Lecture 6

Collection Routes

Use a heuristic (common sense), trial and error approach consistent with the philosophy
of collecting the most waste with least resources in the context of constraints such as
equipment breakdowns, holidays and vacations, good labor practices and the following
guidelines:
- Crew size and vehicles must be known and coordinated.
- Routes should begin and end near arteries
- Topographic and physical boundaries should be route boundaries.
- Start at the top of a hill and work downward.
- Last collection point should be near disposal site.
- Traffic problems should be dealt with early in the morning.
- Extremely large load should be dealt with early in the morning.

Layout of Collection Routes

• Location maps showing data concerning the sources including location, collection
frequency, number of containers
• Data analysis, try to balance the routes in accordance with pickups and time.
• Preliminary layout of routes, start at the depot and do a route. An idea of truck
capacity vs. loads is in order.
• Fine tune the preliminary design.

Step 1: On a relatively large –scale map of the commercial, industrial and residential
housing area to be served, location, collection efficiency and number of containers to be
plotted. For industrial and commercial services, estimated quantity of wastes to be
collected at each pickup location should be entered on the map. For residential sources
only the number of homes per block should be shown.

Step 2: Spreadsheet program: enter collection frequency, times/wk, number of pickup

locations, total number of containers, number of trips, trips/wk,

Step 3: Start from dispatch station, a route is laid out that connects all the pickup points
to be serviced during each collection day. Modify basic routes to include additional
pickup locations that will have to be serviced to complete the load.

Step 4. Quantity of waste to be collected and the haul distance for each route needs to
determined. Readjust the collection routes in order to balance the work load.

Example 1.
Collection route layout for stationary container system (SCS).

Steps 2, 3, and 4 for SCS that is manually loaded are as shown below:

Step 2. Estimate the total quantity of wastes to be collected from pick up locations
serviced each day. Using the effective volume (nominal collection volume x compaction
ratio), average number of residences from which wastes to be collected can be
determined.

Step 3. Start from dispatch station, a route is laid out that connects all the pickup points
to be serviced during each collection day. Last location is nearest the disposal site.

Step 4. When the collection routes have been laid out, actual container density and haul
distance for each route should be determined.

Example 2.
Separation and Processing and Transformation of Solid Waste

Waste
Generation

Waste handling, separation,

storage and processing
at the source

Collection

Transfer and Separation and processing

Transport and transformation of
solid waste

Disposal

Issues in this lecture:

• Recovery of separated materials.
• Separation and processing of solid waste components
• Transformation processes

General

• Methods used to recover source separated material:

- Curbside collection
- Homeowner delivery to drop-off centers
• Further separation of source separated material as well as separation of commingled
waste
- MRF's Material Recovery Facilities
- MR/TFs Material Recovery/Transfer Facilities, a facility of the future which may
include:
-drop-off center
-materials separation facility
- composting
- bioconversion
- production of refuse derived fuel (DRF)
- transfer and transport facility

Reuse and Recycling Opportunities

A. Opportunities for reuse include:

• Direct reuse as a raw material, 55 gal. drums, lumber, wooden pallets, furniture,
bicycles, thrift shops- should be encouraged.
• Raw material for remanufacturing. Must meet material specifications, e.g. product
purity, density and shipping conditions
- glass: color, no label or metal, degree of cleanliness
- plastics: type (PETE/1, HDPE/2 etc.) moisture content
• Feed stock for the production of compost and other processes. Compost can be
marketed directly, given to the residence of the community, used on city property.
However, compost for sale must be free of contaminants.
• Fuel Source: (perhaps the greatest value of MSW)- by combusting (burning) the organic
fraction of MSW and by converting the waste to some type of fuel (oil, gas, pellets)
- Direct burn of the organic fraction. Dirt, ashes, metal, refrigerators will not burn and
perhaps other constituents such as plastics and tires should not be burned.
- Converting MSW to fuel.
• Land reclamation. Enormous opportunity to reclaim land such as strip-mines or areas
below sea level as in the Netherlands, or create new green areas such as golf courses,
ball fields, equestrian centers.

B. Drop-off, Buy-back Centers

• Drop-off centers may be a wooden bin for newspapers to a thrift shop. Participation
can be low because the material must be stored by the homeowner and there is not an
economic incentive. Convenience, next to a supermarket or a shopping center, may
be critical.
• Buy-back centers refers to drop-off program that provides monetary incentive to
participate

Unit Operations for Separation and Processing

Separation is necessary in the recovery of reusable and recyclable materials from MSW.
Separation can be accomplished either at the source of generation or at MRFs. The
separation can be accomplished manually or mechanically. The current trend is to design
material recovery facility (MRF) based on both manual and mechanical separation.

A. Purpose

• Modify the physical characteristics to facilitate removal of desired component.

• Remove specific components or contaminants.
• Prepare the material for subsequent uses.

B. Size Reduction

• Size reduction is the process by which as collected materials are mechanically

reduced in size.
• Objective is to obtain a uniform final product that is reduced in size potentially
reducing storage and shipping course. Size reduction does not necessarily mean
volume reduction. Shredded paper occupies more space than the parent stock.
• Shredders include hammer mill, flail mill and shear shredder and usually involve
metal parts revolving against one another.
• Glass crushers.
• Wood grinders include chippers, such as local tree cutters use, to reduce the branches
to chips and tub grinders. Once the wood is broken up, the finer pieces can be used
as raw material for composting and the larger pieces can be used as a fuel.
C. Screening

• Screening is a unit operation used to separate mixtures of materials of different sizes

into two or more size fractions by means of screen surfaces.
• Objective is to:
- Remove oversized material
- Remove undersized material
- Separate into light (combustible, paper) and heavy (non-combustible, glass) fractions.
- Screening devices include:
- Vibrating screens to remove undersized materials from source-separated and
commingled MSW, vibrate from side to side.
- Rotary screens, trammel screen, separate in several size fractions
- Disc screens- sets of parallel horizontal shafts equipped with interlocking lobed
discs.

D. Other Separation Processes

- Density Separation (Air Classification) is the unit process used to separate light
materials such as paper and plastic from heavy materials such as metals based on weight
difference in the air stream. In solid waste the light fraction is typically organic while the
heavy fraction is typically inorganic. Used to separate glass from plastic in a
commingled situation.

- Magnetic Separation is the operation by which ferrous metals are separated from the
waste stream utilizing magnetic principals. Used to separate tin cans from aluminum in a
commingled situation.
- Densification (compaction) is a unit operation used to increase the density of the
material so that it can be stored and transported more cheaply and as a means of
preparing densified refuse-derived fuels (DRDR) and include balers and can crushers.
Balers and can crushers.

Baler Can crusher

Facilities for Handling, Moving and Storing MSW

• Conveyors. Transfer wastes from one location to another and include hinge, belt
drag and pneumatic. Conveyors are used in the manual sorting of MSW. Belt is 4'
wide and move at 15-90 ft./min. with a thickness of waste of 6".

Picking rates for commingled materials from moving belts.

Example 3
Given: A recycling operation of commingled wastes.
Find: The Chief of Public Works of Pomona wants to know how many sorters, jobs, will be
needed on the sorting conveyor line. You know the population is 120,000.
Waste generation: 3.82 lb./capita.day
 Weekly tonnage = 120,000 residents x 3.82 lb./capita.day x days/week x 1 ton/2000 lb.
Weekly tonnage = 16,044 tons/week
From T9-4, 2.5 ton/person.hour, Assume a work week of 40 hours
person.hour
Persons required = 16,044 tons/week x 2.5ton x 1 week/40 hours
Persons required = 160 people not including augmentation because of sickness, vacation,
holidays, absenteeism etc. An analysis of the economic advantages of the recycling operation
seems in order.

• Movable Equipment - front end loaders, fork lifts

• Weighing facilities
• Storage facilities

Development and Implementation of MRF's

Engineering Considerations

• Function of MRF. Depends on role of MRF, type of materials, how the material will
be delivered and how it will be presented to the buyer.
• Selection of materials to be separated. Depends on the program set up in the
community, e.g. commingled, 3 recycle containers and 1 for waste.
• Material specifications.
• Flow diagrams would consider:
- Characteristics of the waste material to be processed.
- Material specifications.
- Available equipment.

•Estimate Quantities and Loading rates.

• Layout and design. Would consider:

- Waste deliveries, ingress.
- Material delivery rates.
- Loading rates including storage for peak times.
- Material flow and handling patterns
- Performance criteria for equipment selection
• Equipment
• Environmental controls
• Aesthetics
MRF for the processing of source separated paper and cardboard.

Once the process flow diagram has been developed, the next step in the design of the
MRF is to estimate design loading rates. For the above example, baler is to be used for 3
hours per day, the loading rate would be 5.83 ton/h [(17.5 ton/d)( 3h/d)]. 17.5 ton/d is
based on materials balance (20 ton/d - 0.15 ton/d bulky items - 0.35 ton/d contaminants –
2 ton/d cardboard). Loading rate is expressed in ton/h and 1820 operating hours per
year.

Number of ton/yr (or ton/d)

Loading rate, ton/h = 1820 processing h/yr (or h/d)
Flow Diagrams for the Separation of source-separated waste (a) mixed paper, (b)
commingled plastics and glass, (c) aluminum and tin cans.

Planning and Design Process for MRF's

• Feasibility analysis. Technical and economic merits.

- The coordination of the MRF into the overall IWM (integrate waste management) plan.
- What kind of MRF and what kind of materials will it process.
- Economics, capital and operating costs. A sensitivity analysis of the effects of
fluctuating prices is particularly important.
- Ownership and Operation. Public, private, combination.
• Preliminary design.
• Final design.

Issues for MRFs

• Siting. Remote locations, as much buffer as possible, NIMBY (not in my back yard)
inevitable.
• Environmental issues. Traffic, noise, dust, odor, vector control, airborne litter, looks
terrible.
• Public health and safety. General public and employees. For the employees,
protective clothing, puncture-proof gloves, air filters, showers, perhaps a radio.
• Economics. Sensitive to market prices. Must be environmentally correct or be shut
down.

Waste Transformation Processes

Combustion

• Objective is to:
- Reduce the volume (85-95% reduction) and weight of wastes.
- Recover conversion products and energy.
• Major concerns:
- Air pollution.
- Siting, NIMBY.

Description of Combustion Process

- Unload from collection truck (1) into a storage pit (2), usually a 2 day volume. The
tipping area should minimize unloading waiting time with reason.
- An overhead crane (3) drops material into a charging chute (4) which directs the wastes
to the furnace (5). The operator tries to get an even mix and remove non-combustible
items such as mattresses or engine blocks.
- The waste falls on grates (6) and is mass fired. Air is typically introduced.
- Gases and small particles rise to the combustion chamber (7) and burn at 1600°F.
- Heat is recovered from the gases using water-filled tubes in the combustion chamber
and a boiler (8) that produces steam which is converted to electricity in a generator (9).
- Air pollution is controlled by ammonia injection (10) for NOx control, dry scrubber for
SO2 and acid gas control (11) and baghouse (12) for particulates.
- Clean gases are discharged to the stack.
- Ash and unburned material are quenched (cooled with water). The water and residue
must be properly disposed of for an excellent discussion of air pollution systems.

Combustion Products
Types of Combustors

• Mass fired. Use unseparated, commingled MSW. Predominate in US, 68%. Pick out
the bicycles and refrigerators, burn the rest. The energy content is probably extremely
variable.
• RDF (Refuse Derived Fuel) fired. 23%. Produced from the organic fraction and can
be made with consistency to meet energy, moisture, ash content specifications. Forms
include: shredded, fluff, pellets or cubes. Also, since metals, plastics etc. are not
burned, air emissions are cleaner.

Energy Recovery

Virtually all new combustors employ some form of energy recovery by recovering heat
from the hot flue gases by generating hot water or steam. Hot water is used for low-
temperature industrial or space heating application, steam is used to generate electricity.

Volume Reduction

• Typically 90% volume reduction of the materials that were combusted. Demolition
wastes, white goods, cars etc. were never considered.
• Always a residue and ash left over after combustion consisting of glass, tin cans, iron
and steel.

Issues With Combustion Facilities

• Siting. As with MRF's, a remote location with plenty of buffer zone.

• Air Emissions. May exceed the cost of the combustion facilities. Most pressing issue
in the LA area. Important consideration in the decision between mass-fired and RDF
systems.
• Disposal of residues, bottom ash, fly ash, scrubber product. Typically disposed of in
landfill.
• Liquid Emissions. Sources: ash removal, wet scrubbers.
• Economics. Standardized life cycle costing.