Effects of socio-economic status and seasonal variation on municipal solid waste composition: a baseline study for future planning and development

Abstract

Background:The present study has highlighted the effects of seasonal variation and socio-economic status on generation and composition of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Shalimar Town (ST). The total amount of MSW generated in ST is estimated to be 927 tons per day per year. The average per capita rate of MSW collected in ST is 0.69 kg per day in all four seasons.Results: No significant difference was found in overall waste generation; however, statistical analyses show the significant difference for food waste, paper and plastic (p < 0.01) among socio-economic groups and seasons. The results show that the lowest income group produces 0.39 kg per capita per day during winter months which is the minimum of MSW generated as compared to high (1.1 kg per capita per day) and middle (0.56 kg per capita per day) income groups in the same season. Conclusions:It is also concluded that the low-income group produces the minimum of waste in each of the four seasons. In terms of breakdown of the MSW, organic waste is in the highest percentage (81%) followed by paper (5%), plastic (6%), glass (2%) and others (5%). Food waste is 84% of the entire generated MSW as well as having very low heating value of 5,642 J per g. Elemental and proximate analyses of mixed food waste had carbon 48.72%, nitrogen 2.41%, hydrogen 6.37%, sulphur 0.29 and oxygen 40.15% respectively. © 2015 Kamran et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Influence of Income Level and Seasons on Quantity and Composition of Municipal Solid Waste: A Case Study of the Capital City of Pakistan

“…Thus, the lowest income group has higher generation rate of plastic than middle income group, while high income group generates the least amount of plastic as waste fraction. This trend is unique compared the findings in similar study in Lahore [40]. Moreover, more of this fraction was collected in winter and spring than in the other two seasons.…”

“…Although many similar studies have been conducted around in Pakistan and around the globe [16,19,36,[38][39][40][41], none have been conducted in Islamabad. The findings of this study can be used as Contemporary waste management literature/research and best practices suggest that shifting to a more environmentally friendly and sustainable waste management option requires an optimal combination of various management options such as recycling, composting, gasification, pyrolysis and incineration with energy recovery, instead of single waste management method [11][12][13][14][15].…”

“…Although many similar studies have been conducted around in Pakistan and around the globe [16,19,36,[38][39][40][41], none have been conducted in Islamabad. The findings of this study can be used as baseline for developing an ideal waste management plan in Islamabad using LCA as well as evaluating the environmental burdens of the current SWM practice.…”

Effects of Seasonal Variation on Informal Waste Collection in Ibadan, South-west Nigeria

“…However, despite the variation in the volume of waste collected by the IWCs, the author does not give the variation in the income in both seasons, as the study only revealed a daily earning of U.S$5-10 by the IWCs in the city. Kamran et al (2015) claim that, in Lahore, Pakistan, the average weekly waste collection by the IWCs in the wet and dry seasons was 1200 tons and 1050 tons, respectively. The dominant wastes in the wet and dry seasons were vegetable and rubber, respectively.…”

Anaerobic degradation of municipal organic waste among others composting techniques improves N cycling through waste-soil-plant continuum

“…According to an estimate, about 28 million tons of MSW is being produced annually in Pakistan, i.e., at a rate of 0.4 kg capita -1 day -1 . About 60% of the total produced waste in the country is organic or biodegradable (Kamran et al, 2015). This huge amount of waste is being dumped in open landfills along roadsides, railway lines, in empty plots and streets by municipalities or local waste producer.…”