ENEN 651

Introduction to Waste and MSW Management

 MSW Management (compare with the
management of municipal wastewater or sewage)
• Composition is variable

• Collection is complex

• Huge efforts are made to Divert from treatment and

disposal systems (eg., application of 3Rs)
• Recover Resources before/during treatment and
disposal
• Different Treatment and Disposal methods available

• No Silver Bullet to solve MSW related problems

MSW – what we need to know
• Do you know your waste?
• Where are they coming from?
• What is in it?
• What are the problems?
• Rank them (based on importance)
• What else do you need to know before
solving the MSW problem?
 What is Municipal Solid Waste?

• Residential Solid Waste

• Generated within a home

• Industrial, Commercial and

Institutional (ICI)
• Generated by industry,
grocery stores, universities
etc.

• Construction, Renovation
and Demolition (CRD)
 Problems with waste

• Quantity
• Unsightly
• (if not collected and stored/disposed of
in an unacceptable manner)
Where/Why?
Happy Cow?
Scavengers in Naucalpan, Mexico
Scavengers in Quito, Ecuador
 Problems with waste

• Huge volume
• number of trucks needed to collect;
• land area needed to manage including
land for final disposal
 Volume of Waste on a global scale

• In 2000, more than 2.9 billion people lived in

cities and generated 3,000,000 tonnes/day.
• Calgary’s contribution = 2000 tonnes/day.
• The “global peak waste” will occur in about
2100. Solid waste generation will exceed 11
million tonnes per/day
• as collected volume is about 30-40 million
m3/day.
 Problems with waste
• Not-so-Obvious (not well known)
• Landfills collapse and kill people (mostly the
ones making a “living” (as scavengers) from
the dump.
• Mostly the ones operated as Open Dumps
• Common in developing countries: Indonesia,
Philippines, Colombia, Ethiopia and Sri
Lanka (in 2017)
Open Dump Landslides (or Wasteslides)

• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – 35 dead

Deep-seated slope failure of Meethotamulla
Dump, Sri Lanka – about 30 dead: April 2017
Leuwigajah Landfill,
Indonesia, 2005

 2.7 million m3 volume

slide

 Killed 143 people

 Buried 71 houses
 Payatas Landfill,
Philippines, 2000
ope failure occurred on July 10, 2000. About 1.2 million and a friction angle of 28 degrees based on Geosyntec (1998)
MSW slid and caused more than 250 fatalities. Waste and Kavazanjian (2001). These parameters lead to an average
bris had covered an area of 30,000 m2 in front of the toe effective normal stress along the failure surface through the
slope (Kolsch and Ziehmann 2004). The landfill did not MSW of 62 kPa and a shear stress of about 52 kPa, which is in
• Operated Since 1973
a liner system. The waste material contained high agreement with the back-calculated shear strength parameters
tion of plastics and organics, and less of metals, papers, in this study.
ass due to recycling by scavengers. Landfill had large
• Waste height- 30 m
to soil ratio. These factors and little or no compaction
d in a low density waste (Merry et al. 2005). m
• Heavy rain from two
act mechanism of failure is not clear, but several factors
40
B A
tension crack

typhoons – precipitation
that occurred in theof
ly contributed to the failure. These include heavy rains with water
1V
m rainfall caused by two typhoons .5 H:
1 MSW
the two weeks prior to the failure, see Fig.10) leading
68 cm
ikely saturation of the entire waste mass; building up of 20
that caused the side slopes to be steeper than MSW
• 1.2 million m slide
mended (1.5H:1V at the time of 3failure); ponding of
on the top of the slope; the construction of drainage clay subsoil
es at the top of the slope to drain this ponding water;
• Killed at least 330 people
uction of a 2 to 3 m deep drainage ditch at the toe of the 20 40 60 80 m
and the potential build-up of landfill gas (Merry et al.
Fig. 11 Cross section of Payatas landfill slope failure
(modified from Merry et al. 2005)
Chrin Landfill, Kentucky,
US, Apr 2013

Veneer Failure due to

steep slopes, cover
soil saturation, and
presence of geo-
synthetic layers
 Trigger mechanisms of these collapses

• Deep-seated rotational failures

dependent on many factors:
1
• - the angle and height of the slope,
2
• - the underlying materials,
• - geometry of the toe of the slope, 3
• - the soil pore water pressure,
• - the internal and interface shear
strengths of the slope components.

Slop stability failures are three types

1. Landfill waste failure in waste region
2. Landfill failure due to clay liner
3. Deep seated failure
 Deep seated slope failure at
Meethotamulla – After Collapse
Intense rainfall ceased

Houses lifted up
and shifted

Canal shifted due to

the slide
After Collapse – Houses lifted up
More Problems with MSW – related to Disposal

• Groundwater contamination
• Landfills produce leachate (garbage juice);
• Contaminate an important source of drinking
water; if allowed to migrate to groundwater
aquifers
 Not-so-Obvious Problems with
“waste” - Food waste
• An under-appreciated problem
(until recently)

• In Canada, $51 billion of food is

wasted/year

• Globally, 1/3rd of food produced

for human consumption is lost or
wasted, which amounts to about 1.3
billion tonnes/year.

• If Global Food Waste is a country, it

will be the 3rd GHG emitter after US
and China

• Irrigation water used globally to grow

food that is wasted would be enough
for the domestic needs (at 200 litres
per person per day) of 9 billion people
Food waste “Scandal”
Food waste - contributions
 Food waste in Canada
• Reasons for consumer-related food
waste
• Low-cost to households of over purchasing
(think Costco membership)
• Confusion about safe consumption and best-
before dates
• Expectations for larger portion sizes
• Amounts wasted at homes–
• ranking:
 Not-so-Obvious Problems with
“waste” - Clothing waste
• Fast Fashion (as opposed to Neutral Fashion, and
Slow Fashion) Consumers
• Fast fashion type of apparel has a shorter cycle than
conventional fashion
• Both fast fashion and slow fashion consumers
donate, sell, give away or re-use their clothing.
• What happens to the clothing that are “Given Away?
• Some are re-sold locally but others are re-sold in
some developing countries; mostly in Africa. Could
be Controversial!
 “Ocean” Dumping

http://earthoceanpollution.blogspot.ca/2015/06/possible-causes.html
• Contributes to ocean
pollution
• Wash back on beaches,
• Ocean Dumping Ban Act,
1988: bans dumping of
sewage sludge and industrial
waste
• Dredge spoils still dumped in
oceans,
• Habitat destruction and
export of fluvial pollutants
E-waste (migration)
 SNOWTEMBER
2014

. 26
MILLION
KILOGRAMS OF TREES
. What about other
similar “unplanned”,
sudden events
- Calgary Flood
- Hurricanes/Typhoon
s
- Earthquakes
MSW in Calgary: 2005-2014
IC Waste in Calgary: 2005-2014

Commercial Industrial
 Now you know the problems

• What are the solutions?

• Rank them (based on
effectiveness)
• What else do you need to know to
apply these solutions?