REFUSE DISPOSAL

Refuse and garbage are names given to solid wastes that accumulate as a result of domestic, industrial
and commercial activities.
(i) Domestic: includes ashes, food, paper, bottles, tins, rags and cardboards.
(ii) Commercial: includes some of the domestic rubbish, but it mostly consists of waste paper
from office stationery, catering waste and cartons.
(iii) Industrial: includes various waste materials provided by industries, some of which might
be toxic, offensive and dangerous. Some of the waste may be salvageable and valuable,
e.g. metal waste may be melted and reused.
The disposal of solid waste is defined as placement of waste so that it no longer affects society.

Ways of collection

There are various ways which include metallic / plastic bins, plastic / paper bags, refuse chute,
Garchey system, sink grinder, incinerator etc

(i) Dust bins.

• A traditional means of disposal and a very cheap method.

• Should have a lid to close so as to discourage houseflies from
entering.
• To be collected ones in a week.
• Suitable for individual houses or for smaller flats where the bin
is placed at a convenient place for the resident as well as the
collector, provided lifts are available.
• Very noise if metallic but this is reduced by having rubber
bases and lids made of plastic and sometimes lining the internal
part with plastic.

• The plastic dust bins are considered an improvement from the

metallic ones for not rusting, being lighter and not noisy but
however can be affected by hot ashes.
• The wheeled ones are easier to handle as they can be towed to
the collection vehicle.

(ii) Plastic / Paper bags

• Take the place of dustbins since they also serve

individual houses or small flats.
• Difficulties in collecting especially labour
involved in collecting are greatly reduced as
compared to metallic dustbins. A bag filled with
refuse weighs much less than a full metallic
dustbin.

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• Bags are not supposed to be empted but collected together with refuse hence collection is
considerably more hygienic and simple vehicles can be used and serve on collection time.
• Cost presently is high while ashes are not supposed to be put in. Free standing metal or
concrete frames are also available for holding refuse bags and if required the frame may have
a metal mesh surround to protect the bags from attack by rodents.

(iii) Refuse chute

• Used in high-rise buildings where carrying rubbish by dustbins is not practical or hygienic.
• Consists of a vented vertical tube (chute) / shift which runs up to the roof level. On all floors
are found self-closing hoppers into which refuse, usually wrapped in paper, is deposited.
• Refuse chutes have influence on planning and designing in that they must rise vertically
through the building and dwellings will often be arranged in pairs to make maximum use of
chutes.
• Delivery points are often arranged on communal landings.
• This sometimes results in nuisance from careless handling of refuse
• The kitchen, although convenient, is not acceptable from the hygienic point of view.
• Delivery points on a private balcony are recommended.
• For sound insulation any wall separating a refuse chute from a habitable room must weigh
1318kg/m2 i.e. 675mm brick wall / 210mm concrete.

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The ground floor containers must have access by a special refuse collection vehicle which must be
larger than the containers themselves, hence this affect the ground floor planning.
• Complaints of smells often arise from dwellings near the container.
• Possibility of fire outbreaks in the container and problems of noise must be considered during
design.
• Tubes to make chutes are approximately 450mm dia so that blockages become a rare
occurrence.
• Glazed stoneware, concrete or asbestos-cement pipes are often used.
• Bends or offsets in the chutes should be avoided whenever possible.
• Any type of refuse can be thrown in provided it will fit.
• Larger refuse, however, has to be carried down by occupants to a special communal container.
• Offices, because of large amounts of paper, pose a high risk of fire outbreaks hence not very
appropriate.

At times instead of using a towed container a simple drum with a wheeled frame as one shown above
can be used. The wheels are just for towing it from the container room to a refuse collecting vehicle
outside which is designed to lift, upturn and empty the contents into the rear of the vehicle.
Besides a number of ordinary dust bins can be placed on a turntable where they are filled in turns.

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The inclusion of automatic or manual chute cleaning systems, disinfectant & sanitizing units, foul air
exhaust fans, sound deadening and fire control equipment within the overall design can aid in
meeting the needs of most client specifications

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ƒ A cylindrical housing with replaceable stiff nylon brushes is automatically lowered and raised
by a geared electric motor.
ƒ The nylon brushes scrape and clean the internal surface as they move down and up the chute.
ƒ The water supply for flushing the chute, the electric motor and the built in safety overloads are
all individually controlled by a robust electric logic control circuit.
ƒ A remote control panel is normally situated within the bin store at ground floor level.

• At times an incinerator replaces the refuse

container as shown on the diagram.
• A fan ensures negative pressure in the
discharge chute to prevent smoke and fumes
being misdirected.
• A large combustion chamber receives and
stores the refuse until it is ignited by an
automatic burner.
• Duration of burning is thermostatically and
time controlled.
• Waste gasses are washed and cleaned before
discharge into the flue.
• There is no restriction on wet or dry material,
and glass, metal or plastic may be processed.
• Health risks associated with storing putrefying
rubbish are entirely eliminated as the residue
from combustion is odourless and sterile.
• Refuse removal costs are greatly reduced
because the residue waste is only about 10% of
the initial volume.

(iv) The Garchey System

• In this system a special sink has a grid and a waste plug, which fits over the outlet, and
this enables the sink to be used for normal purposes. The sink grid is lifted and refuse
is deposited into a waste / refuse tube.
• To remove the refuse together with the retained wastewater are carried through a trap
into a vertical stack pipe.

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 • A concrete chamber below ground receives the refuse and wastewater and the chamber
is empted by the refuse vehicle at regular intervals and taken directly to the pit.
• Refuse of smaller size, including small bottles and tins, is also collected in this way
while larger refuse is taken to communal containers and collected in the normal way.
• A special vehicle using vacuum sucking techniques collects the refuse from the
underground chamber. It also has a pusher plate which compresses the refuse inside
the cylindrical tank.

(v) Sink Grinder

- With this system a grinding unit is fitted under a sink and it reduces the organic waste
to fine particles suspended in water and carried away in the normal drainage pipework.
- Tins and bottles cannot be put in hence ordinary bins must be provided.

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 - Individual dwellings or small buildings where chutes or Garchey systems would be
unfit grinders are the only way of improving the service given by bins.

Its disadvantages are that:

(a) Noise
(b) Expensive (the unit itself)
(c) Fuel needed
(d) Maintenance, etc.

(vi) Incinerators
These are special structures to collect refuse from buildings and then burn it. There is
however no total removal of refuse but a certain percentage remains and to be very

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 effective a series of heating chambers are used, i.e., the smoldering chamber and the after
chamber.

Collection

Kitchen, yard and pavements: The material so collected is transferred by the following ways:
(i)Trucks: These can either be open bed trucks or those that use hydraulic ramps to compact the
refuse to reduce its volume and thus are able to carry larger loads.
-Commercial and industrial collections are facilitated by the use of containers which are either
empted into the truck using a hydraulic mechanism or where the entire container is carried to the
disposal point.
In large communities they use transfer stations. These involve several stations scattered around a
city to which ordinary collection trucks bring the refuse.
The drive to the nearest station is fairly short for each truck so the workers spend more time
collecting and less traveling.
At the transfer station bulldozers cramp this refuse into large containers that in turn are then used
to take the material to the ultimate disposal point.
In some cases the refuse is bailed into blocks of different sizes before they are deposited to the
landfills. Selection of material for recycling can also be done at these stations.
(ii) Pneumatic pipes: have been installed in some small communities especially in Japan and
Sweden. The refuse is ground at the residence and sucked through the underground pipes.
(iii) Sewer: these accommodate refuse from garbage grinders.

Landfills
• Disposal of waste in landfills involves burying the waste.
• Landfills can often be established in abandoned or unused quarries, mining voids or
borrow pits.
• A properly designed and well managed landfill can be a hygienic and relatively
inexpensive method of disposing waste material. However poorly designed and poorly
managed landfills can create a number of adverse environmental impacts such as wind-
blown litter, attraction of vermin and generation or liquid leachate.
• Gasses such as methane and carbon dioxide which are produced during anaerobic
breakdown of the waste often create odour problems and kill surface vegetation.
• Deposited waste is normally compacted to increase its density and stability and covered to
prevent attraction of vermin.
• On a positive note landfill gas extraction systems can be installed to extract landfill gas
which can be burnt in a gas engine to generate electricity.

Recycling
• This refers to the collection and reuse of waste material such as empty beverage
containers.
• The materials can then be reprocessed into new products.
• The materials can be sorted from the mixed waste either at points of collection or at
transfer stations or it can be collected separately from general waste using dedicated bins.
• The most common products which are recycled include aluminum such as beverage cans,
copper such as wire, steel and aerosol cans, old steel furnishings or equipment,
polyethylene bottles, glass bottles and jars, paperboard cartons, newspapers, magazines
and corrugated fiberboard boxes.
• This has the advantage of reducing the residue if incineration is to be used at the final
disposal point or dumpsite.

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Incineration
• This is a disposal method in which solid organic waste is subjected to combustion so as to
convert it into residue and gaseous products.
• Depending on the composition of the waste this process reduces the volume of solid waste
to 20-30% of the original volume.
• Incinerators convert waste materials into heat, gas, steam and ash.
• It can be carried out both on a small scale by individuals and on a large scale for the whole
community like a town or city.
• It is recognized as a practical method of disposing of certain hazardous waste material
such as biological medical waste, although on the other hand it is a controversial method
due to issues such as emission of gaseous pollutants.
• It is most preferred in countries or communities where land is scarce as this does not
require as much area as landfills.

Composition
Refuse composition is one of the most important characteristics affecting its disposal or the
recovery of material and energy from refuse.
This could include moisture, particle sizes, chemical makeup, etc.
Composition can vary significantly from one community to the other.