Solid-waste management, the collecting, treating, and disposing of solid material that is discarded because it has served its purpose or is no longer useful. Improper disposal of municipal solid waste can create unsanitary conditions, and these conditions in turn can lead to pollution of the environment and to outbreaks of vector-borne disease—that is, diseases spread by rodents and insects. The tasks of solid-waste management present complex technical challenges. They also pose a wide variety of administrative, economic, and social problems that must be managed and solved.
It means a facility for solid waste treatment, solid waste storage or solid waste disposal, and includes commercial, industrial, municipal, state and federal of enumeration, sanitary landfills, dumps, land disposal sites, incinerators, transfer stations, storage facilities, collection and transportation services and processing, treatment and recovery facilities. This term includes the land where the facility is located. This term does not include a facility for the processing of scrap iron, steel or nonferrous metal using large machines to produce a principal product of scrap metal for sale or use for remelting purposes. This term does not include a facility which uses large machines to sort, grade, compact or bale clean wastepaper, fibers or plastics, not mixed with other solid waste, for sale or use for recycling purposes. This term does not include an auto junk yard or scrap metal salvage yard.
Solid-waste characteristics
Dumping Procedures
A transfer station is a central facility where refuse from many collection vehicles is combined into a larger vehicle, such as a tractor-trailer unit. Open-top trailers are designed to carry about 76 cubic metres (100 cubic yards) of uncompacted waste to a regional processing or disposal location. Closed compactor-type trailers are also available, but they must be equipped with ejector mechanisms. In a direct discharge type of station, several collection trucks empty directly into the transport vehicle. In a storage discharge type of station, refuse is first emptied into a storage pit or onto a platform, and then machinery is used to hoist or push the solid waste into the transport vehicle. Large transfer stations can handle more than 500 tons of refuse per day.
Composition and properties
The sources of solid waste include residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial activities. Certain types of wastes that cause immediate danger to exposed individuals or environments are classified as hazardous; these are discussed in the article hazardous-waste management. All nonhazardous solid waste from a community that requires collection and transport to a processing or disposal site is called refuse or municipal solid waste (MSW). Refuse includes garbage and rubbish. Garbage is mostly decomposable food waste; rubbish is mostly dry material such as glass, paper, cloth, or wood. Garbage is highly putrescible or decomposable, whereas rubbish is not. Trash is rubbish that includes bulky items such as old refrigerators, couches, or large tree stumps. Trash requires special collection and handling.