Recycled the municipal and
construction solid waste and used it for manufacturing highly environmentally friendly
geopolymer composite (Tang, Tam & Xue, 2020).
Composting
Organic wastes are separated from the wastes and allow to decomposed by microbes
for a long period of time in a pit. Then this becomes nutrient rich compost and used as a manure
for the plants. Soil fertility is enriched by these manures. Composting through biological
technique progresses the fertility of the soil. Vermicomposting method reduces environmental
impact and enhances the nutrient content of the soil (Bhat, et. al., 2020). Vermicomposting is
the effective process for sustainable organic agriculture and for also to maintain a balanced
ecosystem (Kaur, 2020). For high level of organic waste reduction and rapid composting time,
Black Soldier Fly (Larvae) was used. Then the residues were further treated with E. Eugeniae
which results in the production of best quality of vermicompost (Bagastyo & Soesanto, 2020).
Vermicomposting of onion waste with cow dump produces a valuable agricultural enriched
nutrient circle (Pallejero, et.al., 2020).
Landfilling
Dumping the wastes in the soil is called as Landfilling. Proper procedure should be
adopted for landfilling such as lining the base with protective layer, selecting low groundwater
level area, etc. Skilled manpower is needed for this process. In China, construction of horizontal
wells reduces leachate level in landfills containing municipal solid waste (Hu, et. al., 2020).

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Physical, chemical and biological processes-based model controls the Hg emission from
landfills (Tao, Deng, Li & Chai, 2020). The results of co-incineration of sewage sludge and
municipal solid waste showed more gaseous Hg0 to be oxidized to Hg2+ during the cooling
process. It leads to cause less environmental risk to the atmosphere (Sun, et. al., 2020).
Incineration
Burning the wastes at high temperature is called as Incineration. To avoid air pollution
(caused during burning of wastes), proper filters are used. For handling sludge, direct
incineration method without anaerobic digestion was found to be more preferred sustainable
approach (Hao, et. al., 2020). For fossil fuel conservation and waste disposal, the technology
of coal power plant along with waste incineration method was considered as a promising
technology (Ye, et. al., 2020). Degradation technologies such as plasma, mechanochemistry,
hydrothermal, photocatalytic and biodegradation had proved that they have good purification
effect and are considered as the best resource of MSWI fly ash (Zhang, Zhang & Liu, 2020).
Bioremediation
Process of using microbes and bacteria for removing the impurities, pollutants and
poisons from soil, water and other environments is called as bioremediation. Energy power
generation plants emit radioactive wastes which is the major threat to the human population.
To reduce these wastes, bioremediation strategy is used. Bioremediation technologies rectifies
the heavy metal pollution problem and helps to regain the natural condition of soil (Saini &
Dhania, 2020). Bioremediation is an eco-friendly, inexpensive, and effective technology which
is encouraged for the safe discharge of water from industrial activities (Coelho, 2020).
Waste-to-energy
Waste-to-energy is the process of creating energy in the form of electricity or heat from
the primary treatment of waste. In China, anaerobic digestion technology is used for energy
recovery and also has been identified as an effective approach to minimize the degree of harm
of GHG emissions which are related to FW treatment (Zhang, et. al., 2020). Waste-to-energy
(WtE) technologies such as pyrolysis, gasification, incineration, and bio-methanation can
convert MSW, as an appropriate source of renewable energy, into useful energy (electricity and
heat) in safe and eco-friendly ways (Malav, et al., 2020).

Remote Sensing & GIS

Remote sensing is the art of obtaining information about objects or areas from a
distance, typically from aircraft or satellites. In Coimbatore landfill sites, 75% of municipal
solid waste were dumped without treatment and it was found out by using vector data and
remote sensing (RS) (Gautam, Brema & Dhasarathan, 2020). Remote sensing is an avenue to

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quantify process-level emissions from waste management facilities (Cusworth, et al., 2020).
Use of remote sensing and GIS for distinguishable proof of the sensible objectives of solid
waste dumped depends on the overlaying of datasets and spots that fulfil the site suitability
criteria. The datasets and spots join the spatial examination devices given by GIS to arrange
and survey in order to choose possible waste areas (Vishnuvardhan & Elangovan, 2020).
Conclusion
To live a healthier life proper waste management technique is essential. Through
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, we can conserve the natural resources and saves energy.
Composting enriches nutrients to the soil, decreases the landfill wastes, keeps more
microorganisms to be present in the soil and makes pollution free environment. In Landfills,
latest technologies are used and helps in energy production such as methane in large amount.
Incineration decreases the amount of solid waste, helps in the production of heat and energy,
reduces pollution and makes the place environment friendly. Bioremediation is a natural
process, minimum equipment and little energy is needed, without harmful side effects, quickly
makes soil and water more useful, etc. Waste-to-energy minimizes greenhouse gases, produces
clean energy and reuses metals. Remote sensing helps to collect information about the large
spatial areas and to characterize the natural features of the objects. This information helps to
make decision about physical objects. GIS provides detailed information about the location and
helps to make decision about it. Waste management techniques keeps the environment free
from pollution, increases the fertility of the soil and groundwater level and saves the earth and
energy sources. These waste management techniques are considered as the best methods to
safeguard our environment. Clean and green environment is the greatest assets for our
forthcoming generation. To achieve this, environmental guiding principles, values, policies and
legislations should be framed properly and followed strictly for eco-friendly sustainability.
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