Understanding and Categorizing Solid Waste in India

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2.1 TYPES OF SOLID WASTE
Solid waste can be categorized into different types:
1.Municipal Waste
2.Hazardous Waste
3.Bio Medical Waste
2.1.1 Municipal waste
The term municipal solid waste (MSW) is mostly used to describe most of the non-hazardous solid waste from a city, town or village that requires routine collection and transport to a processing or disposal site, Sources of Municipal waste include private homes, commercial establishments and institutions, as well as industrial facilities.
In 1947 cities and towns in India generated an estimated 6 million tonnes of solid waste, in 1997 it was about 48 million tonnes. More than 25% of the municipal solid waste is not collected at all; 70% of the Indian cities lack adequate capacity to transport …show more content…

In smaller towns trucks having 5–9 ton capacity are used without adequate cover system. Stationary compactors, mobile compactors/closed tempos, and tarpaulin- covered vehicles are used in the transportation of MSW and about 65, 15, and 20% of waste is transported through these compacters, respectively. The maintenance of vehicles used in for transportation of waste is usually done in workshop run by ULBs but most of these workshops can do minor repairs only. No wonder, in the event of breakdown of these vehicles, the overall collection, transportation, and disposal efficiency reduces drastically. Only few transfer stations can be found in some metropolitan e.g. Mumbai (Joseph, …show more content…

Land required for open compost plants is relatively large. Also, issues of methane emission, smell, and flies from badly managed open properly carried out there is possibility of toxic material entering the stream of SOLID WASTE.
2.2 VERMI-COMPOSTING :-
Vermicompost (or vermi-compost) is the product of the composting process using various species of worms, usually red wigglers, white worms, and other earthworms, to create a heterogeneous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and vermicast.
Vermicompost contains water-soluble nutrients and is an excellent, nutrient-rich organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. It is used in farming and small scale sustainable, organic farming.
Vermicast (also called worm castings, worm humus or worm manure) is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by an earthworm. These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than the organic materials before vermicomposting.
Vermicomposting can also be applied for treatment of sewage

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