Unit -5

Treatment
and
Disposal Methods
Outline
 Thermal Methods

 Disposal Methods

 Stabilization and Solidification

 Remedial Technologies.
Waste Management
 Solid Waste Management
The activities associated with the management of solid
wastes
Modern Waste Management
Systems
1. RE USE

2. REDUCE

3. RECYCLE
 Solid Waste Disposal in an Urban Area
 The quantity of solid wastes generated is very high
 People from different professions, socio-economic
status, ethnic and cultural backgrounds living in varied
accommodations
 Major constituent of waste is putrescible organic
matter with the balance of the content comprising of
metal, glass, ceramics, plastics, textiles, dirt and wood
in proportions depending on the local factors.
Waste Management Plan
Sorting
‘separation and storage of individual constituents of
the waste materials’
 After sorting the waste is divided into the following
streams :
● Dry recyclables
● Construction and demolition waste
● Biodegradable waste
● Bulky waste
● Hazardous waste
● Mixed wastes

Sorting could be carried out manually or by semi

mechanized or fully mechanized systems
 Storage
 Every household, shop, industry, commercial
centre or establishment generates waste that it
needs to be stored safely prior to giving it for
collection
 educate the people to store waste at source,
dispose waste as per directions of the local
bodies and effectively participate in the
activities of local authorities to keep the cities
clean
 Collection of waste

 Waste collection measures

 A daily waste collection service
 Recyclable material can be collected at longer
intervals
 Waste storage depots (secondary)
Disposal of solid waste

Dumping
Landfill
Composting
Incinertion
Municipal Waste
 On-site (at home)
 Open Dump
 Sanitary Landfill
 Incineration
 Ocean dumping
Open waste dumps

 Unsanitary, draws pests and vermin, harmful runoff

and leachates, toxic gases
 Still accounts for half of solid waste
 Several thousand open dumps across the world
 The refuse collected from the cities and municipal
areas are dumped in the low-lying areas or open tracts
of lands, usually by the roadside
Open waste dumps

Abandoned piles of household garbage, bags of yard

waste, appliances, old barrels, used tires, and debris
such as lumber, shingles, pipes and asbestos can
threaten the health of humans, wildlife, and the
environment.
Open waste dumps – demerits
 Open dumps create a
public nuisance,
divert land from
more productive
uses, and depress the
value of surrounding
land.
 Open dumps have
become the feeding
grounds for children
from poor homes
Disadvantage
 Disadvantage
 Lying in the open ground
 Encouraging breeding of flies
 Attracting rodents insects and birds causing a risk of
transmission of diseases
 Emits foul odors and is an aesthetic nuisance
 The malodorous fumes and the toxic gases, which are
emitted due to burning of wastes such as plastics and other
materials, are spread in the direction of wind movement
 these dumps are accessible to animals and scavengers or
rag pickers
 The drainage from these dumps contributes to the pollution
of surface and ground and the soil around
 Landfill
(Controlled tipping)
 Landfill (Controlled tipping) is a method of selecting
depressed areas or creating artificial trenches where
waste matter is thrown and compacted with a layer of
earth on top of it
 This method is suitable if adequate land is available
Sanitary Landfill
 Layer of compacted trash covered with a layer of earth once

a day and a thicker layer when the site is full

 Require impermeable barriers to stop escape of leachates:

can cause problem by overflow

 Gases produced by decomposing garbage needs venting

 1 acre/10,000 people: acute space problem: wastes piling up

over 150 million tons/year

Sanitary Landfill
 Avoid:
 Swampy area/ Flood plains /coastal areas
 Fractures or porous rocks
 High water table
 Prefer:
 Clay layers
 Heads of gullies
Monitoring of Sanitary Landfills
 Gases: Methane, Ammonia, Hydrogen sulphide
 Heavy Metals: Lead, Chromium in soil
 Soluble substances: chloride, nitrate, sulfate
 Surface Run-offs
 Vegetation: may pick up toxic substances
 Plant residue in soil
 Paper/plastics etc – blown by the wind
 Site selection
 Away from habitation
 A hollow low lying area is usually selected
such as an abandoned quarry, depression in
land or swampy area, which is not a source of
rain water harvesting or natural aquifer for a
municipal area
 an alternative to this, trenches are dug in an
open and flat area with the help of dozers
Some of the points which should be remembered
while selecting a site for landfill..
 Waste site should not be subject to flooding easily
 Deep sands with shallow water tables should be
avoided, to prevent seepage of toxic wastes into the
drinking water
 Fractured limestone soils, humid areas or wetlands
with easy percolation should be avoided
 Soil with pH 6.5 or above should be chosen
Incineration
 This is a process of disposal of solid waste
material by thermal technology and has gained
popularity in several developed countries
 Places where suitable land mass is not available
 Waste generated in hospital premises is
disposed off in this manner in most countries
Incineration Plant with Pollution Control
System
Incineration
 Solves space problem but:
 produces toxic gases like Cl, HCl, HCN, SO2
 High temp furnaces break down hazardous compounds
but are expensive ($75 - $2K/ton)
 Heat generated can be recovered: % of waste burnt
 Japan 67%, Switzerland 80%, USA 6%
 North Little Rock, AK saving $50K in heating cost and
reducing landfill requirement by 95%
 How many MSW combustors exist in the United States?
In 1996, 110 combustors with energy recovery existed with
the capacity to burn up to 100,000 tons of MSW per day.
Solid Waste Disposal in an Urban Slum

 Quantity of waste generated is lesser

 Solid wastes mostly comprise of used bottles, tins, plastics
and ashes
 Animal manure and feeds are a significant part of solid
wastes
 The roads/paths in the slums are narrow, hence the refuse
lorries are unable to negotiate the paths and therefore the
waste bins are placed at fewer points
 Solid Waste Disposal in Rural Areas

 Manure pits
 Burial
 Biogas plant
Legal Framework
 The following acts and rules govern the disposal of
solid wastes in India, published by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests, which is the nodal
Central Govt ministry responsible for the proper
disposal of solid wastes :
(a) Environment (Protection) Act 1986
(b) Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling)
Rules1998
(c) Municipal Wastes (Management & Handling)
Rules 1999
Some Best Practices
 Calcutta: 80% house-to-house collection
using regular Municipal staff and usual
wheelbarrows

 Many cities: Private groups are doing

doorstep collection on payment

 Everywhere: SLUMS are the most

cooperative. 419 slums in Mumbai have
Take-away-bin system

34
Best Practices….
* Ahmedabad: 4 or 6-bin handcarts or tricycles
to avoid double-handling of waste
 Nasik: Trucks move from one street-corner to
another to have a city without street waste-
bins
 Surat: Pin-point beats include bins on raised
platforms, near drainage manholes
 Mumbai: Only wet waste lifted from hi-rises

35
Best Practices….
 SEWA: Weekly doorstep collection of dry
waste by waste-picker women’s co-op, with
public-info help by Bank Officers’ union

 Pune : Union of women waste-pickers collects

for a fee both dry waste for recycling + wet
waste into city bins or compost pits

 Bangalore : Citywide policy of dry-wet waste

separation at source, collected at doorstep by
city sweepers or waste-transport contractors

36
Ocean Dumping
 Out of sight, free of emission control norms
 Contributes to ocean pollution
 Can wash back on beaches, and can cause death of
marine mammals
 Preferred method: incineration in open sea
 Ocean Dumping Ban Act, 1988: bans dumping of
sewage sludge and industrial waste
 Dredge spoils still dumped in oceans, can cause
habitat destruction and export of fluvial pollutants
Solidification and Stabilization
 Solidification and Stabilization (S/S) treatment of waste
involves mixing cement into contaminated media or waste
to immobilize contaminants within the treated material.
 The waste become more solid thereby lowering the
solubility of toxic contaminants in the waste.
 In some cases, such as in stabilization, the toxicity of the
hazardous constituent(s) is lowered.
 Waste stabilization and Solidification (S/S) can be carried
out in either ex-situ or in-situ.
Solidification and Stabilization
 Ex-situ mixing involves removing the waste from its
location and transferring it to a treatment plant for
processing.

 The waste is mixed with the S/S agents in a fixed or mobile

treatment plant.

 In the case of In-situ mixing, the waste remains in place

and the S/S agents are injected or mixed with specialized
augers or other equipment.
 Solidification and Stabilization
 The standard bulk material handling and mixing equipment used in
many Solidification and Stabilization (S/S) process make the
technology appear simple.

 However, there are significant challenges to the successful

application of S/S processes.

 The morphology or chemistry of S/S treated waste are complex.

 An understanding of the chemistry and interaction of the waste

material, the contaminant(s) and the binder is important if a
successful treatment program is to be achieved.
 Solidification
 Solidification refers to techniques that encapsulate a waste, forming
a solid material and does not necessarily involve chemical
interaction between the contaminants and the solidifying additives.

 The waste is normally treated to entrap the waste materials in a

solid and/or crystalline matrix.

 For example, solidification consists of encapsulating the insoluble

residue from an air pollution control (APC) washing process with
cement to form a monolithic material that reduces the porosity and
hydraulic conductivity of the material and hence it’s leachability.
Stabilization
 Stabilization refers to techniques that chemically reduce the
hazard potential of a waste by converting the contaminant
to less soluble, mobile or toxic forms.

 The physical nature and handling characteristics of the

waste are not necessarily changed by stabilization.

 The waste is treated so as to complex or bind the

contaminants into a stable, insoluble form.
 Inorganic binders such as cement are effective in immobilizing
heavy metals through chemical and physical containment
mechanisms, but are not as effective in immobilizing most
organic contaminants.
Types of binders
Inorganic binders
 The two principal types of inorganic binders are Cement binders and
Pozzolanic binders (lime, kiln dust, fly ash, etc).
 A pozzolan is a siliceous or siliceous and aluminous material, i.e
containing silica or silica and alumina which in itself possess little or no
cementious value but which will in finely divided form and in the
presence of water, reacts chemically with calcium hydroxide at ordinary
temperature to form compounds possessing cementious properties.
The most common inorganic binders are:

 Portland cement

 Lime/ fly ash

 Kiln dust (lime and cement)

 Portland cement/ fly ash

 Portland cement/ lime

 Portland cement/ sodium silicate

Types of binders
Organic binders
 Organic binders are mainly used to solidify radioactive or
hazardous organic wastes that cannot be destroyed thermally.
 Organic binders used for S/S include the following:
 Asphalt (bitumen)
 Polyethylene
 Polyesters
 Polybutadiene
 Epoxide
 Urea Formaldehyde
 Acrylamide Gel
 Polyolefin Encapsulations
Types of Processes
 There are two basic types of inorganic S/S processes. These
are:
 Cement Processes
 Pozzolanic Processes

 There are two basic types of organic S/S processes. These

are:
 Thermoplastic
 Thermisetting
Cement Processes
 During the cement based S/S process, the reaction
forms a granular or monolithic solid that incorporates
the waste materials and immobilizes the contaminants.
 The solid matrix forms because of hydration of silicates
in the cement, yielding calcium-silicate hydrate (C-S-
H).
Thermosplastic
 Thermoplastic processes involves blending with a
polymer such as asphalt, polyethylene or other
thermoplastic binders.
 Thermoplastic is a polymer that becomes pliable or
moldable above a specific temperature and returns to
solid state upon cooling.
 Liquid and volatile phases associated with waste are
driven off and the waste is contained in a mass of
cooled, hardened thermoplastic.
Thermosetting
 Thermosetting polymers involves mixing waste with
reactive monomers which join to form a solid
incorporating the waste.
 Unlike thermoplastics, thermosetting polymers form
irreversible chemical bonds during the curing process.
 Thermoset bonds break down upon melting and do not
reform upon cooling, e.g., urea formaldehyde.
Effects of wastes on cement/pozzolan process
 Waste, either hazardous or non hazardous may contain
a number of substances such as acids, salts, bases and
organic materials.
 Some properties of the waste, such as moisture content,
particle size distribution and concentration of
contaminants may also be found to have the most
significant effects on the properties of the treated 11
waste.
 These may be present either singly or in combination
thus, these properties need to be monitored and where
required, adjusted through pre-treatment.
Waste that pose complications for S/S

 Wastes with volatile organics (pretreatment is usually

required)
 Wastes that contain a large number of different types of
contaminants
 Wastes that are situated such that field S/S will be
difficult or expose local receptors to unacceptable risk
 Wastes will large amount of interfering/incompatible
constituents
 Wastes that contain organics as the primary
contaminants.
 Liquid Waste
 Sewage
 Highly toxic Industrial Waste & Used Oil
 Dilute and Disperse
 Concentrate and Contain
 Secure Landfill
 Sealed drums to be put in impermeable holds with monitoring
wells to check for leakage: does not work
 Deep well Disposal
 Pumping in deep porous layer bounded by impermeable
formations, well below water table
 $1 million to drill, $15-20/ton afterwards
 Restricted by geological considerations, can trigger earthquakes
Radioactive Waste Disposal
 Isotopes with short half-lives are gone quickly, those
with long half-lives will decay too little
 Low level wastes: 90% of all radioactive wastes
 20 temporary and 6 commercial disposal sites
 States to take care of their low level waste
 High level wastes e.g., spent nuclear fuel rods
 Should be so disposed as to cause less than 1000 death in
10,000 years
High Level Waste Depository
 Rocketing to sun
 Under Antarctica Ice sheet
 Subduction Zone
 Sea bed disposal
 Bedrock caverns
 Granites, basalt, tuff, shale, salt caverns
 Salt: High melting point, impermeable in dry condition,
self-sealing, cheap resource
 No permanent high level waste repository yet
Requirements for a radio-active
waste disposal system
 Design and Fabricate a System that will
 Last thousands of years longer than recorded human
history
 Be robust enough to isolate highly radioactive material
so that it will not threaten human health and
environment for more than ten thousand years.
Land treatment - solid phase
• involves applying wastes uniformly to prepared land at
controlled rates
• aimed at degradation of organic constituents
• removes other waste constituents eg suspended solids, heavy
metals
• purely a treatment process - land NOT suitable for cultivation

Suitable for:
• oily sludges and waste oils
• organic sludges and liquids
• widely used in the USA by petroleum industry
• also possible to treat wastes from wood treatment eg
preservatives such as creosote, pentachlorophenol
Composting
 It is a method where in the combined disposal of
solid waste is carried out along with stable litter,
night soil and sludge
 Compost is humus like material, which is
generated due to the breakdown of organic matter
under bacterial action, and is rich manure
 The compost could be sold at a price to
agriculturists.
 Composting uses aerobic method of digestion
Pre-treatment
 The refuse or solid waste is pre-sorted to remove
materials that could be recycled or have salvage
value or those ones, which cannot be
composted
 Reduce the waste particle size and this improves
the efficiency of decomposition process
Methods of composting
 Mechanical composting
 Vermicomposting
 Effective Microorganisms (EM) Technology
Mechanical composting

 It is a process in which the compost is

manufactured in a short period of time with use of
waste materials and night soil
 The compost is ready in 4 to 6 weeks time as
humus like material with a total nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium content of 1 to 3
percent
Vermicomposting
 It is a method of disposal of kitchen and plate
wastes, which serves the dual purpose of disposing
off the garbage as well as proving eco- friendly
 Here a suitable area is chosen which is bound by a 2 to
3 feet high brick wall and few hundred earthworms are
introduced in it
Effective Microorganisms (EM)
Technology
 This is a modern eco-friendly technology
consisting of use of friendly microorganisms
such as phototropic bacteria, lactic acid
bacteria, Actinomyces and yeasts
 EM technology also has the advantage of
keeping the drains clean by decomposing the
sewage and suppressing its bacterial content
Co-composting - solid phase
Mixing of hazardous wastes with biodegradable solids to act as:
• bulking agent - to create void spaces for passage of air
• thermal source - by biological decomposition

Usually need two different materials as:

• good bulking agent eg wood chips are poor thermal source
• good thermal source eg dry molasses are poor bulking agent

Process takes place:

• in windrows, turned to ensure adequate aeration
• in static piles where air is forced or sucked through material
• in vessel which offers greater process control/ VOC containment
Used for:
• soils contaminated with coal tar
• for TNT-contaminated sediments and soils
In-situ bio-remediation
• Enables treatment without excavation and
removal of contaminated material
• An aerobic process
• Enhances natural biodegradation
• Influenced by hydrogeological factors
• Can reduce contamination to acceptable levels
in relatively short time eg 1-2 years
Soil heaping - solid phase
• Combines land treatment and windrow
composting
• Effective for treating large volumes of
contaminated soil and other wastes with low
concentration of organics
• Valuable where available land area is restricted
Key considerations

• Waste reduction and avoidance by generators

should always be a priority
• Role of on-site vs off-site technologies
• Need to consider residues from treatment
processes and their disposal
• Transitional technologies may be used until final
high-quality installations are available
 Reducing Waste

 Incineration, compacting

 Hog feed: requires heat treatment

 Composting: requires separation of organics from glass

and metals

 Recycling and Reusing

 Recycling: facts and figures
 In 1999, recycling and composting activities prevented about 64
million tons of material from ending up in landfills and
incinerators. Today, US recycles 32 percent of its waste, a rate
that has almost doubled during the past 15 years.
 50 percent of all paper, 34 percent of all plastic soft drink bottles,
45 percent of all aluminum beer and soft drink cans, 63 percent of
all steel packaging, and 67 percent of all major appliances are
recyclable.
 Twenty years ago, only one curbside recycling program existed in
the United States, which collected several materials at the curb.
By 2005, almost 9,000 curbside programs had sprouted up across
the nation. As of 2005, about 500 materials recovery facilities had
been established to process the collected materials.