Management and disposal of muncipal solid waste

Abstract

Due to fast urbanization and industrialization, India is facing many problems such as environmental degradation, growing water demand, depletion of water resources due to overexploitation, decrease in per capita water availability in terms of quality and quantity. Most of the untreated waste water reaches the rivers everyday and pollutes them. Apart from these issues solid waste management is also an alarming problem. Solid waste is the unwanted solid materials generated mostly from residential, industrial and commercial activities. Municipal solid waste is generally a domestic waste such as kitchen, food, paper, plastic waste etc. It contains mostly biodegradable (kitchen waste etc.) and recyclable (newspaper and plastic waste etc.) waste. Solid waste also includes hazardous waste generated by chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Everyday huge solid waste is generated from domestic and other activities which require proper collection and disposal. At present, disposal is done mainly by land filling at dumping sites. Modern disposal facilities are less harmful to the environment and human health. But due to a lack of suitable treatment facilities, limited financial resources and non availability of disposal sites proper management of solid waste is a challenge to the environmentalist and scientists. Due to dumping the Solid waste on open places aquatic system is also disturbed. Proper management of solid waste eliminates or reduces the harmful impacts on the environment and human health up to a certain limit. This paper deals with only municipal solid waste for the sustainable development and management.