Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Processing

What is municipal solid waste?

Municipal solid waste (MSW), also known as trash or garbage, is non-hazardous refuse generated by households, institutions, hospitals, and businesses.

It is made up of waste, compostable materials, and recyclable materials, with the municipality overseeing its disposal.

Typically, this refuse is collected, separated and sent to either a landfill or a municipal recycling center for processing.

In some cases, what is defined by a community as municipal solid waste will vary by jurisdiction.

Definition of municipal solid waste = All types of solid waste generated by households and commercial establishments and collected usually by local government bodies.

Municipal solid waste consists of:

household domestic waste that is set aside for collection or delivered by the householder directly to the waste facility,
other types of domestic waste (e.g. domestic clean-up, furniture and residential garden waste),
local council generated waste (e.g. waste from street sweeping, litter bins and parks),
commercial waste generated from food preparation premises, supermarkets, etc).

The combined residential and commercial solid waste generated in an area can also be a MSW definition. MSW includes paper, cans, bottles, food scraps, yard waste and other items.

MSW recycling

During recent years, the importance of alternative energy sources has become increasingly apparent, with landfills reaching capacity.

MSW consists of everyday items like glass, plastics, metals, textiles, organics, and paper.

The material mix of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) varies per country, and in some cases even per community.

This mix contains a large portion of valuable products, compost and high calorific materials (refuse-derived fuel / RDF) that, once separated by mechanical treatment or degraded by biological treatment, offers a broad range of new resources.

RDF (refuse-derived fuel) exploits the energy content of the traditional household waste (MSW) to substitute traditional fuels, thus posing an alternative.

MSW recycling is attractive, both environmentally and economically.

Before the waste can be used as fuel, however, it must be sorted, and volume reduced into a homogenous fraction size.

MSW management

MSW management consists of 4 components:

Disposal
Composting
Waste-to-energy
Recycling

It is important to monitor MSW collection and record the information pertaining to collection time, area and other related data from a central location.

Municipal solid waste management covers the activities and actions that are required to manage MSW from collection to its final disposal.

Municipal Solid Waste recycling equipment

Municipal Solid Waste recycling systems employ a variety of different pieces of equipment to quickly and reliably sort materials, including the following: