Decentralized Solid Waste Management for Educational-Cum-Residential Campus: A Pilot Study

Growth of population and urbanization has given boost to municipal solid waste generation in India. The municipal corporations throughout the country are facing problems to improve collection efficiency of waste and subsequently, treat, and dispose the tonnes of waste generated daily. The decentralization of solid waste management could prove effective in managing such problems. The waste generated in India has more than 40% of biodegradable organic matter. The existing methods of composting and biomethanation with numerous modifications by researchers have proved effective in treatment of such wastes and produce quality products viz compost and biomethane which can be used further to improve soil quality and replace fuel, respectively. This paper is a case study of these methods at a decentralized level to investigate their feasibility and present their applicability. The results show that composting using windrows is suitable in terms of area requirement and nuisance created and produces 0.179 kg of manure/kg of food waste of quality as recommended by various researchers and fertilizer control order. A pilot plant for biomethanation is also designed and operated based on recommendations by researchers to produces biogas (treated methane) of 0.162 m³/kg of TS.