Must-Know Waste Management Methods: Collection and Disposal!

As the globe is faced with the huge challenge of enormous waste generation (even the simplest things like disposable baby nappies and sanitary pads are disturbing our earth due to the amount it’s loading the lands!), no wonder individuals, government and corporate organizations have started taking it seriously. They are trying to find and fine-tune the best (read effective!) ways to dispose of as much waste as they can without further harming the environment in the process (as if we already haven’t to a great extent).

Knowing all this would go a long way in making you seriously embracing ways to generate less in the first place. So, here the blog goes.

Waste collection methods

House-to-house: Waste collection service people (waste collectors) are hired to pick the garbage/waste created at houses and are paid for the task. Every locality can have several of them.

Community Bins: Municipal corporations place community bins in every locality where people can dump their waste. These bins are regularly emptied by servicing wants that take the collected waste to the dumping or disposal sites.

Doorstep Pick-up: People leave their waste outside their home to be taken away by a garbage pick-up vans generally arranged by the local authority (with could be public undertaking, private undertaking or a public-private undertaking in partnership).

Self-delivered: Users can dump the garbage to the local transfer station disposal or dumping site on their own (if that’s really not a hassle to them).

Contracted or delegated service: The businesses into waste management and disposal are hired to do the collection and schedule a pick-up.

Generally, the waste materials are segregated in different categories like those that could be recycled, fully / partially reused, hazardous waste, composted and likes before subjecting to a selective method of disposing of the waste. Following are the waste disposal methods employed to get rid of the waste material.  

Waste disposal or management methods

After the waste is collected through any of the above ways, these are subjected to any of the suitable disposing methods (or any two methods can be combined for minimal leftover).

Recycle and reuse

Well, this one’s sort of expected. The waste material is sorted for things that could be recycled and reused to reduce the waste that’s just good for nothing. In some countries that are to be done at the source where the waste gets created: houses, restaurants, industries, hospitals and other such places. Once this is done, a lot of issues get addressed in the single shot.

Open burning

The waste collected and deposited at the dump sites to burn to reduce it in volume, around 70-90%. The site is then freed up for more future dumping. However, the gases generated in this way are a major contributor to the air pollution so the method is still debated where effective waste management is discussed.

Incineration

When the garbage is exposed to severe heat in a furnace in the presence of oxygen the process is termed as incarceration. The waste mass still gets to reduce in a controlled environment. The leftovers can them be buried under the earth. However, the concern of released gases considered to be harmful remains.

Landfill/dump

The waste is left to be photo-decompose under the intense sunlight far from the places of human residence. Though the issue of the duration it will take and the foul smell generated by the decomposition of the waste remains. Then there are landfills done, i.e. burying the leftover waste from the processes like incineration, pyrolysis, and gasification.

Composting

Organic waste can be put to great use by composting and turning it into organic fertilizer for the farming fields. Even people can do that individually for their home and terrace gardens. There are several DIY kits available in the market to get started sooner than later. What more, you would be reducing chemical intervention into the soil and giving back nature its harmony, even if a little bit.

Pyrolysis and Gasification

Two more ways to subject the waste to the controlled heating environment are Pyrolysis (intense heat in absence of oxygen) and gasification (heating in the low amount of oxygen). These processes are generally undertaken for power generation and separate combustible and non-combustible gases.

Bioremediation 

The process is implemented for disposing of the hazardous waste by first converting them into something non-toxic with the help of micro-organisms and natural ways of degradation. The process is also used before going for dumping in the oceans (which otherwise is severely impacting marine life and hampering marine biology).

Conclusion

Waste management has thus come a long way since just dumping and open burning, but the way climate change is taking place and challenging human beings to either change or succumb to a slow painful extinction, every single being on the earth should behave responsibly. Waste reduction methods can work wonders; embrace them before it gets too late and the above waste management methods are of not of much good.