Chapter 2

Sources, Types &

Properties of Solid Waste

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 Introduction
• Solid waste include all solid and semisolid materials
that the processor no longer considers of sufficient
value to retain.
• Important to identify the types, sources and
composition of MSW to strategize the appropriate
basic to the design & operation of the functional
element of SW Mgmt.

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 Sources of Solid Waste
• In general related to land use and zoning
• According to the following categories:
• Residential
• Commercial
• Institutional
• Construction & demolition
• Municipal services
• Treatment plant sites
• Industrial
• Agricultural
Table 2.1
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4
Types of Wastes
• Typical types of solid waste:
• Organic (combustible) & Inorganic
• Plastics, papers, glass bottles, metal cans, etc
• Special waste
• Hazardous waste
• Yard waste
• Municipal waste

Table 2.1
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Plastics
• The term "plastics" covers a range of synthetic or
semi-synthetic polymerization products
• Other classifications include thermoplastic &
thermoset
• 7 categories of plastic materials of thermoplastic
• Mixed plastic - mixture of the individual types of
plastic found in MSW

Plastic-reading material 6
Special Wastes
• From residential & commercial include:
• Bulky items
• Yard wastes
• Tires

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Special Wastes

• Bulky items: large worn-out/ broken household,

commercial and industrial items; furniture, book
cases, filling cabinets, etc

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Special Wastes

• Yard wastes: garden trimmings, dried leaves,

branches

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Yard waste & Garden Trimming

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Special Wastes

• Agricultural wastes: residues resulting from

agricultural activities; planting, harvesting,
production of milk, production of animal slaughter
and operation of feedlots

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Hazardous Wastes
• Defined as waste or combination of wastes that
pose a potential hazard to humans of other living
organism because:
• Such waste are non-degradable
• Can be biologically magnified
• Lethal
• May cause detrimental cumulative effects

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Hazardous Wastes
Generally exhibits one or more of these
characteristics:
1. ignitability (flammable, liquids with flash points
below 60 °C, non-liquids that cause fire through
specific conditions, ignitable compressed gases
and oxidizers)
2. reactivity (explosive)
3. corrosivity (pH of less than or equal to 2, a pH
greater than or equal to 12.5 )
4. toxicity
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Household hazardous wastes
• Consumer electronics : worn-out, broken radios, stereos
and television sets
• White goods: large, worn-out household, commercial
and industrial appliances; stove, refrigerators, washing
machine, dishwasher, dryers, are usually dismantled for
recovery of specific materials.
• Batteries: from households and automobile; alkaline,
mercury, silver, zinc, nickel, cadmium
• Oil (lubricant)

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White Goods

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Batteries

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17
Hazardous Wastes – Listed Waste

• Are generated by specific industries and processes

and are automatically considered hazardous waste
based solely on the process that generates them and
irrespective of whether a test of the waste shows any
of the "characteristics" of hazardous waste.

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Listed waste
• Examples of listed wastes include:
• many sludges leftover from electroplating processes
• certain waste from iron and steel manufacturing
• wastes from certain cleaning and/or degreasing
processes

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Hazardous Waste – List by EPA
Hazardous wastes are incorporated into lists
published by the Environmental Protection Agency,
organized into three categories:
• F- List
• K- List
• P- List & U- List

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F-list (non-specific source wastes)

• Identifies wastes from common manufacturing and

industrial processes, such as solvents that have
been used in cleaning or degreasing operations.
• Non-specific sources - Because the processes
producing these wastes can occur in different
sectors of industry

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The K-list (source-specific wastes)

• Includes certain wastes from specific industries,

such as petroleum refining or pesticide
manufacturing.
• Certain sludges and wastewaters from treatment
and production processes in these industries are
examples of source-specific wastes.

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P-List
• P-List wastes are unused chemical wastes that are
considered "acutely hazardous" when discarded.

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U- List
• U-List wastes are unused chemical wastes that are
considered "acutely hazardous" when discarded,
but that also have one or more of the four
hazardous waste characteristics.

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 Significance of Hazardous Waste in
MSW
• Small amounts of hazardous wastes found in MSW
are of significance because of their occurrence in all
solid waste management facilities and their
persistence when discharge to the environment.

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 Significance of Hazardous Waste in
MSW
• The occurrence in MSW derived from these wastes
influence the:
• Recovery of materials
• Conversions products ; compost products
• Combustion products
• landfills

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Significance of Hazardous Waste in MSW

• The half-life concept can be used to characterize and

compare the relative environmental persistence of
various hazardous wastes using the first-order decay
rate:

ln
Co
k t
C  T
[C] = Concentration at time t
t = time
kT = first order reaction rate
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Example:
Determine the time required for the concentration of
toluene and Dieldrin spilled in a shallow leachate
treatment pond to be reduced to one half of their
initial values. Assume the first-order removal constants
for toluene and Dieldrin are 0.0665/hr and 2.665 x 10-
5/hr, respectively.

ln 2
t 
1
kT
2

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Common hazard symbols

• Toxic
• Radioactive
• Biohazard
• Flammable

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Common Hazard Symbol

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Toxicity Class
• Toxicity Class is based typically on results of acute
toxicity studies such as the determination of LD50
values in animal experiments, via oral, or inhaled, or
external application.
• The experimental design measures the acute death
rate of an agent.

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Toxicity Class
• The Toxicity Class does not address issues of other
potential harm, such as bioaccumulation, issues of
carcinogenic, teratogenic, or mutagenic effects, or
the impact on reproduction.
• EPA classified 4 class of toxicity;
Class I, II, II & IV

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 Toxicity Class I
• Most toxic;
• Requires Signal Word: "Danger-Poison", with skull and
crossbones symbol; followed by:
"Fatal if swallowed", "Poisonous if inhaled", "Extremely hazardous
by skin contact--rapidly absorbed through skin", or "Corrosive--
causes eye damage and severe skin burns".

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Toxicity Class II

• Moderate toxic
• Signal Word: "Warning“; followed by:
"Harmful or fatal if swallowed", "Harmful or fatal if absorbed
through the skin", "Harmful or fatal if inhaled", or "Causes
skin and eye irritation".

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 Toxicity Class III

• Slightly toxic
• Signal Word: Caution; possibly followed by:

"Harmful if swallowed", "May be harmful if absorbed through the

skin", "May be harmful if inhaled", or "May irritate eyes, nose,
throat, and skin".

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Toxicity Class IV
• Practically nontoxic
• No Signal Word required since 2002

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Radioactive
• Radioactive waste are waste containing radioactive
chemical element that do not have a practical
purpose such as product of a nuclear process.
• Other industries can also produce large quantities of
radioactive waste, like the oil-producing activities
(US) - accumulated 8 million tons of radioactive
wastes.

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 Radioactive waste
• The majority of radioactive waste - "low-level waste",
(low levels of radioactivity per mass or volume).
• Often consists of used protective clothing - slightly
contaminated but still dangerous in case of radioactive
contamination of a human body through ingestion,
inhalation, absorption, or injection.

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 Six categories of radioactive waste
• spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors,

• high-level radioactive waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear

fuel;

• transuranic radioactive waste, resulting mainly from manufacture

of nuclear weapons;

• uranium mill tailings from the mining and milling of uranium ore;

• low-level radioactive waste, generally in the form of radioactively

contaminated industrial or research waste;

• naturally occurring radioactive material.

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 “Mixed waste” contains both radioactive and
chemical components. Mixed waste is not a
“category” of nuclear waste because depending on
the source and level of radioactivity, the waste may
be categorized, for instance, as low-level versus high-
level radioactive waste.

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Distribution of Solid Waste
• Table 3.4

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Example Question- Impact of Food Waste Grinders and Waste
Recycling on the distribution of waste components in MSW

Assess the impact of the use of food waste grinders

and waste recycling on the percentage distribution of
the components found in residential MSW. Given:

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1. Use of food waste grinders
a) Household that have f/w-grinders = 20%
b) Percentage of the total amount of food waste that is ground-up and
discharged to local sewer = 25%

2. Waste recycling
a) Percentage of the total amount of residential MSW that is now
recycled, excluding food waste that is ground up = 11%
b) Percentage distribution by weight of waste components now
recycled and not included in as collected waste distribution.
Paper = 50%
Cardboard = 10%
Plastics = 6%
Yard waste = 8%
Tin cans = 4%
Glass = 18%
Aluminum = 1%
Nonferrous Metal = 3%

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Solution
1. Estimate the amount of food waste that is now ground
up:

FW
FWa,lb =
[Hw/o + Hw (1-fwg)]

2. Set-up computation table*

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 Computation Table
Percent by weight
Component S/W as collected S/W as collected + g/up
food waste
Food waste 9.0 (9.5) 9.4
Paper 34.0 33.8
Cardboard 6.0 6.0
Plastics 7.0 7.0
2.0
0.5
0.5

Total 100.00 (100.5) 100.00

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Solution

• End of part 1
• Part 2 :- compute new table to evaluate the effect
of recycling + ground up food waste

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 Computation Table
Percent by weight Percent by weight
Component Weight of S/W as
S/W as S/W S/W now collected S/W as S/W as
collected recycled recycled excluding collected + collected +
recycled Recycled recycled +
g/up
(1) (6) (7)
(2) (3) (4) (5)
Food Waste 9.0
Paper 34.0
Cardboard 6.0
Plastics 7.0

Total 100.0 100.0

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