The U.S. per-capita figure for garbage production has topped four pounds per person per day, and that amount is rising at roughly 5% per year. In the past, municipal solid waste was sent to the nearest local landfill or incinerator. But in 1988, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency instituted the first federal standards for landfills, designed to make them safer. Over 10,000 small municipal...

Life-cycle assessment concepts and methods are currently being applied to evaluate integrated municipal solid waste management strategies throughout the world. The Research Triangle Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are working to develop a computer-based decision support tool to evaluate integrated municipal solid waste management strategies in the United States. The waste...

Mechanical behaviour of the waste body controls many aspects of landfill lining system design and performance, including stability issues and integrity of the geosynthetic and mineral lining components. Knowledge of the likely ranges of waste mechanical properties is required to assess potential modes of failure and hence to design the landfill engineering measures. This paper provides a summar...

Wood pallet recovery, repair, and recycling are sound environmental activities that can reduce both forest resource demands and waste in landfills. Our studies found that 6.16 million tons of wood pallets (or 223.6 million pallets) entered municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition (C&D) landfill facilities in 1995. At the same time, wood pallet recovery, repair, and recycling ...

Two landfill bioreactors were operated under aerobic and anaerobic conditions in a thermo-insulated room at a constant temperature of 32 degrees C. Reactors were filled with 19.5 kg of shredded synthetic solid waste prepared according to the average municipal solid waste compositions determined in Istanbul and operated under wet-tomb management strategy by using leachate recirculation. Aerobic ...

The European Union Landfill Directive (1999/31 EC) promotes more environmental friendly waste management options, by reducing the amount of wastes and more specific of biodegradable wastes, disposed of in landfills. The EU member states are adopting the mechanical-biological treatment process for municipal solid waste and non-hazardous industrial wastes to comply with the abovementioned Directi...

Rapid economic development and population growth in Malaysia had accelerated the generation of solid waste. This issue gives pressure for effective management of municipal solid waste (MSW) to take place in Malaysia due to the increased cost of landfill. This paper discusses optimal planning of waste-to-energy (WTE) using a combinatorial simulation and optimization model through mixed integer l...

This study focused on determining the barriers to effective municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in a rapidly urbanizing area in Thailand. The Tha Khon Yang Subdistrict Municipality is a representative example of many local governments in Thailand that have been facing MSWM issues. In-depth interviews with individuals and focus groups were conducted with key informants including the municipa...

In China, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) problems are growing fast. The annual waste generation increasing almost 10% per year and the population of municipalities is expanding, but sanitary landfill and recycling facilities are still rare to see. With rapid economic development, it is even harder to achieve waste reduction, reuse and recycling than developed countries which have significantly med...