Environmental Engineering-II

Project 3

Solid Waste Management Seattle

By

Misbah ur Rehman BCE163036

Submitted To

Mam Sana Gul

Spring 2020

Department of Civil Engineering

Capital University of Science and Technology

Table of Contents
Chapter 1....................................................................................................................................3
 Environmental Engineering-II

Problem Identification............................................................................................................3

Chapter 2....................................................................................................................................5

Processes Involved In Solid Waste Management Plan...........................................................5

Collection...............................................................................................................................5

Recycling................................................................................................................................6

Transfer Process.....................................................................................................................7

Processing and disposal of waste...........................................................................................8

Surveillance and Control........................................................................................................8

Chapter 3....................................................................................................................................9

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9

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 Environmental Engineering-II

Chapter 1

Problem Identification

Waste management is the actions and activities that are taken to manage the waste from its

inception until its disposal and the time between its inception and disposal includes many

stages; collection, transport, sorting, and treatment of waste while monitoring it.

If the world does care about sustainability and future generations, they have to take good care

of waste management because waste is not something to be ignored or disposed of it can be

recycled and reused and the useless one can be disposed of in an efficient way like landfill

and incineration

Solid waste management is a challenge for the Seattle city authorities mainly due to the

increasing generation of waste, the burden posed on the municipal budget as a result of the

high costs associated to its management, the lack of understanding over a diversity of factors

that affect the different stages of waste management and linkages necessary to enable the

entire handling system functioning. A secondary problem is also to stabilize material

recycling and its diversion to beneficial use.

The main purpose of the solid waste management for Seattle is to enhance productivity

because by 2025, there has been a radical shift in thinking about waste. Most products are

designed to be readily reused or recycled, and all costs incorporated into the price of the

product. Garbage disposal is obsolete. Consumers, producers, and utilities provide the most

efficient infrastructure for managing different products and materials.

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Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad
 Environmental Engineering-II

Fig 1 Waste Management Map of Seattle

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Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad
 Environmental Engineering-II

Chapter 2

Processes Involved In Solid Waste Management Plan

Seattle’s Solid waste management plan has following Steps:

 Collection

 Recycling

 Transfer process

 Processing of disposal

 Surveillance and control

Each step is described below:

Collection

The first stage in the system is collecting the recycling, organics and garbage discarded by

Seattle’s homes and businesses. Collected materials are transported to transfer facilities or to

processors. From the transfer facilities, materials go to processors or in the case of garbage, to

a railhead. From the railhead, garbage goes to the landfill on a train. From processors,

materials then go to brokers and markets. A network of public and private service providers

and facilities collect, transfer, process, and landfill the city's discards.

Collection is the stage in Seattle's MSW system where residents and businesses interact the

most with materials they discard and the services that collect those discards. Recent waste

sorts have revealed a small growth in the contamination rate (amount of garbage put in with

recycling). Some of this increase may be from co-mingling glass with other recyclables.

Some may be from customer confusion over the increased number of materials now recycled.

Collection protects the environment by supporting recycling. Some collection problems

which have been found and recommended problems have been discussed below:

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• Continuing to find opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from collection

operations. Examples include optimizing route efficiency, and the clean truck fuel

requirements in the collection contracts that started in 2009.

• Collecting used motor oil keeps this material from entering the city's drainage system.

Similar programs for other materials may also benefit this part of our environment.

• Collecting used consumer electronics puts metals and other materials into the recycling

stream.

Recycling

Recycling facility technology improvements have made it possible to implement single

stream recycling collection. This is a key advance toward increasing recycling rates. Future

advances could make more materials recyclable or improve the quality of materials sent to

market.

The findings suggest that when citizens receive information about the benefits of recycling,

how to sort the waste and they participate in the designing of the programs, they are more

likely to participate in recycling campaigns. It was also found that when municipal leaders

are interested and give priority to solid waste issues, they support strategies which include

more efficient collection.

The major focuses of collection recycling recommendations include:

• Enhancing recycling education approaches

• Increasing awareness of customer options for additional recycling set-outs, including

unlimited free extras, and larger cart or additional carts on request

• Expanding contamination outreach and enforcement, especially for non-compostable

materials in organics collection

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• Increasing enforcement of current disposal bans • Banning certain additional materials from

disposal in the garbage

• Considering changing single-family garbage collection from weekly collection to every

other week.

• Composting pet waste and diapers

Transfer Process

The purpose of transfer facilities is to consolidate collected solid waste materials and route

them to their next destination. The City of Seattle owns and operates two transfer stations.

They were built in the 1960s when waste shipment began to sites outside the city. Before that,

waste was disposed of in landfills within the city limits. But by the early 1960s, landfill space

in Seattle ran out and the need for a large out-of-town landfill became apparent. Collection

trucks couldn’t efficiently travel that far, so the city needed a way to consolidate, or transfer,

into larger loads for transport to the landfill. The city’s stations also provide drop-off services

for self-haul customers.

The city’s transfer facilities perform the same basic functions they have since they were built.

They receive discards and send them on to their next destination. They now serve a wide

variety of vehicles and customers, and receive a range of discarded materials that include

garbage, recyclables and compostables. All materials are loaded into transfer containers and

shipped to their next destination.

The stations play an important role in accepting materials unsuitable for curbside collection.

Residents with large, bulky items or excess quantities can bring these materials to the stations

for recycling or disposal. The stations also serve businesses that choose to self-haul their

waste and recyclable materials.

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 Environmental Engineering-II

Processing and disposal of waste

Processing refers to the sorting of recyclables at the recycling facility and the composting of

yard and food waste. Once processed, materials go to private enterprises for further

processing or to markets. Disposal means landfilling, including the rail haul to the landfill.

A solid waste management plan is to evaluate potential areas for the location of a solid waste

disposal facility only if a disposal facility is proposed to be sited in the city. No disposal

facilities are proposed to be located within the City of Seattle for the term of this Plan, and it

is highly unlikely that a disposal facility would ever be located within the City of Seattle

because Seattle is a fully developed, densely populated urban center. Furthermore, a city-built

disposal facility would violate terms of the City of Seattle’s contract for distant landfill

disposal. Also, Seattle flow control ordinances prohibit any public or private party from

taking any waste generated from within the Seattle city limits to any other disposal facility.

Surveillance and Control

A team of about a dozen solid waste field inspectors supports the implementation and

delivery of city-contracted collection services. Field inspectors mainly focus on the

residential sector. Their duties include monitoring for compliance with the city's prohibitions

against putting recyclable materials in the garbage.

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Chapter 3

Conclusion
The solid waste management program of Seattle is based on the process of collection, transfer

and post transfer processes. The main advantages which have been seen is that recycling

process has increased which has led to less oil leakage to the main sewerage system. And also

land fill sites have also bee utilized to make it more environmentally friendly.

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Capital University of Science & Technology, Islamabad