Integrated Management of Municipal Solid Waste

Small communities in the primeval societies used to bury solid waste just outside their settlement, discharge aqueous waste into the local water bodies and release gaseous pollutants into the atmosphere. The increase in community size necessitated a more organised form of waste management to minimize the environmental impacts as the quantity of pollutants exceeded the system’s threshold. The stabilization of health issues at personal levels gave impetus to the community health issues. The earliest records show that the city of Mahenjo-Daro (Indus Valley) had organised solid waste management processes, Crete had trunk sewer systems by 2000 BC (Vesilund et al. 2002), and the burning of soft coal in kilns in 1285 BC was banned to mitigate air pollution in London (Molak 1997). Health and safety issues have been focus of waste management since early years (Ponting 1991). The general public is more concerned with the effects that waste has on the environment while for the waste managers and planners, the cost of collection, processing and disposal gains importance with the growing problem. Thus, different waste management practices gained utmost importance as human activities exceeded the assimilative capacity of the biosphere.