Solid Waste Management Hierarchy

Waste management is the process in which the wastes are being collected, processed, and recycled to convert them into useful products or to disposed them in environment friendly manner.

Solid Waste management has several steps which are ranked according to their preference.

Figure 1: Solid waste management hierarchy chart 


1. Prevention
This is the most preferred step in solid waste management hierarchy. It includes using less materials in design and manufacture, manufacturing long lasting products and using less hazardous materials for manufacturing of materials. This step ensures lesser waste generation. This step also focuses on cleaner and environment friendly production.

2. Preparing for Reuse
This step includes checking, cleaning, repairing, refurbishing whole items or spare parts. This is the most important step for minimizing waste generation. Here the waste is not allowed to enter into the disposal system. The wastes are collected in the middle of the production and then fed back along with the source to aid in production processes. This reduces the amount of waste generated.

3. Recycling and Composting
Recyclable wastes that cannot be reused is recycled by turning waste into new substance or product. This step also includes composting of organic wastes into products that improve fertility of soil.

4. Recovery
This step includes anaerobic digestion, incineration with energy recovery, gasification and pyrolysis which produces energy (fuel, power and heat) and other useful materials. This step ensures conversion of waste into useful energy sources.

5. Disposal
This is the least preferred step in solid waste management hierarchy. This step includes landfilling and incineration without energy recovery.

The main purpose of solid waste management hierarchy is to provide solid waste policymakers, managers, planners and the public, the most environment friendly methods of managing solid waste.

References
1. https://www.hierarchystructure.com/waste-management-hierarchy/
2. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69403/pb13530-waste-hierarchy-guidance.pdf
Location: India

Comments

  1. Alexander DiazMay 29, 2022 at 1:03 AM

    Nice post. Well what can I say is that these is an interesting and very informative topic on eco friendly packaging materials near me

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Carbon Capture Technologies

Image
In my previous post on “Management of Carbon Emissions in Industries”, I have briefly mentioned about carbon capture and storage. In this post, I am going discuss various technologies used for carbon capture. Carbon dioxide has been captured from industries for more than 80 years. It is captured for industrial uses such as urea and ammonia production, carbonated beverage production, breweries. Capture technologies have three categories, depending on what stage of the process carbon dioxide is removed. These are:- Pre-Combustion Capture Post Combustion Capture Oxy-Fuel Combustion Capture Figure 1: Capture Technologies 1. Pre-Combustion Capture Here, carbon dioxide is separated from the fuel before combustion. It is done at very high temperature by splitting hydrocarbons into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is removed before combustion and the carbon dioxide undergoes combustion to form water. The hydrocarbons can be split by processes like gasification
Read more

Are Biodegradable Plastics the Future of Plastics?

Image
Plastics are versatile materials. They are used to manufacture many useful products like bags, buckets, cups, mugs, food wraps, product packaging etc. Plastics are long carbon chain polymers and are mostly produced from petrochemicals. In spite of their benefits, they have been bad for the environment. Hardly few of them are recycled and most of them end up in landfills. They are not biodegradable and cannot be composted. If they are carelessly disposed off in water bodies, they can cause damage to aquatic life as fishes and whales may accidentally consume them. Even burning of plastics is not a good solution as they emit toxic chemicals such as dioxins. Because of environmental concerns of using conventional plastics, the biodegradable plastics are gaining focus around the world. Biodegradable plastics are those plastics that can be degraded by the action of micro-organisms. All biodegradable plastics cannot be composted. Those that can be composted are known as compostable plastic
Read more